Humans Are the Real Monsters: Difference between revisions

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== [[Anime and Manga]] ==

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' had an entire episode called ''The Evil of Men'' near the middle of the Buu saga. Essentially, it explores how even we, the normal, non-powerful humans can be just as cruel as the monsters Goku and co fight on a regular basis. Case in point: A gang of thugs arrive to shoot up Buu and Mr. Satan (who is in the process of rehabilitating Buu) and end up shooting Bee the puppy. Later, one of them comes back and shoots Mr. Satan point blank in the back and runs off. Sure Buu managed to save him in time (and saved the puppy in the first attack), but witnessing this cruelty literally caused him to unleash his evil side, and thus, the entire rest of the Buu saga is the world paying the price for what those men did.

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' makes a point of showing how inhuman and amoral ''almost every human'' seems to be. At times it seems the diclonii—mutants who are feared for their murderous tendencies, and abused accordingly—are [[The Woobie|more human than the actual humans]].

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* This is how [[Faux Affably Evil|Diva]] views humanity in ''[[Blood+]].'' [[Freudian Excuse|Well, you would think the same thing if you were used as a lab rat]].

* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]''. While the series started off with a terrible first impression of humanity with [[Evil Poacher|Viper Snakely]], there are some good-hearted humans like Roger Ranger and his uncle who become friends with Kimba.

== [[Comic Books]] ==

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* Zigzagged in ''[[Crossed]]'', whose moral seems to be that while we are ''not'' all bastards, we all have the ''potential'' to be bastards, with the protagonist pointing out that however [[Complete Monster|horrible]] the [[Not Using the Zed Word|Infected]] are, they never do anything that ordinary humans cannot also do. Surprisingly thought-provoking, given that this is a series that's pretty much nothing but [[Gorn]].

** The two sequel series (be afraid...) rather confirm this, each having a non-infected human that gives the Crossed a run for their money in the sick bastard department, without the excuse of having caught a psycho-virus.

* In Peyo's original "King Smurf" comic, later [[The Smurfs (animation)| adapted for the cartoon]], the plot entails Papa Smurf leaving to look for rare ore, and another smurf [[Adaptational Villainy| (Brainy in the animated version)]] taking over as leader, then becoming [[Drunk with Power]] and becoming a cruel tyrant. This leads to a rebellion among roughly half the smurfs and a civil war between the two factions that nearly destroys the village until Papa Smurf comes back, and after finding out what happened, shames them all into realizing that they're the idiots they are with six words: "You've been acting like human beings!" [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped| The moral could not have been clearer]]; this side of humanity is something that the peace-loving smurfs have always despised.

* In Peyo's original ''King Smurf'' comic, later [[The Smurfs (animation)| adapted for the cartoon]], the plot entails Papa Smurf leaving to look for rare ore, and another smurf [[Adaptational Villainy| (Brainy in the animated version)]] taking over as leader, then becoming [[Drunk with Power]] and becoming a cruel tyrant. This leads to a rebellion among roughly half the smurfs and a civil war between the two factions that nearly destroys the village until Papa Smurf comes back, and after finding out what happened, shames them all into realizing that they're the idiots they are with six words: "You've been acting like human beings!" [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped| The moral could not have been clearer]]; this side of humanity is something that the peace-loving smurfs have always despised.

== [[Fan Works]] ==

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* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7170477/1/Renegade_Reinterpretations Renegade Reinterpretations,]'' a ''[[Mass Effect]]'' fanfiction, the human race's first contact with the wider galaxy happened much earlier, and with the [[Exclusively Evil|Batarians.]] Humanity spends the next hundred years playing catch-up, and is only able to survive by becoming a race of total bastards. In this timeline, Cerberus is viewed as ''heroes'' for experiments that even the ''canon'' Cerberus would be squicked at. At one point, once Humanity decides to go on the warpath against the Batarians (and is capable of doing so), the Citadel offers to make humanity a member race, give them reparations, money, land, medicine, technology, and all former Batarian territory. All they had to do was '''NOT''' invade the Batarian Homeworld. Humanity's response? "They went to the trouble of looking up what the largest fleet in the galaxy had been so they could surpass it by a time and a half."

== [[Film~~|Film - Animation~~]] ==

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' qualifies for this trope in regards to the majority of the Villagers. The Villagers, during the song "Little Town/Belle," outright mock Belle for her interest in reading, a wife was seen beating up her husband, among other things. Then there is their praising Gaston, who is not only a scumbag, but seems to have no problem bragging about it in his character song. It only gets worse when Maurice arrives, as they throw him out and mock him because they think he's crazy (and even if they didn't, they probably would have done it anyways), and going by the final lyrics of the aforementioned character song, they are in full support of Gaston's plan of [[Blackmail]]ing Belle to marry him by locking him up in the asylum. When it gets to the plan being in place, the villagers were jeering Maurice. At this point, they are straddling between [[Jerkass]] territory and [[Complete Monster]] territory.

* ''[[Bambi]]'': As a whole, [[Western Animation]] with animal characters tends to be bad about this but "Bambi" is the best known example.

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* Some have accused ''[[WALL-E]]'' of depicting this trope, it's actually partly subverted: Yes, humanity wrecked Earth by turning it into a huge garbage dump, {{spoiler|but at the end, humanity (with a little help from the robots) decides to rebuild, and the end credits hint that they succeeded.}} In fact, {{spoiler|the only human who shows even the slightest signs of being a bastard is the Buy 'n Large CEO, and he just didn't know that Earth would be safe to live on again in 700 years. And let's not forget that ''[[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|the antagonist himself is a friggin' robot]]''.}}

** The writer of the movie, Andrew Stanton, also insisted that his intent was to tell the story of the last robot on Earth, and the pollution angle was simply a plot device to allow him to do that. Others don't believe him or are oblivious to the actual [[Power of Love|focus of the plot]].

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* The ''[[Alien]]'' series, it's usually the humans' attempts to exploit the aliens for profit that set the plot in motion. {{spoiler|In the first film, the [[Mega Corp]] expects a crew member to be impregnated. In the second film, Burke tries to impregnate Ripley with an alien. The third film follows as a result of the second, but Company members arrive and try to cash in on the aliens. In the fourth film, it's the military that is tinkering with alien genes to create weapons.}}

== [[Film|Film - Live-Action]] ==

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* The [[Alien]] series, it's usually the humans' attempts to exploit the aliens for profit that set the plot in motion. {{spoiler|In the first film, the [[Mega Corp]] expects a crew member to be impregnated. In the second film, Burke tries to impregnate Ripley with an alien. The third film follows as a result of the second, but Company members arrive and try to cash in on the aliens. In the fourth film, it's the military that is tinkering with alien genes to create weapons.}}

{{quote|'''Ripley''': "I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage."}}

* [[James Cameron]]'s ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'' is an almost perfect example of this being both played straight ''and'' subverted. The human [[Mega Corp|RDA]] are intruding on Na'vi land and destroy the home of the Omaticaya tribe in order to acquire [[Unobtainium]], and follow a rigid, aggressive schedule for this. On the other hand, the RDA tries to negotiate with the Na'vi, and even when they do attack they try to be "humane" first (i.e. hitting the Na'vi with gas and trying to intimidate them into leaving) and avoid [[Kill Sat|bombing them from orbit]] because they want to minimize local casualties. Then the gloves come off, RDA destroys Hometree, killing hundreds of Na'vi in the process. When the Na'vi assemble an army for war, the RDA tries to destroy the Tree of Souls to break their spirit. Selfridge, the corporate head of the RDA, reacts to destroying said sacred Na'vi site with the same apathy that one would associate to accidentally swatting a fly, though he does appear significantly more disturbed when they take down Hometree. In fact, he and the other officials look downright ''horrified'' at the violence, and {{spoiler|go out gracefully at the end, following the Na'vi victory.}}

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* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by [[The Muppets|Kermit]] in ''The Muppet Musicians of Bremen'' after he intruduces the four protagonists, the titular animal musicians, and the antgonists, their abusive owners.

{{quote|'''Kermit:''' (to the viewers) "You may have noticed that the heroes in our story are all animals, and the villains are all people. I hope none of you takes that personally."}}

* In [[The Fifth Element]] Leeloo despairs when she learns about the human race's tendency to inflict horrible things onto themselves (specifically World War 2) to the point of her seeing no point in helping them escape destruction, but then decides otherwise when Corben professes his love for her.

* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' Leeloo despairs when she learns about the human race's tendency to inflict horrible things onto themselves (specifically World War 2) to the point of her seeing no point in helping them escape destruction, but then decides otherwise when Corben professes his love for her.

* ''[[The Toxic Avenger]]''; hideously deformed as the title character is, he's ''far'' less a monster than the crooks in Tromaville whom he fights.

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* AM, [[Big Bad]] and [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|sadistic AI]] of the short story ''[[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]]'' definitely believes this. The story’s protagonist ends up proving him wrong by [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|murdering all of his companions.]] It’s better than it sounds — they were [[Mercy Kill|Mercy Kills.]]

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

* As a whole, ''[[Star Trek]]'' - especially ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|the Next Generation]]'' - posits a world in which humans ''were'' bastards, and rarely loses the opportunity to lecture their 20th-century viewers on how far we still have to go. Good news, though; we get better. In fact, we're even sorta charming, especially to advanced races who gauge others for 'potential'.

** Even so, in one episode of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', Quark the Ferengi lectures Commander Sisko about how ''his'' species never practiced slavery or genocide (particularly [[Anvilicious]] as it's already established that Ferengi not only did keep slaves but ''still do'' (sort of) - anyone who goes into debt they can't repay is legally enslaved to their debtor. This also ignores the extreme sexism his race continues to practice). He also tells Nog in "The Siege of AR-558":