I'm Not Angry

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"Morning, honey. You look angry about something." "No, I'm not angry." "Hey mom, what's up?" "Oh, your father's upset about something." "What? I said I'm not angry." "Mommy, what's dad angry about?" "I'M NOT ANGRY!"

Basically, when someone does not have a feeling (specifically, anger), but due to the constant prodding of other characters develops that feeling. Anger is the most common end result due to Rule of Drama, but any emotion reached after a steady (and in the moment true) insistence that it is not present counts.

The quote above is paraphrased from an old (90's) Drabble comic which used this trope as its joke of the day.

Contrast That Makes Me Feel Angry, subtrope of Hypocritical Humor. Truth in Television for pretty much everyone at some point.

Examples of I'm Not Angry include:

Anime and Manga

• Kicker from Transformers Energon: I AM NOT YELLING!
• Not taken to its conclusion, but shows up in RahXephon The Movie.

Live-Action TV

• In The Young Ones, this exchange:

Rick: (screaming in Neil's face) I AM NOT! GETTING! AGGRESSIVE!!! (Beat) Neil: You are, Rick. I can sense it.

• In Doctor Who, the Doctor brings down Harriet Jones entirely via this method. With six words. The six words were a trigger, and having the entirety of the media saying "Is it true you're unfit for office?" and "Are you going to resign?" put Harriet over the edge. Those six words? "Don't you think she looks tired?"
• Anger Management had lots of this.
• One Loriot sketch ending like this:

Wife: Why are you so aggressive? Husband: I'm not aggressive! Wife: Why are you shouting at me, then? Husband: I! AM! NOT! SHOUTING! AT! YOU!!!

Newspaper Comics

• The aforementioned Drabble strip.

Theatre

• The following exchange occurs in the play, 2 Pianos 4 Hands, with the father of one of the characters:

Father: And stop crying like that! Son: You stop yelling. Father: (in the same tone of voice as before) I'm not yelling, I'm just very passionate about what I'm saying!

Web Comics

• These two Schlock Mercenary strips.
• This Dinosaur Comics strip.
• This Questionable Content strip slowly advances towards this trope, hitting it dead-on at the end...

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: "I'M COMPLETELY CALM!"
  • Also, "I DON'T NEED ANY CALMING TEA!"