Just the Introduction to The Opposites

""Gangs of old ladies attacking fit, defenseless young men.""

- Monty Python's Flying Circus

A lot of comedy comes from switching around expectations. This trope is about a specific kind, where roles are reversed. But unlike Freaky Friday Flip, Prince and Pauper, and Swapped Roles, no explanation or justification is given, and it's as though this situation was always this way. The comedy is more about the absurdity of it all, than what happens to the characters.

Let's say hypothetically, a Princess, wearing with Pimped-Out Dress, tiara and ermine cape, walks down a hallway one way, while her servant, in a French maid outfit, walks the other way, carrying some food. The princess bumps into the maid, causing the food to fall on the maid. The princess begs for forgiveness and tries to wipe off the maid's dress, while the maid hysterically snaps at the princess for being clumsy, and complains about how much her dress cost.

Occasionally used for drama, where the situation is meant to be thought-provoking instead of funny.

Named for You Can't Do That on Television, which would use that line as a Catch Phrase to start a series of such sketches.

Compare Opposite Day, Persecution Flip.

Super-Trope of Gender Flip.

Comic Books

 * A Judge Dredd story centred around an athlete who garnered massive controversy and criticism by doing well despite no pharmaceutical or bionic enhancements.
 * Normalman is the only non-superpowered human on the planet Levram.
 * In Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, one Villain of the Week is a "wuzwolf" (he wuz a wolf, now he's not), a wolf who turns into a legendary monstrous creature know as a "human".
 * Pretty much any Silver Age Superman story set in Bizarro-World is all over this trope.

Film

 * Little Man Tate contrasts the titular Tate, a very mature child, with his childlike, immature mother.
 * The film ~White Man's Burden~ is a dramatic example; it takes place in a world where the majority/minority status of white and black people are reversed.
 * The film The Wrong Man had a subplot of a greedy, ruthless farmer threatening the meek, struggling-to-get-by banker with closing his business down.
 * The Jerk starts with the character explaining he was born "a poor black child," only to discover his white roots when he first hears swing music on the radio.

Literature

 * One scene in Moving Pictures parodies King Kong; a giant woman holds a normal-sized ape (the Librarian) in one hand while climbing a tall building.
 * "Disobedience", by ~A. A. Milne~, is about a three-year-old boy whose mother wanders away from his supervision and gets lost.
 * In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there is a poem about five Golgafrincham princes who, amongst other things, 'rescue beautiful monsters from ravening princesses'.

Live Action Television
"Presenter: Hello. Are people difficult bastards or not? To clear this up, I have with me in the studio one really difficult bastard...
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus:
 * The sketch 'Northern Playwright' featuring father behaving like a stereotypical worker and his no less stereotypical yuppie son. It turns out that father is in fact a famous playwright and the son is a ordinary coal miner. Just watch it here.
 * "Hell's Grannies" sketch.
 * The Pythons did this a lot. They had one sketch where a woman let an encyclopedia salesman into her home because he said that he was a burglar.
 * Though that could have also been a Take That toward door-to-door salesmen: "I'd rather be robbed than suffer through your spiel!"
 * As well as one sketch about a world where everyone is Superman, but one of them is secretly... THE BICYCLE REPAIRMAN!
 * Also, "the Baby Snatchers"....
 * You Can't Do That on Television
 * Pretty much the point of Absolutely Fabulous, where the daughter is the one telling the adults to turn the boom box down and to stop drinking so much.
 * The show grew out of a sketch on French & Saunders called Modern Mother and Daughter, which presented this as being somewhat Truth in Television.
 * In an episode of Grace Under Fire, a middle-aged dad was staying at his son's house, they have a fight, and the dad storms into his room and starts blasting swing music. The son pounds on the door and tells him to turn it down.
 * The weekly murder mystery Castle has the mystery-writer main character (played by Nathan Fillion) dealing with his party-girl cougar of a mother and his sage, sensible teenaged daughter, who also acts as his Watson.
 * Rutland Weekend Television:

Difficult Bastard: Hello, good evening.

Presenter: ...And the bishop of Summerset.

Pope: Get lost.

Presenter: Can I turn to you first, bishop?

Pope: Shut up."


 * A sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look where a husband and wife are arguing because he's just returned from a business trip and she finds a bra in his suitcase. She asks, mildly annoyed, if she's cheating on him, which he cops to absentmindedly. The fight escalates as she brings in other "minor" issues such as her desire to have a baby and secret gambling addiction, until she suddenly bursts into tears and he figures out what this is really about -- that time he left the fridge door open and a whole quiche and some milk went bad.
 * Done as a Take That on A Bit of Fry and Laurie, when Laurie's character walks into a convenience store and requests EIGHT PACKETS OF CONDOMS, PLEASE, loudly specifying brands and styles, and furtively asking for Jason Donovan's latest single in between.
 * An episode of Scrubs had Elliot's boyfriend Keith upset with her because he wanted a committed stable relationship, and Elliot just wanted him for sex. Dr. Kelso treats their argument like an entertaining TV program: "It's like he's the chick and you're the dude!"

Music

 * Against Me!'s video for "Thrash Unreal" features a group of well-dressed, respectable looking adults going to a party... which immediately devolves into a mosh pit when they get hammered off the wine.

Radio

 * In Acropolis Now, set in Ancient Greece, homosexuality is the norm and sex with girls is something only done for reproductive purposes. Straight characters are seen as a bit weird.
 * Used on the Martin Molloy radio show. After a news story about two pensioners who were arrested after an argument over a poker machine turned into a violent punch up, Mick Molloy launched into a spiel about how old people today had no respect for authority and how teenagers were sitting at home at night, too scared to go out because of the gangs of old people roaming the streets, and how what old people needed was another dose of national service.

Stand Up Comedy
"My mom would be up here, and you'd be reading about me as her crack-addicted son. A man can dream, can't he?"
 * Stewart Lee "Later on I'll be explaining how my tragic and ultimately fatal heroin addiction helped me overcome my previous dependence on Born Again Christianity."
 * Towards the end of his one-man show, Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding, Christopher Titus imagines what would've happened if his mother's mental institution had had an open mike night:

Video Games

 * This occurs between two minor NPCs in Final Fantasy XIII. The player first meets the father who complains that he lost his son and his son told him that he should always stay in one place if they get separated, while the son is nearby complaining about his father getting lost. When father and son meet up the son chastises the father for not staying in one place as he was told. Considering the tiny number of NPCs and otherwise standard NPC dialogue in the game it's rather odd that they would bother to add this bit of characterization in an area where many gamers will miss it (one must explicitly intentionally backtrack to hear the final conversation between father and son).

Web Comics

 * In Questionable Content, Pintsize once created Hentai about schoolgirls raping the tentacle monsters. At least 18 volumes.

Web Original

 * This video from The Onion News Network portrays AA as a life-destroying addiction which can only be countered by consumption of alcohol.

Western Animation
"Homer: He has to learn! Just like my father taught me!
 * The Simpsons had an episode where Grandpa is staying at their place and borrowing their car for dates, annoying Homer to the point where he grounds Grandpa, who storms up to his room and starts blasting big band music. Complete with Lampshade Hanging:

Marge: He is your father!

Homer: (Beat) Cosmic."

"Homer: Oh sure, when he's in trouble he's my father!"
 * The trope is utterly screwed with when Homer says:


 * The High School Musical parody episode of South Park, where the kid's dad was a rather flamboyant singer, and the kid wanted to play basketball.
 * "Red Man's Greed" is this trope. The Indians "Native Americans" (South Park insists on using that terminology.) are Corrupt Corporate Executives who invade South Park and set up casinos. They give the white people SARS, and the traditional white trash panacea, 7-Up, cures it.