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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Didn't you know that you don't hit a woman? [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!|You. Will. See.]]"'' [[Dynamic Entry|*THUD*]]
|'''Takeshi Momoshiro'''|''[[The Prince of Tennis]]''.}}
There are men who [[
More often than not, these men are [[Gentle Giant
Either way, the results are the same [[Berserk Button|when he sees a woman being struck]]. The gentleman [[Unstoppable Rage|explodes into a roaring mass of homicidal fury]] and proceeds to pursue the offending coward with the relentless stamina of a wild beast; and should the brute be caught, he ''will'' be [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|pounded into a bloody mess]] to the best of the Wife Basher Basher's ability. All cries for mercy and personal injuries will be ignored by the possessor of this trope, such is his unbound and righteous primal rage. ''Usually'', murder is not the intent; the basher in question instead wants to ''humiliate'' the coward, and let him have a taste of what it's like to be the helpless one for a change.
This brutal form of chivalry generally earns a ''lot'' of brownie points with the audience, especially women. Nevertheless; friends of this normally gentle person would find these [[Beware the Nice Ones|righteous outbursts]] quite disconcerting, if not downright [[Nightmare Fuel|chilling]] to witness. Not to mention the [[Broken Aesop]] of solving violence with more violence, although this one only gets invoked if a child is present nearby, to provoke a [[He Who Fights Monsters]] revelation from the hero temporarily. Occasionally, this can backfire against the
This trope is often invoked by female villains as [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]] if they are attacked by male heroes in public. They know there are usually a few chivalrous big men ready to dish out [[Disproportionate Retribution]], even if she started it, because most people with this mindset are seen to believe that [[Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male]].
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{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==▼
▲== Advertising ==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js9vG9rC1YU This] somewhat controversial anti-domestic violence ad aired in Australia in 2006. It features Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read, a notorious ex-criminal and minor celebrity, talking in an overtly threatening manner about [[Even Evil Has Standards|what he thinks of rapists and men who beat women]] and [[Prison Rape|what they can look forward to when they end up behind bars.]]
{{quote|
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* Quoted above: Takeshi Momoshiro from ''[[Prince of Tennis]]'' catches a [[Jerk Jock]] bullying [[Fragile Flower]] Sakuno ''and'' [[Kick the Dog|pushing]] [[Cool Big Sis]] An [[Kick the Dog|to the ground for defending her]], and before even introducing himself he's laying the smackdown on said jerk, physically and verbally.
* Miyagi Ryota of ''[[Slam Dunk]]'', upon witnessing a delinquent backhand his long-time crush Ayako, leapt upon the significantly taller brute and beats him until he is disfigured and unconscious.
** And he started the beatdown by [[Dynamic Entry|delivering]] a flying kick to the guy's head! Seriously, it was awesome.
** Hanamichi Sakuragi doesn't get many chances to show this, but he thinks exactly the same. A [[Filler]] mini arc in the anime has him thinking that his rival Oda has been abusing his girlfriend/Sakuragi's ex-crush Youko (and let's be fair to Hanamichi here, Oda ''did'' snap on her in [[The Movie]], and it took them a while to rekindle their relationship), so Sakuragi was determined to hit the guy and spectacularly call him out on it. {{spoiler|Then it's subverted as Oda was ''not'' deliberately abusing Youko, but was more worried about a sudden injury and was pulling a [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!]] instead. He still apologizes to Youko later.}}
* The ''nicer'' techniques of [[Hokuto no Ken|Hokuto Shinken]] literally makes your head explode from the inside out: If you dare strike or abuse women, on the other hand, Kenshiro will literally make you strangle yourself to death. His older brother Raoh prefers the more direct method of [[Off
* [[Lovable Sex Maniac]] masochist Sado Tarou of ''[[MM
** Sadly, the scene doesn't actually play out like that in the anime. Sado still gets his ass effortlessly handed to him by the evil boyfriend before he finally lands just ''one'' punch (and even then it was only because of outside intervention by Mio). Mio plays this straight [[Violently Protective Girlfriend|by proceeding to do some nasty things to the downed boyfriend]], but we don't get to see what she does, just the aftermath in the form of a photograph.
* Toyed with in [[Captain Tsubasa]]. While Tsubasa ''is'' ticked off to see his would-be girlfriend Sanae being pursued by a loud and aggressive [[Hopeless Suitor]], Kouji Kanda, he cannot openly fight him not only because the guy ''is'' stronger than him in fighting, but because he's a member of a school sports club and if he gets caught fighting, ''the whole team will be suspended from the National Tournament''
* In ''[[Durarara!!]]'', one of the few things that can set off the otherwise cool-headed Rokujou Chikage is hurting a woman in his presence.
* Guts from ''[[Berserk]]'' could count for this one. Sure, [[Took a Level
* This is the bait that
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In the first issue of ''[[Superman]]'' back in the 1930's, our titular hero deals with a violent husband by throwing him into a wall and mercilessly beating ''him'' (as delightfully pictured above) until he promises to never hit his wife again.
** He faced a similar situation in the Nineties, but since he'd become much, much stronger in the interim - to the point that any real beating would have killed the abusive husband in question - he had to handle the situation a bit more carefully.
*** Not just that he was stronger - in a bit of [[Deconstruction]], we had a flashback to the [[Post-Crisis]] version of the above scene, and ''it doesn't solve the problem''. The woman refuses to press charges and takes her husband back, and the next time he gets violent he kills her. Clark, [[It's All My Fault|being Clark]], wonders if the humiliation of being beaten himself was what triggered this.
** The ''new'' ''Action Comics #1'' mentions the new Superman having done this as well, though we don't see it on panel.
* Really, this is [[Rated "M" for Manly|an expected attribute]] of the most loved [[Marvel Universe]] heroes such as [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]], [[
** Ultimate Captain America is particularly notable. After Ant-Man and the Wasp had a verbal fight that escalated and they attacked each other (he "won"), almost no one wanted to listen to his side of the story, and Cap, with his 50s values, literally ambushes him in a bar and beats the crap out of him even when Hank Pym is ''50 feet
* It's been implied that [[Unstoppable Rage|the psychological origin]] of [[The Incredible Hulk]] was young Bruce Banner witnessing his father [[Harmful to Minors|beating his mother]] and wanting to be one of these; rather notable, given that one of the more
* Marv of ''[[Sin City]]'' does not like it when guys rough up girls. At all. His response to a frat boy beating up his favorite stripper Nancy was to "straighten him out but good," mentioning that maybe he went a little too far (which implies that he beat the guy to death). In ''A Dame to Kill For'', Dwight plays upon this in order to recruit Marv for the "rescue mission" of Ava, which he feels rather rotten for as he's doing it. Unfortunately, it's later learned that Ava, the dame of the title, was [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit|playing Dwight's own violent protectiveness of women like a two-bit fiddle]].
* ''[[Diabolik]]'' has a strange case: the titular protagonist is disgusted by wife
== [[Film]] ==▼
* Bud White of ''[[
▲== Film ==
▲* Bud White of ''[[LA Confidential]]''. He literally rips AN OAK CHAIR in two with his bare hands out of rage after hearing a suspect's description of a sexual assault of a kidnapped girl. Then, to scare the location of a kidnapped girl out of the rapist, he plays a very non-consensual game of Russian roulette with the guy's face. Needless to say the sniveling little bastard immediately complied.
* Cyrus "the Virus" Grissom, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Con Air]]'' and a mass murderer who claims to have killed more men than cancer threatened to throw "Johnny 23," a convicted serial rapist, out of the title plane if he dared to try to rape the hijacked plane's only female officer. Cyrus says he normally despises rapists, but will make an exception in this case, then delivers his ultimatum.
** And [[The Hero]] Cameron Poe repeatedly rams Johnny's head into a bulkhead for trying to do just that later in the film.
* Sonny Corleone of ''[[
* ''[[Major Payne]]'' demonstrates that he is unfit to be a police officer when he smacks a man until he falls unconscious for hitting his wife. Keep in mind that Payne did this during a ''training scenario'' and the man was an actor.
* In ''[[The Expendables]]'', [[Jason Statham|Lee Christmas]] came home to find his girlfriend with another guy. Returning later on (presumably to pick up some things) he found her having been beaten up by the guy and proceeded to beat the absolute tar out of him and his basketball buddies in broad daylight. He openly admitted he would have killed the guy if it wasn't illegal, and then chastised his ex for leaving him in the first place because for all his faults he was still worth waiting for. While not shown, it's implied he doesn't take her back.
* In ''[[To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar]]'', when the drag queens hear Virgil beating Carol Anne, Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze) thrashes him soundly, ending with the delivery of a bum's rush out the screen door. All without mussing her pink satin peignoir.
{{quote|
'''Virgil''': Some ladies need to get hit.
'''Vida''': Then, conversely, some men need to be hit back. }}
* In ''[[Sling Blade]]'' a man ([[Billy Bob Thornton]]) has been released from a mental hospital, supposedly cured. He discovers a nice lady he knows and her son are being brutalized by a sadist, so he kills the man, then calls the police and ends up going back to the looney bin.
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* In ''[[Goodfellas]],'' when Henry finds out his then-girlfriend-future-wife Karen was sexually assaulted by one of her neighbors, he promptly walks to his house and pistol-whips him in broad daylight (as well as threatens to murder him). This action likely had a hand in causing Karen to marry him, as she admits in her narration that it turned her on.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* In ''[[
▲== Literature ==
▲* In ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'', much of the male population of the planet Grayson is this to a degree, due to their very conservative culture, almost in contrast to the open misogyny that many Graysons were portrayed as having in their earliest appearances. Many of them were raised to see women as helpless in a man's world (though their dealings with the far more egalitarian Manticorans do much to change those attitudes) and thus, any man who is revealed to have injured or killed a woman (or a child) is not looked upon with very much favor.
** Honor herself is one, in a manner. In the second book, upon finding out [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|what Masadans do to female prisoners]], she [[Tranquil Fury|approaches]] the captured Masadan base commander, [[Dramatic Gun Cock|draws and unsafeties her sidearm]], and has to be [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him|physically restrained by the officers under her]] from putting a pulse dart in the man's head.
*** Actually the 2 meters tall, power armored, badass, Marine Major, his petite [[Action Girl]] similarly powered armored second in command and every other officer present, except one, were frozen in fear by the look in Honor's eyes and didn't move a finger initially to stop here. It was the snot-nosed lieutenant with the standard issue plasma cannon and hero-worship that intervened and restrained his captain.
* [[The Dresden Files
* Niklas from ''Aldrig Fucka Up'', the second part of Jens Lapidus's "Stockholm Noir" trilogy. He witnessed his mother's boyfriend beating her as a kid,, and after returning from a tour of duty as a PMC in Iraq, decides to take revenge on every bad husband and boyfriend, starting with his neightbour Jamilia's one. Towards the end, he turns into a rare, male [[Straw Feminist]], and has a bodycount of three.
* In ''[[Tortall Universe|Protector of the Small]]'', Keladry of Mindelan always steps in to try to stop the strong abusing the weak, and on some occasions that's meant this. As a page, she had a maid who was sometimes the object of unwelcome attention, and, well, unwelcome attention often involves injury. Seeing this was one of the few things that could break her [[The Stoic|stoicism]].
{{quote|
* ''[[The Rainmaker]]'''s protagonist spends much of the book pining for an abused wife. {{spoiler|The climax has a very cathartic scene where he beats the abuser to death with his own softball bat.}}
* In [[
* [[Belgariad|Polgara The Sorceress]]: Daren deals with an abusive husband by asking the guy's father to choose whether his son will be flogged or have both his hands chopped off. (He suggests adding this to the Rivan law code, but we don't find out whether he did or not.) Later in the book, when Polgara is spending centuries as the Duchess of Erat, one change she makes in her villages is to have constables "encourage" wife-beaters to "find another hobby".
* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: In a rare female example, the Vigilantes become this on Karl Woodley, a National Security Advisor who broke every bone in his wife, Paula Woodley's, body, in the book ''The Jury''. They get into his home and break every bone in ''his'' body! Despite having apparently reached her breaking point, Paula takes him back. Fortunately, he is permanently crippled, wheelchair-bound, and can't lay a hand on her. A later book reveals that she is taking great pleasure in tormenting him, implying that she only took him back so that she can make him suffer as much as she had!
* This one is [[Older Than Print]], being a staple of the Chivalric romance. On at least one occasion Sir Lancelot was called on it by a battered gentleman, who proved to be in the right, and acidly suggested that the Knights of the Round Table would do well to inquire into the circumstances before dealing out retribution.
* In ''[[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]'' the narrator proudly declares that on the Moon attacking a woman is a literal death sentence, as any male in the area will gladly kill you in the most painful way he can think of. The Earther Stuart
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* An interesting variation occurs in the [[Very Special Episode]] of ''[[A Different World]]'' about domestic abuse. When the abuser is confronted about the rumors by one of his friends, he tells a story of a time when he tried to save a woman who was being slapped by her boyfriend in the street... and '''she called the cops on him'''. He says he learned two things that day: that every man can lose it sometimes and that whatever happens between a man and a woman is no one else's business. It is truly chilling that the [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]] lesson he learned from the incident seems to be part of his justification for abusing his girlfriend.
** Fortunately his friend decides to make it his business and calls the cops on him.
* In the [[White Collar]] episode Home Invasion, Caffrey need is taking part in a sting to catch his first killer (she is also an art thief). However Alex comes up to him and unwittingly blows his cover causing the murderess to run away from him, he catches her outside and tries to restrain her only for her to noticed several construction workers nearby and [[Invoked Trope|called for help]], they came over and began beating up Caffrey allowing the villainess to escape. Peter was able to save his partner from getting beaten to badly but they still lost the killer.
* In [[Burn Notice]], it's implied that Jesse was removed as a field agent because he couldn't resist this trope, even while undercover.
{{quote|
** In an earlier episode, Michael's target happens to be abusive to his wife and stepchildren. This triggers Mike's [[Berserk Button]], and he allows himself to let out some frustrations every time they meet.
{{quote|
* In the ''[[
** {{spoiler|Roy tells Glenn that he has an eye for people like him and that he can't ignore it like other people on the street or like they 'taught him to in jail'. It is suggested that Roy had experienced domestic abuse as a child in one scene in which he tells Kevin "My House was not a place you'd like to be"}}
** Another episode of Cold Case had a cop as the abusive spouse to his wife, with the abuse starting to extend to his three-year-old twin girls. A rookie cop found out about it and gave him a preliminary beatdown with a warning to leave the wife he was abusing and stop beating up his little girls. Unfortunately, the rookie started to get close to the wife and the twin girls himself, causing the abuser to come back {{spoiler|and kill one of the girls. The wife abandoned the other one in a church and ran away, feeling she would never escape him. The cop ended up dead in a firefight some months later, and the rookie (now an old man) all but admits he shot the guy himself in the chaos}}.
* [[Third Watch]]'s Boscorelli is like this, especially if the woman in question is his mother or partner Faith. He grew up watching his mother get beaten by his father and her subsequent boyfriends and also [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]] because of it.
* [[The Walking Dead|Shane]] finally beats resident wife-basher [[No
* [[Sons of Anarchy]] has Jax beat the ''shit'' out of a guy who beat his girl. Of course, the guy was also sitting on Jax's motorcycle, so he had it coming either way.
* ''[[Angel]]'', a [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]] who's usually fighting supernatural villains, does take take time out to [[Cold Open]] one episode by rescuing a girl who's about to be attacked by her abusive boyfriend. He jumps in right as the boyfriend's giving her a preemptive [[Why Did You Make Me Hit You?]]...
{{quote|
* Awesomely, {{spoiler|Bobby Singer}} of ''[[Supernatural]]'' was revealed to have been one of these to his own abusive father.
* Horatio Caine from [[CSI: Miami]] can really lose himself when facing people that abuse women(and children). He is known to lock up the interrogation room and take matters into his own hands.
* In ''[[Roseanne]]'', when Dan finds out Jackie's boyfriend is beating her up, he goes over and does the same to him. In a bit of a subversion, he explains he first tried to scare him off and it escalated into a fist-fight, and he winds up spending the night in jail when charges get pressed. Also, when he gets home, the show does tackle the [[Unfortunate Implication]] of violence-vs-violence when he attempts to explain the situation to his son.
{{quote|
'''DJ:''' .... [[Comically Missing the Point|What if a woman beats up somebody you love?]] }}
* An episode of [[ER]] had Dr. Benton treating a woman who had been beaten by her husband (she denies it initially, but it becomes obvious when her story gets inconsistent). The husband happens to be a cop. When the cop and his partner arrive at the hospital to pick his wife up, Benton blasts him for his treatment of his wife. The partner doesn't say much, but later in the episode, the cop himself is brought into the ER, accompanied by the partner and several other police officers. When Benton asks what happened, the partner claims that the man fell down a flight of stairs while they were pursuing a suspect, but the strong implication is that he and the other cops took the guy somewhere and beat the crap out of him.
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* A variation in the fifth season of ''[[Dexter]]'': The Child Basher Basher. When Dexter discovers that a friend of his stepdaughter is being abused by her mother's boyfriend, he immediately takes action. He finds the guy and gives him an in-depth lesson on what hitting different parts of the body does to the victim, while hitting him in those locations. He then tells him to get out, STAT, and never come back. Appropriately, of course, Dexter is a [[Serial Killer Killer]].
== [[Music]] ==
* The narrator from [[Nickelback]]'s ''Never Again.'' All the more wrenching because it's implied the narrator is the man's son, who is too young to do anything about it.
{{quote|
You're just a child with a temper
Haven't you heard "Don't hit a lady"?
Kickin' your ass would be a pleasure }}
* The song "Mary Can You Come Outside" by Kane.
{{quote|
Or should I use them on him the way he does on you? }}
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[
* Beating up a female in ''[[The Warriors (
* You can take sidequests to do this in ''[[The Godfather (
* Near the end of ''[[Mafia II]]'''s story, Vito gets a call from his hysterical sister that her husband hasn't come home. Vito tracks him down (in the middle of banging a hooker at a party) and beats the snot out of him, threatening to kill him if he hurts his sister or is anything less than a stellar husband. It comes back to bite Vito when she tells him she wants nothing to do with him anymore.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Suicide for Hire]]'', Arcturus is normally (more or less) the [[Only Sane Man]]; he tries to dissuade their "clientele" and doesn't usually enjoy the killing as much as his partner Hunter. When a man who beat his wife to the point where she sought the pair out and utilized their services comes in...he changes his tune and participates enthusiastically in the [[Karmic Death]].▼
▲* In [[Suicide for Hire]], Arcturus is normally (more or less) the [[Only Sane Man]]; he tries to dissuade their "clientele" and doesn't usually enjoy the killing as much as his partner Hunter. When a man who beat his wife to the point where she sought the pair out and utilized their services comes in...he changes his tune and participates enthusiastically in the [[Karmic Death]].
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Zeke Strahm of ''[[Seeking Truth]]'' kicked off his relationship with Lizzie by beating up her abusive father. He's also not very fond of Albert Conaghan, the serial rapist and [[Karma Houdini]] whose sick pastime is likely what got him the attention of [[Humanoid Abomination|Tall, Dark, and Faceless himself]].
* [[
* In the ''[[Cyanide & Happiness]]'' cartoon ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZxQvRkFbOg Girl Fight]'', a bunch of people try to beat up a guy for having a bruised-up girlfriend, assuming it was his doing. [[Subverted Trope|Unfortunately for them]], it turns out the guy has a [[Violently Protective Girlfriend]] who's also a professional martial artist.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Morality Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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