Swirlie
A type of abuse The Bully can inflict on others. The swirlie is portrayed half the time as a real shot of some poor kid getting his head stuck in the toilet, and the other half as a bully simply mentioning the word "swirly" to the cringing dismay of all the bully victims in earshot.
See also The Can Kicked Him for more serious injuries.
Examples of Swirlie include:
Anime and Manga
- Rare case in Kyou Kara Maou; the main character get his head dumped in the toilet only to end up in the magical kingdom where he is ruler.
- An even squickier example in Ichi the Killer: in a flashback, a bunch of bullies shove the title character's face in a toilet already full of poop, trying to force him to eat it.
- Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt: Panty and Scanty give one to each other as they're fighting.
- Bullies in Vitamin force Sawako's head into a toilet after dumping her cellphone in it, and flushing it while she's in it.
Comic Books
- In the Sin City story, "The Big Fat Kill," the Jerkass Jackie-Boy gets his head shoved into the toilet by Dwight McCarthy as payback and humiliation for abusing his ex, Shellie. This is part of what kicks off the main plot, as Jackie-Boy doesn't take humiliation well and seeks to take it out on someone, preferably a woman, and leads his boys into Old Town.
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Jackie-Boy: You're making a big mistake. |
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- In a flashback in the first issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four, a Gang of Bullies does this to Reed Richards. Ben Grimm ends up going Bully Hunter on them in retribution.
Film
- The Big Lebowski
- Max Keeble's Big Move
- Kill Bill: Elle Driver is subjected to one during her brawl with The Bride and actually has to flush the toilet to save herself from being drowned.
- Sean Penn's character gets this in The Falcon And The Snowman. It's not pretty.
- Sky High
- Harry Tasker subdues a terrorist with one of these in True Lies.
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Harry: Cool off. |
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- Inspector Gadget is likely the only character to have given himself a swirlie. This happens in the second live-action movie.
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Gadget: Be careful in there! That toilet's got quite a flush. |
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Literature
- In the first Harry Potter book:
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Dudley: They flush people's heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall. Want to practice? |
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- In the Animorphs series, Tobias mentions that he became friends with Jake because the latter once saved him from a couple of bullies that were about to give him a swirlie.
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Frasier, Niles and Frasier talk about how this happened to both of them in prep school - apparently to a chant of, "There goes Crane, down the drain." When the boys that bullied them come to Frasier's apartment to repair his toilet, Niles makes amends with the brother who bullied him, and Frasier gets his own back by sticking the other bully's head in the toilet. At the end of the episode, Martin fixes the toilet himself, and quips to Eddie, "Don't drink that! Some guy just had his head in there!"
- There was one episode of Law & Order where this was used as an interrogation technique in hopes of rescuing a kidnapped girl.
- One episode of My Name Is Earl begins with Earl allowing Randy to give him a swirly in the Crabshack bathroom to make up for having done the same to Randy when he was five. When Earl thanks Darnell for cleaning the toilet first, Darnell explains that the last person who was given a swirly in one of those toilets ended up with a strange bat-disease.
- A fourth season episode of Supernatural has a girl give a cheerleader who'd been rude to her a swirly until she died.
- In the third season of the television series Queer as Folk, one of the main characters gives a swirly to his little nephew, who not only tried to take cash from his wallet, but was also spouting homophobic slurs taught to him (Or so th main character infers) by their grandmother.
Newspaper Comics
- When this was used in Cathy, it caused some controversy because it appeared off panel, and the way it was described was as the following: "She's in the ladies room giving a swirley to the copier repairman."
Video Games
- It's possible to subject nearly anybody to one of these in Bully, by means of an Action Command, as seen here.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons: one time when it was the last day of school a Montage showed various people/places in the school counting down the last 10 seconds; one of these was Milhouse, as he got one of these courtesy the school bullies.
- In an episode of Recess where Spinelli is accused of throwing a rock at Randall, her punishment if found guilty is a swirlie.
- In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Millions", Batman tortures the newly wealthy Joker's accountant into divulging the clown's whereabouts by sticking the guy's head in an Iceberg Lounge toilet and flushing. Repeatedly.
- Used a couple of times in The Fairly OddParents. One notable time is when Francis threatened Timmy, only that Timmy didn't even feel threatened, and Francis ends up getting swirlied out of fear.
- In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: F.O.U.N.T.A.I.N.", the Delightful Children try to get information from a student named Leona; she won't talk initially, so since they happen to be in the school girls' restroom, they tell their henchman Lunk to "introduce her to Mr. Swirlie". After he does so, they threaten to show her "Mr. Swirlie's downtown office" (which means a very filthy toilet) and she talks. This leads to a Brick Joke much later in the episode, where the heroes find Leona and the villains at the Fountain of Youth; after a fight sequence, the Delightful Children are dumped in it, reducing them to infancy, and Leona calls it "Mr. Swirlie's corporate office".
Other Media
- A ghost story in Japan tells of Hanako-San, the spirit of a young girl who haunts school rest rooms; in most stories, she is a mischievous spirit who likes to play pranks on other students, including a swirley. In others, she's far more malevolent, and might do so with the intent to drown him, or even flush the victim down the toilet and through a portal to Hell.