Your Little Dismissive Diminutive

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"Look, I know why you choose to have your little group therapy sessions in broad daylight."
—The Joker, The Dark Knight

This is a variety of Stock Phrase where characters say something like "your little [x]" where [x] is their little description of whatever they're referring to.

Alternatively, the speaker's little use of this phrase can replace the word "your" with a word like his, her, their, etc. and/or replace "little" with a similar enough synonym.

Sometimes this can be used to indicate that such characters are Deadpan Snarkers, Smug Snakes, or both, especially if they use it frequently.

... and here are your little examples:

Your little movies

  • The page quote comes from the Heath Ledger version of The Joker from The Dark Knight, saying it to Gotham's organized crime community. Dismissive diminuitives come up frequently with this version of Joker. Aside from the page quote, there is also when Joker holds Rachel Dawes at knifepoint in front of a large crowd and she kicks him in the groin:

Joker: A little fight in you! I like that!

    • Later at the same party, when Joker held Rachel at gunpoint instead and Batman told Joker to drop the gun:

Joker: Oh sure, you just take off your little mask and show us all who you really are, hmm?

Joker: Does Harvey know about you and his little bunny?

    • Or when Joker shows up at Harvey's hospital bed and compares the local police to the local organized crime community:

Joker: They're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds.

    • Or later in that same conversation:

Joker: I just took your little plan and I turned it on itself.

Palpatine: It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band.

  • Hopper from A Bug's Life uses two of these in the same conversation.

Hopper: You think it's over? All your little stunt did was buy them time! I'll get more grasshoppers and be back next season, but you won't.
A goldfinch shows up.
Hopper: Well, what's this? Another one of your little bird tricks?

  • Closer: used semi-flirtatiously, semi-patronizingly:

Alice: Look at your little eyes.
Dan: I can't see my little eyes.

Mrs. Elliott: I would love to stay and chat, Mr. Clark, but I've a concert in New York in two weeks and I would like to be prepared.
Joe Clark: What?
Mrs. Elliott: Prepare. You do know what prepare means, don't you? It means ready, capable and up to your job.
Joe Clark: What concert, Mrs. Elliott?
Mrs. Elliott: The one at Lincoln Center. We do one every year.
Joe Clark: Until now. As of this moment, your little concert is cancelled.

Your little TV shows

  • In Police Squad!, when Frank is minding a key-cutting shop in order to flush out a gang of extortionists:

Extortionist: You'd better watch your little key store.
Frank: What about my little keister?

  • Susan in Coupling does this a few times, usually when annoyed at Steve speaking with his friends.

Your little books

  • In Mogworld, Mr. Wonderful often calls the group "my little [x]" with x being a word or phrase vaguely apppropriate for the situation. Lampshaded within the story, so he switches it up with "my tiny [x]," "my diminutive [x]" and so forth.

Your little games

Kerrigan: (to DuGalle) You see at this point, I'm pretty much the Queen Bitch of the Universe, and not all of your little soldiers or space ships will stand in my way again.

  • In Death: Eve in Vengeance In Death says in response to a ridiculous supposition at a media conference, "They belong in tiny rooms where they can be discussed by tiny minds."

Your little plays

  • Elphaba from Wicked not only gets the "Little dog" line but describes Dorothy as "That wretched little farm girl" and tells Glinda to get the truth into "Your blissful little blonde brain".
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