Freudian Excuse/Film: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* Played straight in the 2010 version of ''[[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.

* 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.}}

* ''[[The Ring]]'': Sadako Yamamura and her American counterpart, Samara Morgan, have a particularly tragic one.

* In the [[David Cronenberg]] movie ''[[Spider (film)|Spider]]'', with Ralph Fiennes, a variety of flashbacks start to illustrate just what has turned Fiennes into a demonic version of Mr. Bean. It turns out that {{spoiler|he imagined the whole thing, and just happens to be insane}}. It is top be noted his character {{spoiler|suffered from schizophrenia, serious brain disease which you cannot control more than epileptic can control his convulsions.}} So he really could not help it.

* 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.

* 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 ''[[Citizen Kane]]'', [[Orson Welles]] remarked: "It's a gimmick, really, and rather dollar-book Freud."

* 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-Up Family|his mother by his father (on the urging of his grandmother and his father's concubines)]] is used as a partial excuse for why the King becomes so [[The Caligula|unhinged]] in ''[[The King and the Clown]]''.

* ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]''. Hannibal Lecter profiles the serial killer Buffalo Bill.

* In ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]] 2'', we learn that not only is Ivan Vanko driven to "avenge" his father, Anton, but that Anton spent the last 20 years of his life in Siberia in a "Vodka-fueled rage". In Nick Fury's words, not a good setting to raise a child - except Fury's tone definitely says "yeah, that sucks, but there's nothing we can do about it and you've still got to stop him."

** 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.

* [[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|Addams Family Values]]'', psychotic Debbie explains it was her parents getting her the wrong [[Barbie]] that caused her psychotic break. In the form of a slide show.

(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.

* 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.

* 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.

* In ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'', the titular Norse deity's brother Loki is revealed to actually be {{spoiler|[[Evil Orphan|adopted.]] What's more, his true father is Laufey, the leader of the Frost Giants, who are sworn enemies of the Asgardians.}} This combined with [[Parental Favoritism|Odin's clear favoritism]] [[The Unfavourite|of Thor]] [[The Resenter|contributes]] to Loki becoming {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|the main bad guy]]}}, [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|as illustrated]] throughout the rest of the movie and in the subsequent ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]''.