Demonization: Difference between revisions

[[File:Demonization.jpg|frame|'I am the Pope.']]

 

 

All The Tropes [[Truth in Television|is the devil]]. It teaches our children [[Fetish Fuel|it's okay to be aroused by filth]]. It wants to make [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|everyone in the world fat and lazy]], [[All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary|pollutes the English language even more than Internet speak]] and unlike those [[The Aggressive Drug Dealer|evil drug dealers]], they will actually admit they want to ruin your life!<ref>No wait, [[All the Tropes Ruined Your Life (Darth Wiki)|they already did!]]</ref> Self-identity is discouraged among the members of this cult, to the point where personal pronouns and references to oneself are [[Natter|actively]] discouraged. [[We All Live in America|It's]] [[Eagle Land|anti-American]].

Of course none of that is true, or completely true, but that's how '''Demonization''' works. It's about twisting facts, or making them up, to make something look worse. Sometimes it can actually go as far claiming something is satanic, but usually it's more down to earth. Either way, these claims are made either without proof, or counter to actual evidence.

 

 

No, you want people to hate this thing. So you will do whatever you can to make this thing seem truly evil. It kills people (based on one or two deaths, that were quickly proven unrelated)! It ruined a nation (was coincidentally a fad in a country just before a coup d'etat)! God told you it's the sign of the devil (but somehow didn't tell anyone else, if it was that important)! If it is a race, a nation, or another group of people, they are [[Exclusively Evil]]!

 

 

A [[Super-Trope]] to [[Attack of the Political Ad]], [[Ron the Death Eater]].

 

{{examples}}

* Invoked in ''[[Code Geass]]'' with a character getting himself basically nicknamed "Lelouch the Demon".

 

* [[Chick Tract]]s are infamous for this, often literally tying anything Chick doesn't like (for example, [[Dungeons & Dragons]] or rock and roll) to Satan. Semi-justified; he thinks the things he's demonizing are truly demonic...which is still cold comfort in some cases.

* ''[[Cerebus]]'' does this to the ''entire female gender'' for the last third or so of its run (very arguably earlier).

** Admittedly, the Wolfriders have a tendency to make this reputation for themselves in their early history, when harassing humans was something they did for fun.

 

* ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' does this simultaneously to communism and theism by having the main villains of the series be an evil [[The Empire|empire]] set out to conquer all of the world and force their fundamentalist religion and bureaucratic soviet economy upon it.

* ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' does this the most literal way possible, identifying the gods from the other religions of the ancient Levant as higher ranked of Satan.

* ''[[In Death]]'': Defense attorneys tend be subjected to this. Then again, the story is told from the perspective of a cop who arrests criminals and then has to testify against them, so....

* There are various webpages on the Internet (such as [https://web.archive.org/web/20120921234431/http://www.shoshone.k12.id.us/Nutcracker/story.html this one]) hosting a piece which claims that ''[[The Nutcracker (novel)|The Nutcracker]]'' was originally a dark and gruesome tale completely unfit for children. While it ''was'' dark and gruesome by some peoples' standards, many of the "facts" listed to support the claim - such as that Marie's family doesn't love her, that Marie is depicted as laying in a pool of her own blood after injuring herself, and that her parents lock her into her room to punish her - are completely untrue.

 

* An episode of ''[[Forever Knight]]'' had a flashback in which Hitler was portrayed as a man so full of evil that it made him [[Even Evil Has Standards|too evil to turn into a vampire]].

 

* "Phantoms Of Death" by [[Helloween]].

 

* This also happens in-game in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' as one of the Thoughts of the Day demonstrates:

{{quote|A logical argument must be dismissed with absolute conviction.}}

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' was subjected to this in the 80's and early 90's from Christian groups (most notably [[Jack Chick]] and Patricia Pulling, the founder of [[Fun with Acronyms|Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons]]) believing the game encouraged witchcraft, satanism, suicide, and all sorts of other horrible things. It got to the point where TSR (the game's publisher at the time) removed demons, devils, and other monsters from the line (mostly by renaming them into tanar'ri and baatezu), stopped to call shamans "wicca" and funding studies to counter the claims.

 

* In ''[[Psychonauts]]'' {{spoiler|Raz's dad, Augustus Aquato}} is said to hate psychics, among other things, his image in {{spoiler|Oleander and Raz's head, merged together}}, shows this quite a bit. {{spoiler|"Man do I hate Psychics, and seeing my son happy!"}} The real version is, of course, ''nothing'' like that; in fact, he is horrified when he sees the mental image. {{spoiler|"Rasputin, is that really how you think of me? [[Comically Missing the Point|Come on! I have WAY more hair than that!]]"}}

* A well-popularized example: Back in the late nineties, there was some backlash against ''[[Pokémon]]'' by varying [[Moral Guardians|fundamentalist groups]], who claimed that the games (and related series) promoted violence and occult imagery. Notably, the ''Vatican'' publicly defended ''Pokémon'' from these detractors. More specifically, the Vatican defended ''Pokémon'' on the issue of evolution, of all things.

* Done in-game to [[Ratchet and Clank]] in ''[[Ratchet: Deadlocked]]'', although the audience isn't falling for it. This demonization reaches [[Implausible Deniability]] when kids clearly cheering for Ratchet are dubbed over on the show.

 

* ''[[Captain Planet]]'' had Hitler's [[Death Glare|very gaze]] affect ''the titular hero'' as badly as pollution itself would. A big problem with the series was that the villains were into polluting for no good reason, which implied that anyone who polluted was just a plain villain instead of someone making a mistake—even a big one.

* ''[[South Park]]'' often makes fun of far-left concepts, but sometimes goes too far by portraying some environmentalists as [[Axe Crazy]]. Not just eco-terrorists -- ''all'' environmentalists. Or the episode "Canada On Strike", which implied people were starving to death during the 2008 [[TV Strikes|Writers Strike]]. In fact, ''South Park'' is open to demonizing and attacking everyone. It was arguably its writers who popularized the demonization of Scientology mentioned in the example above.

* ''[[The Smurfs]]'' have been [[Everyone Is Satan in Hell|accused of representing the seven deadly sins]], with Papa Smurf as the devil and Gargamel as a good priest.

* Deconstructed [[In-Universe]] in ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]'': Evil Queen Vexus of Cluster Prime has lied to her own robot people about Earth's defender, [[Robot Girl]] XJ9, presenting her like an [[Exclusively Evil]], [[Beauty Equals Goodness|horrible monster]] of a robot that wants to destroy her own kind in various propaganda videos. When XJ9 accidentally goes to Cluster Prime, all the robots see her for the cute, normal, [[The Hero|heroic robot who wants to help and protect others]] that she is. This is Queen Vexus' downfall.

* Megatron in ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' does this for {{spoiler|an amnesic Optimus/Orion}}, saying that Ratchet was the [[Big Bad]] and that the reason the Autobots call them "Decepticons" was as a form of Autobot propaganda.

 

* One of the old ones is "Black Legend", from England. Because everything would be just peachy in Americas - if not for those dastardly Spaniards who wrecked everything and slaughtered everyone.

* [[Scare Campaign]]s tend to be made of this trope.

* Demonizing the Japanese has been a pretty heated subject that tends to show up every decade or so:

** During the 40's, American propaganda portrayed the Japanese were portrayed as insects, mice, rats, inhuman beasts, or unflattering caricatures of Emperor Hirohito (most famously in the [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/33/20100125180549!Tokio_Kid_Say.png Tokio Kid] posters.

** In the 80s, when Japan was experiencing a period of economic wealth and proceeded to buy buildings and land from American developers, along with building tons of factories, a resounding cry of "THEY'RE TEKKIN OUR JERBS" was heard from coast to coast, and fearmongering news reports that [[Japan Takes Over the World|Asian people were only in your town to buy it up]] and evict everyone were prevalent.

* When [[Michael Jackson]]'s ''Invincible'' didn't sell as well as he'd hoped, he claimed to the press and his fans that his label Sony Music's head Tommy Mottola was racist: "He's a mean [sic], he's a racist, and he's very, very, very devilish." This [http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1455976/20020708/jackson_michael.jhtml backfired instantly]. In a related issue, since Jackson's death a [[Vocal Minority]] of his fans (the website [http://www.innermichael.com InnerMichael.com] is a good example) likes to demonize the mass media as bloodthirsty, racist jackals who caricatured Jackson as a "freak" to make money; this carries on from Jackson's constant complaining about the media in his lifetime to the point that he wrote multiple songs on the subject. Of course, the fans' claims require Jackson to be elevated to the level of [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]...

* Talk Radio hosts and cable news networks. All of them have political slants, it's the nature of the beast, but to hear people of either political leaning, the outlets that are proponents of the other side are just plain evil and guilty of the worst forms of treason. Of course, the ones they agree with are just here to save the country.

** Speaking of Snopes, their crew came to hate satire site ''[http://thepeoplescube.com/ People's Cube]'' to such a ridiculous degree that they avoid referring to it by name even while accusing it in spreading malware.

* Interestingly, averted in German [[World War I]] propaganda in favor of ridicule. Germany's opponents were depicted in caricatures like "the Russians are totally uncultured, the French are [[Anything That Moves|only thinking about one thing]], the Brits are greedy, and generally all of them are incompetent cowards, lead by [[Manipulative Bastard]]s". Lead to [[Fridge Logic]] among German people, because if German soldiers are that great, and everyone else ''isn't'', why didn't they win the war in six weeks like the politicians said they would?!

* The standard response of ''any'' conspiracy theorist to ''anyone'' that publicly disagrees with them or refutes their arguments: Expand the conspiracy to make the critic the newest player.

** This applies to many more extreme (well, basic and "normal ones too, but that's a different entry) political ideologies as well. Example: Try bringing up the mass murder committed under Marxist-Leninist Communist regimes, and the immediate response from a Marxist-Leninist is going to be having you branded an [[Eagle Land|Eaglelander]] (regardless of whether you live there), a member of he bourgeoisie (regardless of your actual socio-economic background), an imperialist, a capitalist, and a fascist. All rolled into one. The same sort of thing happens if you try to argue with a Neo-Nazi about... well, ''anything''. Disagree with them, and you're simply blinded by the Zionist conspiracy that currently holds power over the earth, and that you probably support the enslavement and eradication of the white race.

* The Dutch politician Geert Wilders has used "I'm being demonized" as a tagline for a while. Many of his opponents thought it was funny, since he's not exactly known for being entirely politically correct about everyone himself.

* The last four{{when}} Republican Presidential candidates were all repeatedly compared to Hitler during their campaigns (and their terms in office for the ones who actually got elected), both by pundits and by people posting to the Internet. It's gotten to the point that bloggers make jokes that 'Every Republican is Hitler for fifteen minutes'.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Meta Concepts]]

[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]

[[Category:The War On Straw]]