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Sadist Show: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:sadist_7860.jpg|link=Garfield (Comic Strip)|
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And not just any old misfortune, like getting an [[Anvil On Head]]. The agony in a [[Sadist Show]] is a very sharp kind, the one that reminds you how totally unfair life is. It isn't a [[Sadist Show]] unless the characters suffer the very opposite of poetic justice. For instance, if our [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist]] has been mugged, that's not enough. If the poor dope runs to report the mugging, and is arrested for jaywalking, and has to sit in jail while the mugger walks past their cell every day, that's the [[Sadist Show]].
Sometimes, there will be a character who the audience kind of sort of roots for, but not really. One form is the [["No Respect" Guy]] (like Frylock from ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Animation)|Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'') who tries to act decent but fails. However, the audience doesn't exactly root for them, because they're so ineffective, and they're usually a bit of a stick in the mud too. Another form is a [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|Heroic Sociopath]], who is as vile as the rest of the cast, but is at least competent (like Brock Sampson from ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''). But they're too evil to really cheer for, and how sympathetic can they be if they're stuck with the rest of these losers? ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', with its emphasis on failure, reminds us that Brock may be competent, but he's in a pointless dead-end gig, and one that he is so over-qualified for that it's humiliating.
Note that this can be somewhat subjective, depending on how sympathetic and/or interesting one finds a character, a cast, or a situation.
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This kind of show almost always has [[Negative Continuity]], so the writers can inflict any kind of torment they like (including [[They Killed Kenny|killing them off over and over again]]) without affecting future episodes.
Often overlaps with the [[Gross
{{examples|Examples: }}
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== Live Action Television ==
* The [[Ur Example]] for this in television might be the game show [[Queen for A Day]], on which five female contestants described in excruciating detail their horrible [[Real Life]] problems (such as deaths in the family, cancer, job loss, poverty, homelessness, even ''mental illness'') in order to win prizes, the host viciously belittling and ridiculing them as the audience laughed at their predicaments. When the winner was announced, the other contestants were ushered off the stage and given ''nothing'', not even bus fare home. This passed for family entertainment for ''twenty years'' on American TV.
* The re-imagined ''[[
* Teen soaps are prone to this half of the time, apparently to show you that some [[Teens Are Monsters]]. [[Nickelodeon]] usually leads this trope, as well as [[Dan Schneider]] shows that employ [[Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male]]/
** The [[Dan Schneider]] shows ''[[I Carly]]'' and ''[[Drake and Josh]]'' are poster-children for [[Comedic Sociopathy]], each having a massive [[Karma Houdini]] in the form of Megan, and Sam with their targets [[Drake and Josh]], and Freddie.
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[[Category:Show Genres]]
[[Category:Sadist Show]]
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