Demonization: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Hitler gets a cameo in the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' movie. He never speaks {{spoiler|well, almost}}, but the camera constantly pans to his eyes, which have a mad, manic glare that gives the impression that he's constantly about to snap and kill everybody around him. This is likely based off the impression gained from Hilter's appearance during his speeches; as his message was one of furious anger at the state Germany had fallen into, manic energy and passion were part of his performance. Note that his in-universe appearance was set prior to his rise to power, and that the "rage-filled" persona was built up ''before'' he was dosed up on all kinds of stimulants and psychoactive "vitamin" regiments by his doctors...

* 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.

* 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.

 

* Political and war [[propaganda]] is usually loaded with this, from almost all sides and towards all sides - but it is a particular tenet of fascist ideology, as described by Umberto Eco:

{{quote|...However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. [[Fascist but Inefficient|Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.]]|Umberto Eco, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160319123249/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ Ur-Fascism]}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Meta Concepts]]

[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]

[[Category:The War On Straw]]