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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]s in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* In [[Days Of Being Wild]] a film by [[Wong Kar Wai]]: The main character Yuddy/York (played by [[Leslie Cheung]]) is a self-centered playboy who mistreats/manipulates women by making them fall for him and breaking their hearts. It is strongly hinted in the film that this is because his biological mother deserted him when he was younger and having a troubled emotionally distant relationship with his foster mother.▼
* Played straight in the 2010 version of ''[[The Killer Inside Me (Film)|The Killer Inside Me]]''. The camera pans over the main character's bookshelf, lingering prominently on a volume of Freud. He ''immediately'' takes a bible off the same shelf, opens it, and finds forgotten photographs of his mother's sadomasochistic sex life.▼
▲* In ''[[Days Of Being Wild]]'' a film by [[Wong Kar
▲* Played straight in the 2010 version of ''[[
* Inverted in a scene on the couch in ''[[Funny Games]]'' in which the two villains "Peter and Paul" come up with various reasons why they're doing what they are to the family. {{spoiler|Of course seeing as how you should never trust a villain, they were all lies.}}
* [[Star Wars|Anakin Skywalker]] was raised as a slave on a hellish backwater planet, as Yoda pointed out in the very beginning. Then his mother gets killed by Tusken Raiders.
** Oddly, he seems to have been a fairly happy child. Probably would have cut his master's throat in the night if he'd made it to adolescence on Tatooine, though.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* This is subverted in the made for TV film ''Intensity'', where the sadistic, sociopathic spree killer Edgler Vess, after being accused of abuse causing his current state of mind, proudly proclaims that his parents were extremely loving and that he was truly a sadistic person from the start (in fact he murdered his loving parents).
* The new remake of ''[[Halloween (
** The original ''Halloween'', while appearing to be a shallow motiveless-serial-killer movie at first, it is notable for how it stresses just ''how'' strange Myers' behavior actually is. Behind the scenes, Nick Castle (the man behind the mask) reportedly tried to figure out just what would drive a serial killer like Myers and act accordingly, but Carpenter specifically insisted on the "soulless killing machine" approach. One of the main characters, Dr. Loomis, is an experienced psychiatrist who is both baffled and terrified at the seemingly causeless evil lurking behind Myers' eyes. The overall idea is that, by any realistic standard, there should be a ''reason'' for someone to be anywhere near as warped as he is.
* ''[[The Ring]]'': Sadako Yamamura and her American counterpart, Samara Morgan, have a particularly tragic one.
* In the [[David Cronenberg]] movie ''[[Spider (
* Turned on its head in the Korean film ''[[The Host (
* Subverted in the 2008 [[Batman]] movie ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]''. The Joker explains what seems to be the source of his insanity when he reveals the origin of his smile-scars, involving an abusive alcoholic father who wanted to know why he was "so serious"--after killing his mother right in front of him. But later in the movie, he eagerly reveals the origins of his scars again, totally [[Multiple Choice Past|changing his story]] to one involving a wife who wanted him to smile more, who was disfigured to pay for her gambling debts, and taking to self-mutilation to make her feel better. Chances of both stories being outright lies (or at best delusions) suddenly look pretty good.
* Subverted in ''Simon Birch'', where despite extreme neglect by his parents, Simon appears to be the nicest person living in a town full of assholes.
* In ''[[Gladiator (
* In ''[[Ip Man]]'', [[Rival Turned Evil]] Jin defends his actions, which include beating on all of Foshan's kung fu masters and robbing the factory of Ip Man's friend, by saying that he experienced poverty at a child and never wanted to starve again.
* The live-action movie of ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas (
* In the [[Tim Burton]] remake of ''[[Charlie and
* In the backstory of ''[[
* In ''[[Raising Arizona]]'', the [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels|brutal biker]] and bounty hunter who [[Kick the Dog|kills furry animals for fun]] has a tattoo reading "Momma didn't like me".
* In ''[[
* In the 1995 version of ''[[A Little Princess]]'', Sara realizes that Miss Minchin's father didn't tell her that "all girls are princesses," which we are led to believe is the reason for Miss Minchin's loveless, horrible personality.
** This is actually subverted a little when you remember Minchin and Amelia are sisters. Whatever daddy issues she had, Amelia's kind personality (even after being put down so often by her sister) suggests that that alone couldn't have been the cause for the way Miss Minchin turned out.
* Regina of ''[[Mean Girls]]'': slightly different in that rather than a bully, her mother is a mindless drunk who is so desperate to be seen as young, hip, and her teenage daughter's best friend that she has become a willing slave that Regina treats with total contempt - the suggestion being that her total ineffectiveness and lack of parenting is what created her daughter.
* Subverted in ''[[Phone Booth (
* Everybody in ''[[The Breakfast Club]]'', villain or not... Bender's parents despise him (and they burnt his arm with a cigar for spilling paint in the garage), Claire's parents pamper her to get back at each other, Allison's parents ignore her, Andrew's dad is a [[Stage Mom]] who is obsessed with his winning, and Brian's parents coddle him too much and are obsessed with him getting good marks to the point that he considers committing suicide because he got an F.
* Subverted and parodied ''hilariously'' in ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]],'' in which the [[Big Bad]] claims he is about to tell the heroine his life story... but he's strapped to a machine that stamps him into the ground every few seconds, so you never hear exactly what he's trying to say; only fragments that skip most of the crucial information!
* On the [[It Was His Sled|sled]] symbolism in ''[[
* This is at the heart of one of the better parts of ''[[Star Trek
* In ''[[American History X]]'' this comes off as heartfelt rather than trite. {{spoiler|Derek is transformed into the uber white supremacist after his father is shot by a black drug dealer, but flashbacks reveal that his father had laid the groundwork for this transformation by his rants against Affirmative Action.}} Derek had resisted buying into his father's racial stereotyping, instead looking to his high-school English teacher (a black man) as his mentor. It was only after {{spoiler|his father was killed}} that Derek started to think: "Gee, maybe Dad was right all along."
* The murder of [[Big Screwed
* ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]''. Hannibal Lecter profiles the serial killer Buffalo Bill.
{{quote|
* In ''[[Iron Man (
** In the same movie, Tony describes his father as emotionally distant, "calculating", and not given over to displays of affection or love. This might help explain some of his present-day problems.
* It's suggested in ''[[
* In ''[[Despicable Me]]'', there are flash backs where it suggests Gru got an inferiority complex issue from his mother's lack of enthusiasm for his achievements, including building a fully functional rocket at a young age. Although he otherwise had a healthy relationship with his mother.
* In ''[[Silent Hill (
* In the 2010 ''[[Centurion]]'' film, the Pict scout, Etain was raped and had her tongue cut out and had to watch her parents being murdered by Romans.
* [[Serial Killer]] Colt Hawker in ''[[Visiting Hours]]'' grew to loathe women after witnessing his [[Domestic Abuser]] father being attacked by his mother.
* In ''[[The Addams Family
{{quote|
'''Morticia:''' Malibu Barbie.
'''Gomez:''' The nightmare.
'''Morticia:''' The nerve.
'''Debbie:''' That's not what I wanted! That's not who I ''was''. I was a Ballerina, graceful, delicate! [[I Did What I Had to Do|They had to go]].
(Next slide shows their house on fire.) }}
* In ''Red White & Blue'', Erica, when confronted about her cavalier attitude about having unprotected sex with [[Really Gets Around|practically every guy she meets]] and not bothering to tell any of them that she's HIV positive, reveals that she lost her virginity at age 4 to her mother's boyfriend.
{{quote|
* Daido Katsumi/Kamen Rider Eternal, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]: [[The Movie|A-to-Z, the Gaia Memories of Fate]]'', tried to turn Fuuto into a city of the undead and his excuse given in the film was that he [[Came Back Wrong]]. However, later it's explained in ''W Returns: Eternal'' that was only a part of a ''much'' more solid excuse. {{spoiler|He tried to save a village of psychics from a [[Mad Scientist]] named [[Complete Monster|Dr. Prospect]] and [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|they all died because he unknowingly triggered Prospect's failsafe]]. Prospect's actions effectively drove Katsumi completely insane and turned him into what he'd become in the movie, his actions being a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] on the Museum and Foundation X, both of which helped Prospect with his project.}}
* ''[[Half Past Dead]]'' centered around a group of mercenaries or whatever trying to get a location on stolen gold from a death row inmate by taking a group of hostages. One woman asks the leader what his motivation was, to which he insinuated he was beaten by his father and raped by his mother. Though he never actually admitted this to be true, he subverted the trope by claiming it had nothing to do with his actions as he's simply a sociopath motivated by greed. Earlier it was revealed that he suffers from Gulf War Syndrome and may suffer from Post Traumatic Stress as well, which may actually play the trope straight.
* Played for laughs in Formula 51 with the drug dealer Iky.
{{quote|
* Lampshaded in ''[[Grosse Pointe Blank]]''. The main character, hitman Martin Blank, comments that it is very likely being raised by an alcoholic father and insane mother influenced his career choices. Blank doesn't treat his childhood traumas as an excuse, merely an explanation, and takes full responsibility for his own actions.
* Scar's desire to rule over Pride Rock, even killing his brother Mufasa and attempt to have Simba killed as well, becomes somewhat understandable after reading some prologue books for [[The Lion King]] that revealed that Scar (then known as Taka) was pretty much neglected by his own father, such as his father revoking a promise regarding teaching him to hunt. His earlier inability to be taught how to hunt might also explain why his unified hunting policies also resulted in Pride Rock being turned into a literal wasteland during his rule.
* ''[[Wreck
* At one point in ''[[The
* In ''[[Thor (
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