fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2109 ]

[ SECRET POST #2109 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2109 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #301.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The butt-monkey trope (you can find it on TVTropes but DON'T click any of the links or you'll be there forever), is basically when a character suffers constant injuries, misfortunes, and embarrassments over and over again. It's different from the woobie because while the the things that happen to woobies are supposed to be sad and painful, the things that happen to butt-monkeys are supposed to be funny, although they can still be sympathy-inducing.

However, I know some people who rage over their favorite character being given the butt-monkey treatment and it sometimes being perceived as being insensitive to a character's pain or meant to insult and mock a character, so what do you think, F!S?

I enjoy it when it's used in small doses, like "character a has one bad day", or it's spread out evenly "character a is the butt monkey for this episode, but not every episode", but when character a is the butt monkey forever and always, I just want them to snap and kill everyone.

Hahaha, yes. Maybe not snap and kill EVERYONE, but I know when I started Tiger and Bunny I wanted to punch some faces over the treatment of Kotetsu.

This. All of this.

"butt-monkey" One of Xander's best lines out of the whole Buffy series.

It depends on the character. If it's comic relief, "OMG, they killed Kenny! ...Again." then I don't have any problem with it. But when it comes to drama, it can be tiring. If you like a character, you want him to succeed. You don't want him to be fate's punching bag forever.

Depends on how thee buttmonkey is being treated. Is it just general misfortune and it isn't too over the top? Then probably funny to me, though I'll feel sympathy. Are other characters doing it or it happens constantly? Ick no, way to make me uncomfortable.

Some monkeys can't help their butt ratio and how dare you belittle them. You have no understanding of rump-primate culture. Step on a lego.

NO U

LEGO MY EGGO

It makes me wince. Even if I didn't like the character initially, if they get pushed into this I start to feel really bad for them. (This happened with Meg on Family Guy.) I don't think concentrating a bunch of misfortune on one character is funny.

the only thing i could think of when i read this was aaron from ghost adventures. definitely a butt-monkey but i also laugh every time they make him go somewhere awful and he's a real actual person. oops

I snorted when I read this, but totally agree.

definitely a butt-monkey but i also laugh every time they make him go somewhere awful and he's a real actual person.

IDK what it is about Aaron but it never ever gets old. And I feel like a total douche admitting it, but...he's so perfect in that setting. Like, the more scared he is and the more the other guys mess with him, the fonder I grow of him.

yes another ghost adventures fan! i agree, i love aaron.

EVERY. TIME.

Re: How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?

elaminator - 2012-10-13 00:05 (UTC) - Expand

I think it actually sometimes can really work to a character's advantage, to be honest. Like, in the Avengers, Tony makes a fool of himself in front of Pepper with the 12% thing, makes a fool of himself in front of Steve with the full-tilt diva thing, gets the snot beaten out of him by Thor, gets casually bitchslapped out of the frame mid-sentence while Thor is arguing with Steve, gets mashed in the Helicarrier blades and tumbled around like a ball in a pinball, gets kicked around and thrown out a window by Loki, etc etc, which serves to really put a big dent in his arrogance and obnoxiousness and makes him seem a lot less smug or irritating than he would if things had gone swimmingly for him the whole movie, especially because those things are either a) stuff he totally brought on himself or b) due to him doing something heroic and brave.

I get frustrated with it if it happens all the time and the character never catches a break. And it makes me uncomfortable when it involves the other characters acting like jerks/bullies, or when the butt-monkey character continually suffers physical harm.

But otherwise, I can be okay with it. It can work if it's not overdone.

I have a ridiculous amount of love for it. Even when it makes me wince a little or goes too far, I still get a huge kick out of it. The only times I really don't like it is when the character has gone through so much shit that it feels mean when anything else happens to them -- although there's a point where even this goes so far it comes back around into hilarity (*cough cough* points to icon *cough*), or when the butt-monkey is kind of out of his league and inept and starts hitting my second-hand embarrassment squick.

I especially like it when the butt-monkey either really really really doesn't deserve it and his misfortunes are completely unnecessary and baffling and unsolicited and just go veering into the realm of black comedy-woobification; or when the butt-monkey is a likable but really haughty or abrasive character, which just serves to kind of take the character down a peg and ensure I keep liking them, and which doesn't give me second-hand embarrassment because the character generally isn't the sensitive or self-conscious type.

Your icon illustrates this trope perfectly. Oh Peter, you never can catch a break.

If the buttmonkey is in constant anguish over it and it's used for stupid drama, then it gets annoying. If it's a good-natured buttmonkey that can laugh at himself and his horrible luck, then I like it.

I like it in two specific scenarios. One, if it's someone who's clearly a dick and who seems like they deserve what they get. Two, if it's someone who is a decent person, but it's clear that, despite the butt-monkey stuff they have a good attitude about life, and their friends, even if they give the butt-monkey crap and mock them a little, clearly do it with love and respect - in other words, as long as it's light, happy butt-monkeydom - i'm cool with it.

If I'm reading this right, that would be one reason I can't seem to watch modern sitcoms. I used to love sitcoms, then one day I was watching an episode of Frasier and I realized that it, and every other episode I'd seen recently, as well as any episode of any other sitcom I was watching at the time, was nothing but a parade of really unfortunate things happening which were supposed to be funny - but honestly would be really depressing and sometimes outright tragic if they actually were happening in the real world. I couldn't enjoy sitcoms any more after I realized that they all apparently hinged on the characters suffering for laughs.

Except That 70s Show. That one somehow got the comedy recipe right for me.

Hee, the parade of horrible ridiculously unlucky misfortunes that plagued the Crane family for no good reason was possibly my favorite thing about Frasier :)

What I can't stand, though, is when nothing good ever happens to characters. If a mix of really good and really fucking awful happens to their lives, I love it, but if it's all crap with no light, I just can't with it.

I seem to remember that the thing that pushed me over the limit into recognizing it as uncomfortable was the episode where they met some famous author or another (can't remember if it was even a real author or not anymore) who had written but never published a sequel to his single famous book, and Frasier and Niles stole the draft and read it behind his back, and then it got accidentally destroyed, and they had to confess to what they'd done. Maybe it's because I write (longfic) myself, but that was such a horrible, horrible thing to have happen, for everyone involved, and I found no humor in it whatsoever... and then I realized that most episodes were like that.

Re: How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?

intrigueing - 2012-10-12 03:03 (UTC) - Expand

It depends? I don't like it when the butt-monkey is a generally miserable character, or one that doesn't seem to be taken seriously or liked much by the characters and/or the writers. If they're a decently well-adjusted character that can pull up their bootstraps and march on then I can grow to have an odd fondness for their misfortune.

eta: why does the subject claim i'm replying to the pooping thread

Edited 2012-10-12 01:34 (UTC)

maybe because the pooping thread window was still open when you clicked reply to this thread?

I'm a bit late to this party, but...

I can handle it in small doses. If its a really arrogant character that can stand being taken down a notch, for example, I'm alright with it.

But too much and it seriously freaks me out. This'll sound a little ridiculous, but I have PTSD and I can handle pretty much any kind of situation in my entertainment. Violence, sexual assault, abuse, etc. doesn't bother me at all. But a decent person constantly getting the shit kicked out of them by the world freaks me the fuck out. Like, I remember watching Meet the Parents and getting my first ever media-induced panic attack.

I go back and forth, with Jerry from Parks and Rec being the best example in my mind. They have taken steps to balance out his life; even though he is the butt monkey at work, he has a loving wife, three beautiful daughters who adore him, is a gifted painter and a very cultured person. I like that they make sure to give him something to fall back on, because he was getting a little too depressing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2109 ]

How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?

Re: How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?

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It's ableist.

Re: It's ableist.

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It depends on how the buttmonkey feels.

Re: How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?

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Re: I'm pooping!

Re: I'm pooping!

Re: How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?

Re: How do you guys feel about the butt-monkey trope?