My Way or the Highway

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A character is offered an uncomfortable, non-negotiable choice that boils down to two options:

• Agree or conform with the other party's choice of action, or;
• Get tossed aside and abandoned while the other party continues their choice of action anyway.

Unlike The Easy Way or the Hard Way, there is no threat of coersion or violence; it may instead carry an implication that the person being offered this choice is expendable.

The favored Catch Phrase of the Control Freak, but may also be used by an older character to teach discipline, such as from a parent to their child (i.e. "My House, My Rules") or from a drill sergeant to a fresh recruit.

Examples of My Way or the Highway include:

Comic Books

• In an Avengers Annual, Wonder Man, while shooting a film, actually can't remember this line, ruining a take.

"We can do this my way or... um... you can hit the road!" "CUT!"

Film - Live Action

• Road House is the Trope Namer.
  • Following naturally from the Road House example, Crow T. Robot's "Let's have a Patrick Swayze Christmas" features the line, "It's my way or the highway this Christmas at my bar-har-haaaaar."
• A common accusation of Bruce Wayne's Batman by Dick Grayson of Batman and Robin: "It's your way or the highway!"
• Switch says this to Neo in The Matrix. There is then a cutaway to the empty, rain soaked road outside the car.
• In The Pacifier, Vin Diesel's line was "We do things my way. No highway option."

Music

• In the chorus for the Limp Bizkit song "My Way," singer Fred Durst insists to do things his way—his way "or the highway."

Western Animation

• A Kim Possible episode uses this as the title (and chorus) of a boy band's song.
  • Drakken once tried the "my lair, my rules" variation on Shego. He backed down immediately when Shego lights up her plasma.
• Blossom and Buttercup use this on each other in The Powerpuff Girls episode "Three Girls And A Monster," fighting over using brains or brawn to bring down a giant reptilian monster. Neither is effective...Bubbles uses polite asking to bring down her beast.