Freud Was Right/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Freud Was Right in Live-Action TV include:

  • Deliciously satirized in a sketch from the first season of Saturday Night Live with Larraine Newman as a young Anna Freud (Sigmund's daughter) innocently describing to her father (Dan Aykroyd) a series of dreams she had about him that are fraught with increasingly obvious "Freudian" symbolism and content, all centering upon multiple men offering her their bananas, but she only ever wanted her father's. Meanwhile, Freud practically goes into seizures as he reacts to the implications he's reading into them; at the end, when she inquires what it all means, he reassures her that "sometimes a banana is just a banana".
    • And followed up with a cautionary "Don't tell your mother".
  • The Zande from Deadliest Warrior has the Kpinga, a multi-edged throwing knife-sawblade-thingy, and the Makraka, a large sickle. They are both intentionally forged in the shape of penises as a sign of the wielder's masculinity.
  • In a similar vein, Wolf's tail in The Tenth Kingdom. The scene in the beanstalk forest, where he practically dares Virginia to touch it, she asks why he keeps it hidden, and especially the positively orgasmic look on his face when she brushes against the fur rather than with it, is extremely Freudian in nature. In a bizarre twist, however, the size of his tail apparently changes due to the time of the month, suggesting a connection to the female menstrual cycle. (Werewolves, after all, are tied to the typically feminine moon...) The fact it is hanging out of his pants following his 'hide-and-seek' in the forest with Virginia near Wendell's castle, and that this lets Tony disapprovingly know what they were up to, doesn't help.
  • In Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie, it is mentioned that the Russo children are not allowed to have the family wand, although Justin takes it without permission. Then, Alex finds out and all she wants to do is convince Justin to give her the wand. He gives it to her, she messes things and she blames him for the damage caused, because he's the one who gave her the wand. This guy gets to the point, when he says "I'm worried Selena is busy back at camp playing Kumbaya with her brother's magic stick!"
    • And there is another scene where Justin apologizes to Alex, saying that she is his little sister and that he shouldn't be on her so much.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Fifth Doctor story "Earthshock" has Scott, a tough sergeant-type, tell a female scientist, "I realize going down again must be hard..." He's referring to taking her down into the caves after she's watched someone die down there, but what makes this one notable is the fact that Scott's actor pauses for a moment between "be" and "hard," as if he realized just how wrong it sounded as he said it.
    • The Made for TV Movie has the Master take the form of a snake, overtaking the mind of a man by slithering down his gullet, then proceeding to kill the man's wife, (not long after the two had sex, no less), make a naive young man his servant, fire acid semen at an unsuspecting female, and attempt to steal the lives of his long-time arch-nemesis by tying him to a rack (in a crossover with What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic) and forcing him to stare into the gaping hole at the heart of the TARDIS while screaming "I'm alive!" at the top of his lungs. And he does all this clad entirely in black leather. Damn.
    • The Master's pretty awesome when it comes to stuff like this. His name, Ainley!Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator being shaped like a dildo (and DVD commentaries rife with mentions of the cast joking about this at the time), everything about the Simm!Master, ever, TOMTIT and phallic crystals, beard jokes... really, the Master owns this trope.
      • On the subject of the Tissue Compression Eliminator, let the record show that the Master invented a device whose sole purpose is to make people smaller. Nope, not Compensating for Something at all.
    • The actors themselves once noted that, when hiding undercover as a human, the Master had a desire to be chauffered around in very large limousines, whereas the Doctor was happy enough to drive around in his humble little car "Bessie". It was suggested that maybe the Master was Compensating for Something the Doctor didn't need to...
    • Sonic screwdrivers.
    • The little rivalry that Captain Jack and the Doctor have about their respective sonic devices in "The Doctor Dances" (Jack's big, flashy sonic blaster versus the Doctor's humble little sonic screwdriver) also seemed to be a little competitive in... other ways. Amusingly, however, Jack's flashy device is revealed to be completely useless when the 'extra features' end up draining the battery, whilst the Doctor's humble little thing is a bit more... durable. And while they had to Nerf the Doctor's, Jack's still works on wood.
      • Then there's the Master claiming his screwdriver is much better than the Doctor's. "Who'd have sonic?" Not to mention the fact that the prop department intentionally made the Master's laser screwdriver longer than the Doctor' sonic.
      • Resulting in a gloriously outraged text message from David Tennant to Russell T. Davies: "His is bigger than mine!" and a very smug John Simm...
      • Eleven has an even bigger screwdriver.
        • And when Amy points out that the Doctor "sonicked" River, the Freudian Subtext was starting to rapidly become text.
    • Speaking of phallic devices on this show, the most phallic-y of them all is this one. What did the Doctor build it to do? Why, detect the Master of course!
    • Speaking of sonic, er, tools: The Doctor, disliking guns, replaces the sonic blaster Jack Harkness is holding with a banana in "The Doctor Dances". While still pretty phallic, at least he's not out-teched any more by the guy who keeps hitting on Rose. Masculinity issues, anyone?
    • According to the same episode, he "like[s] bananas. Bananas are good." And they're a "good source of potassium". Yeah, and potassium is one of the main ingredients in a number of fertilizers ...
    • And then there are the Freudian monsters. Alpha Centauri, Vervoids... and Erato.
    • In the Series 5 episode "Vampires of Venice," Rory pulls a flashlight out of his pocket. The Eleventh Doctor then pulls out a much larger and brighter light stick. Rory looks at it and says, "Yours is bigger than mine." "Let's not go there," the Doctor advises.
    • Additionally, in Series 6 episode "The Curse of the Black Spot," the Doctor says to the captain when he pulls out his gun, "You're big on the gun thing, aren't you? Freud would say you're compensating. Ever met Freud? No? Comfy sofa."
  • Faith of Buffy the Vampire Slayer describes her dreams seriously, then adds with her tongue (probably) firmly in her cheek, "That, and some stuff about cigars and a tunnel."
    • The Buffy episode "Doublemeat Palace", already a not-so-satisfactory venture in its own right, became downright ludicrous when the monster of the week was revealed to be... a phallic demon-thing that emerged from the back of an old woman's head and which ate people. And then it shot paralyzing gunk all over Buffy. And then Willow, a lesbian, cut it off with a meat cleaver.
    • In a later episode, Willow starts to describe the monster "Let me put it this way. If I wasn't gay before..."
    • The Freud Was Right moment the writers cite is in "Reptile Boy" where frat boys feed teenage girls to their giant snake demon that they worship. It gives them money!
    • In "Seeing Red" Straw Misogynist Warren gets his hands on two demon orbs which give him great power. Buffy defeats him by busting his balls...err, orbs.
  • The Sanctuary episode "Requiem" finds Will and Magnus trapped in a phallic symbol... er, submarine. And then there's the conversation they have after Magnus ties Will to a chair. "We're gonna have to go deeper." "SO much deeper!" What? They're just talking about the sub, right?
  • Frasier has an erotic dream about a male co-worker ("In this dream of yours, were there any cigars, bananas, or short, blunt swords?") and tries desperately and implausibly to interpret it any way but sexually. Eventually he comes to the conclusion that his subconscious created a dream that defied interpretation just to give him a challenge. The following night Sigmund Freud appears in his sleep to congratulate him for figuring this out. Frasier is pleased until Siggy sprays breath freshener in his mouth and climbs into bed with him, arms held out expectantly.
  • On Samantha Who, in the episode where she realizes that she can't remember what sex feels like, everything has sexual connotations. Like pencil sharpening.
  • On Wings, Lowell comes to Brian with a baffling dream about riding a train speeding towards a tunnel with a cigar in one hand and a snake in the other. Suddenly, his train jumped the track and another train entered the tunnel. And another. And another. And another. When a thoroughly weirded out Brian informs him that it means he is afraid of heights, Lowell agrees, saying that that would explain the one about sitting atop the Washington Monument.
    • Another time, Brian explains dream interpretation to Joe when the latter has nightmares, saying that if you dream that you're underwater, it's about sex. Joe says there was a clown in his dream. According to Brian, that too is about sex. Then Joe was trampled by tigers. Well, that's about group sex.
  • Murphy Brown: Miles spends the episode worrying he is gay after dreaming about shooting out the top of the Washington Monument with a male friend and then frolicing in the reflection pool. Eventually he realizes that sometimes a long, pointy monument is just a long, pointy monument.
    • In another episode, Frank mentions to Murphy how he's afraid to touch his Corvette since the therapist he's dating said it was a phallic symbol while Frank was waxing it. Later on, when she's annoyed at Frank, she tells him to "Go wax [his] car!"
  • Lampshaded in an episode of M*A*S*H, when Hawkeye asks the psychiatrist, Dr. Friedman, what the rationale for gambling is during a poker game. "Sex," he replies, and when pushed on why it's always sex, he responds, "They told me to say that. Sex is why we gamble, sex is why we drink, sex is why we give birth."
    • Then he takes $5 from the pot and explains, "That was a house call."
      • Which is even worse considering that Freud classified money as a phallic.
  • Queenie in Blackadder II is a parody of Queen Elizabeth the First, AKA the Virgin Queen. So it's not too surprising that she has dreams about being a sausage roll or sitting in this enormous tree...
    • The Blackadder writers have a bit of a thing about sausages. See Season 3 and the Dictionary episode.

Dr. Johnson: Sausage? SAUSAGE?! Oh blast your eyes!

      • The joke in that instance was that Johnson, who had just compiled his "complete" dictionary of the English Language, had forgotten to include the word sausage.
      • And Aardvark...
    • Or the Scarlet Pimpernel episode.

Comte de Frou Frou: This huge sausage is very suspicious.

    • Baldrick's obsession with turnips would like to be this but falls flat. This is due, according to Tony Robinson anyway, to Ben Elton thinking turnips were penis-shaped and gleefully writing them in. He was actually thinking of parsnips.
      • On the other hand one could imagine that Baldrick's own appendage might be turnip shaped...
      • According to Blackadder II, it is, which is why he's especially amused at finding a "thingy"-shaped turnip.
  • During the poker game in the "An Echolls Family Christmas" episode of Veronica Mars, Weevil comments on how comfortable Logan looks with a cigar in his mouth. As if they didn't have enough Foe Yay already... Logan, for his part, shoots back with a racist remark.
  • Madan Senki Ryukendo has a bizarre example. The town is, in one episode, forced into worshiping a UFO Cult whose leader takes the form of a little girl who puts collars around people's necks. Then it gets freakier when her true form resembles, by all means, a giant golden phallus.
  • In How I Met Your Mother, a famous architect in Ted's firm (who also happens to be his boss) designs a building consisting of a tower of pink marble with rounded top, with two domes at the bottom.
    • Not to mention he asks Ted to make sure there are a lot of trees and vegetation around the base. Specifically, brown and leafy trees. He apparently had no idea what it looked like.
  • Second season finale of The Sarah Connor Chronicles: John, after being told that he needs to "understand this body", is lying on top of a shirtless Cameron, their faces centimetres apart while he's panting and exploring the inside of her with his hand. He is, of course, checking her power supply for leaks.
  • One episode of Top Gear featured a discussion on the relationship between the flashness of one's car and the size of it's engine and the "endowment" of its owner. When James May, who drives a modest Fiat Panda, called Jeremy Clarkson out on the fact that he has a Mercedes SL Black (huge engine, swollen wheel-arches, the lot), Richard Hammond says May has a point. Clarkson simply countered by pointing out that Hammond dives a Ford Mustang, causing an extremely abrupt insistence that the subject be changed.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series dear God, The Original Series.
  • Don't tell me no one noticed Stargate SG-1's ring transporters. More specifically, how they descend sequentially indoors to scoop up the target then ascend back into the ceiling. Also, Ha'taks use pyramids as landing sites; as such, they have a hollow underside. Or the fact that the snakelike Tok'ra take hosts through the mouth -- usually via kissing...
    • Heck, the gates themselves. You have to fiddle with a roundish device located nearby so that the gate opens into a waterish surface enabling travel; if it's not available, you can dial the gate by manually rotating it by hand. Also, fighters designed to go through a gate are either pointy (Wraith darts) or rounded (Puddlejumpers and Goa'uld gatefighters).
    • Wraith have a vaguely vagina-like sucker on their hands. At least one victim had a similar chest wound.
    • Overhead view of a Daedalus-class battlecruiser. There, I said it.
  • Mad Men does this on purpose, with two men lighting each other's cigarettes. The symbolism goes over the heads over everyone present, but viewers can hardly miss it.
  • Castle‍'‍s sixth episode "Always Buy Retail" plays with this not very subtly in the beginning. The usual shots of Manhattan are arranged a little different. Rockefeller centre up and down and up again, buses driving through tunnels back and forth... if that made you think of something you will love the following scenes.
  • From Babylon 5, we have the Minbari Fighting Pike, a metal Simple Staff that collapses into a small cylinder about the size of your hand and grows rapidly when firmly shaken. It is most prominently used by a virgin who says that playing with it helps him relax.
  • Hmm...Does the intro to The Rifleman count? It shows the eponymous character repeatedly firing his gun, which is right at his hip in such a way that it crosses his crotch. How did they do that in the black and white days?
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