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{{trope}}{{cleanup|The major sections need to be sorted alphabetically.}}
{{quote|'''Dromiceiomimus''': Oh! Why don't [[Trope Name|PROFESSION MEMBERS]] play hide and seek?
'''T-Rex''': Why?
'''Dromiceiomimus''': Because no one will look for them!
'''T-Rex''': Hah! Ouch for PROFESSION MEMBERS, and their stereotype!
|''[[Dinosaur Comics]]''}}
Subtrope of [[Acceptable Targets]], there are certain characters that are doomed to be mocked (and have a general negative characterization) just for their career choice. Please do not add particular cases to the examples listed here. Compare with [[Klingon Scientists Get No Respect]].
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{{examples}}
== [[Amoral Attorney|Lawyers]] ==
{{quote|''I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes.''|Marc Galanter quoting Chief Justice William Rehnquist|''Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture''}}
Since they're trained to defend anyone, even if their client is as guilty as the devil, lawyers are often being labeled being prolific, greedy liars who will [[Loophole Abuse|find even the most vague of loopholes]] in the law to get a good verdict. While there are, of course, [[Boston Legal|positive]] [[Ace Attorney|portrayals]] [[To Kill a Mockingbird|in media]], such as ''[[Perry Mason]]'', they are still [[Ambulance Chaser|normally]] [[Amoral Attorney|villains]] by default, and the source of many morality-based jokes. See [[Evil Lawyer Joke]].
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
* ''[[Rumpole of the Bailey
* Averted when it comes to state prosecutors, which, thanks to shows like ''[[Law &
** ''[[Law &
* Averted in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' pilot, which shows the the [[After the End]] 21st century, where the society got rid of all lawyers. Of course, the so-called "court of facts" is, in fact, nothing more than a [[Kangaroo Court]], where the accused are already assumed to be guilty and must prove their
* ''[[Breaking Bad
=== [[Music]] ===
* "[[Jurassic Park]]" by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] (parody of "MacArthur Park") has the lyric: ''"A huge tyrannosaurs ate our lawyer, well I suppose that proves they're really not all bad."''
* 'Get Over It' by The Eagles has the lyric "Let's kill all the lawyers. Kill them tonight".
** Which, of course, is a paraphrase of a quote from Henry VI by William Shakespeare.
* When lawyers' organizations complained about lawyer jokes in the early 1990s, the [[Capitol Steps]] recorded "'Atsa Lawyer" (to the tune of "That's Amore") and included it on their 1994 album, ''Lord of the Fries'':
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''With a low form of louse,
''<nowiki>'</nowiki>Atsa lawyer!''}}
=== Theater ===
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=== Western Animation ===
* In an episode of [[The Simpsons]], sleazy failure lawyer Lionel Hutz says "Can you imagine a world without lawyers?" The scene shifts into his imagination, which shows all the peoples of the world holding hands and singing. Fade back to Hutz, who shudders in horror at the thought.
=== Real Life ===
* In Japan, the lawyers are okay, it's the ''judges'' who are demonized.
** Which is why the judge from the aforementioned ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' games is portrayed as such a moron.
** And why the localisations play up the [[Cloudcuckoolander]] aspects of the Judge to make him endearing instead of merely being senile. Judges tend to be well-respected in the west, unless they're obviously corrupt.
* Dick Cheney has achieved what many Americans can only imagine...He shot a lawyer in the face with a shotgun. And let's not forget that he got the ''lawyer'' to apologize. And he '''still''' won't smile!
== Accountants ==
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'''David Stephens:''' I'm boring?
'''Lumsden:''' You get the job done. }}
* The "socially inept and unable to think outside the box" trope was heavily invoked on poor Louis in [[Ghostbusters]]. He even threw a party at his apartment and invited only business contacts because he could write the chips and dip off as a business expense and was loudly explaining this to his guests as a sound tactic.
* Subverted in ''[[Monty Python's The Meaning of Life]]'', when a group of insurance accountants overthrow their masters and turn to piracy. Sadly, its the funniest part of the whole film.
* ''[[The Parole Officer]]'' is built around the protagonist trying to clear his name after he sees "a man strangle a human being - well, an accountant, anyway."
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=== [[Literature]] ===
* [[The Bible]]. Matthew aka Levi was a tax collector until redeemed by Jesus. Generally, they are viewed as something suitable for use as a low baseline in parables and comparisons: “Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”, and “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the harlots will get into the kingdom of heaven before you.” and so on. [http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=tax+collector Count the mentions]..
** Biblical (more specifically, New Testament-era) tax collectors were not the bureaucrats known in the Western world today. Like many Empires the Romans used tax-farmers -- essentially freelancers who bought the right to be a shake-down artist for a given district at auction. (A similar practice still exists today, in those municipalities that auction off tax liens to private individuals who then get the right to pursue the debt they bought.) These would often brutalize the peasantry (by leaning extra hard) and cheat their employer (by embezzling). In other words it did not just mean "someone with the dirty job of funding public services". Often it meant (in a pretty straightforward sense) a collaborator with the occupying forces, and often outright thief. It is notable that when tax collectors came to John the Baptist they were commanded to "take no more than what they had been ordered to" -- implying of course that tax collectors regularly took more, and everyone knew it.
** It's worse than that. The tax collectors in the Biblical gospels represented a régime which was deliberately overtaxing citizens of occupied countries so that Roman citizens in Rome could live tax-free. Much like any other occupying force in wartime, they were despised.
* An aversion is the Murakami short story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo," where the main character is a debt collector, who is an average salaryman, and is a total [[Badass]] because he's so very calm. Also, he helps the titular Super-Frog save Tokyo.
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The former are depicted as talentless [[Executive Meddling|meddlers]] that are to blame for everything that happens in any company. They may even be the [[Pointy-Haired Boss]]. The latter are usually scammers that get paid loads of money without doing any actual work.
=== Newspaper Comics ===
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' has Dogbert for [http://dilbert.com/strip/2003-08-17 this]. And then there's [http://dilbert.com/strip/2003-01-14 Consultick]. But then, the management [http://dilbert.com/strip/1998-04-27 cannot be helped], as it happens to be the [[Trope Namer|one true]] [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] and his clones.
=== [[Live Action TV]] ===
* [[House of Lies]] is about a group of consultants with only one goal in mind when they work with clients: convince the clients that they absolutely need them, no matter the cost.
* Higgins in both the original ''[[Magnum, P.I.]]'' and [[Magnum P.I. (2018 TV series)|its 2018 reboot]] is an estate manager. They share [[British Stuffiness]] (it is more noticeable in the old Higgins). But they are each a benevolent boss and when they get angry they are usually quite justified (Robin's Nest has a lot of artifacts on it as well as well-tended gardens and a beachfront that is a fine ecological trove). Higgins also often turns out to be heroic on several occasions (the reboot is emphasizing this more as it is using a younger-and feminine-one).
**Some cases Magnum takes are for local business people who are a diverse lot. Some of them do indeed turn out to be criminals but there is no particular reason for them to.
=== Web Comics ===
* ''[[Freefall]]'' on [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff600/fv00507.htm simpler life forms].
== Drug dealers ==
When you need a villain, look no further. All drug dealers are scum who [[The Aggressive Drug Dealer|cruise the playgrounds looking for kids (the younger the better) to sell dope to]]. If you need a [[Big Bad]], just make him the leader of the gang. Of course, most of the time he isn't an American, so you get to get two for one here.
* Also, since the eighties or nineties at least, American drug dealers are depicted as capable of terrifying, sociopathic violence, often for little cause. Well, the blacks and Latinos anyway—which is to say (in the voice of popular media), every last one of them.
=== [[Film]] ===
* ''[[Super]]'' zigzags this trope. The first thing the main character does once he becomes a Superhero is find some drug dealers and bash their heads with a wrench. At first, the media portrays him as a [[Deconstructed Trope|psychopath that's brutally assaulting people.]] Later in the movie, the fact that the people he attacked were criminals surfaces, and the media and the public [[Reconstructed Trope|start to see him as a force for justice.]]
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* The protagonists of ''[[Burn Notice]]'' always try to justify the things they do to people by explaining that they're criminals. Often they're talking about murderers and human traffickers, but sometimes it's just drug dealers.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'': Kill a drug dealer - get $2000.
** Of course, the Grove Street OGs (the gang that CJ, the protagonist, is a part of) are vehemently against the use of hard drugs (though marijuana is apparently okay). Compared to the other gangs in the city (besides the Varrios Los Aztecas), the Grove Street families are [[Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters]].
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== [[Traffic Wardens]] ==
Read the article for info.
== Psychologists/Psychiatrists ==
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* Even sympathetic psychiatric workers will be portrayed as [[The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes|plagued by personal problems they can't use their skills to help]].
* A certain group, referred to on this wiki as the [[Church of Happyology]], considers psychiatrists to be their mortal enemy (perhaps because if there's one thing a meme can't stand, it's competition). Consequently, they spend an inordinate effort attempting to discredit this profession. Some of the anti-psychiatry ideas floating around out there may have originated with this Church.
* Not to mention the cliche where people with mental illness are portrayed as mildly eccentric goofballs who just need a person to listen to them and offer a kind word and helping hand rather than professional care or medication. This subtly implies that psychiatrists and psychologists do not listen and never, ever offer a kind word or helping hand. It also implies mental illness is not really a disease but a personality trait, which is a rather dangerous implication.
== [[Loan Shark]]s ==
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== Politicians ==
Inevitably corrupt, often an [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] and puts their reelection ahead of everything else. The stereotypical politician is willing to promise voters the moon, and then [[Did You Actually Believe?|give them the shaft]] as soon as the election is over. The word "politician" even used to be an epithet!
* See also [[Acceptable Political Targets]].
=== Web Comics ===
* [https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2004-06-26 This] ''[[Sinfest]]'', where Slick starts his campaign to become President.
{{quote|'''Monique''': What happened to becoming a porn star?"
'''Slick''': I thought I should aim a little lower.}}
== [[Straw Critic|Critics]] ==
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== Soldiers ==
In general: drinking, womanising troublemakers at best, [[Sociopathic Soldier|rapists, pillagers and casual murderers at worst]]. Both can show up even in ostensibly sympathetic works.
* '''Vietnam Veterans''': The [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|traumatic flashbacks]] of said group are quite often played for laughs. Try depicting the same thing occurring to soldiers returning from the war in Iraq under the context of comedy and see what kind of response you'll get.
** Even among the [[Media Watchdog|"how dare you criticize our troops" crowd]], recruiters are, sometimes, free game.
** Considering that recruiters [https://web.archive.org/web/20130826180341/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1889152,00.html kill themselves with some frequency], one has to wonder about where [[Media Watchdog|their]] sympathies lie.
* Generally, the officers rather than the enlisted men or draftees are the true demons here. Draftees get the most sympathetic portrayals: [[Punch Clock Villain]] at worst, but more often than not simply hapless dupes.
* '''[[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Drill Sergeants]]''' are usually treated as less than human machines made simply for demeaning and putting the trainees through [[Training
== [[Morally-Bankrupt Banker|Banker]]s ==
Bankers have always generally been portrayed as greedy and amoral, believing they can always get their way if they throw enough money at the problem (and it will rarely be their money they're throwing). They obviously overlap with Accountants and Loan Sharks.
Typically, this mostly applies to [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|higher-ups]] in the banking industry, while the local teller attending the [[Take a Number|slow-moving queue]] is generally closer to [[Service Sector Stereotypes]].
* However, beware of running afoul of [[Once-Acceptable Targets]], given the strong associations banking conspiracies have with anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe.
** In American Media they tend to be aged white [[Fat Bastard]]s or [[Corrupt Hick]]s.
** This seems to have recently extended to [[
** It has taken on a new lease of life in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis a.k.a. the Great Recession, starting from around 2007. Since then, it
=== Film ===
* The [[Bank Run|run on the bank]] appears in a few films, with portrayals ranging from supportive or sympathetic to downright hostile. The Fidelity Fiduciary Bank in ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' is made to look greedy and reckless, while the Bailey Building and Loan in ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'' is portrayed with sympathy. Invariably, the big fish will be the first to be portrayed as the robber barons, stopping at nothing to bankrupt every other business in the community for their own gain.
=== Web Comics ===
* ''Chuckle-A-Duck'': "[http://chuckleaduck.com/comic/only-the-strong-survive/ Me childhood dream was ter be a banker, but me dad convinced me I were too soft-hearted fer the job]."
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** The unimportance of special skills doesn't mean it isn't ''difficult'' as well as grueling; people who haven't relied on such work for a living often imagine that juggling all the orders during a rush, on top of other tasks, is somehow not ''mentally'' taxing (as is a lot of "unskilled" labor). So if, for instance, a customer gets a wrong order (inevitable, given how these places are expected to run), she or he feels completely justified in berating those responsible as subnormal etc., because "any idiot" could've gotten it right. Of course the truth is, any idiot '''''couldn't''''' have gotten it right, because working in '''''any''''' industrial kitchen, even the one at Burger King, requires stamina, the ability to multitask, the ability to ''concentrate'' while multitasking in a loud and chaotic environment. Most of the people who say such things probably couldn't last one day as a "burger flipper" if they had to actually do the job.
* This one overlaps almost entirely with [[Acceptable Inevitable Targets]], as many teenagers and students work in food service as a part-time job.
* The assumption that fast food workers are automatically stupid, stoners, trashy, etc. is especially unfair in an economy when you have former high-powered professionals or people who worked a "real" job for decades flipping burgers because that's the only work available in a region with an obscenely high unemployment rate.
=== Theater ===
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== Retail Workers ==
To a lesser extent than Fast-Food Chain Workers, but depending on the type of retail, they are either respectable people or are illiterate illegal immigrants and mentally disabled who'll never get anywhere in life. Despite how many people in such retail stores are actually working their way through college.
* It also depends on the type of retail again. Someone working at Wal-Mart is much more likely to be made fun of offensively than someone who works in a department store like Macy's.
* To many, '''Managers of Retail Stores and fast food chains'''. Horror stories of managers and bosses exploiting people such as forcing people to clock out, then clock ''back in'' for another consecutive shift without getting a break or forcing others to come in on their one day off to cover for an absentee worker, sexually extorting employees via threats of dismissal or (for illegals) deportation, or firing good workers to avoid having to pay for benefits abound, making this somewhat justified...even if a bit cruel since not every manager or boss is like that.
* On the flip side, anyone who has worked one these jobs is bound to have at least a couple stories with '''Retail or Fast Food Customers''' as [[Acceptable Targets]]. (You wouldn't believe the ways you can misinterpret a buy-one, get-one-half-off sign...)
* Convenience Store Clerks usually end up getting the worst sides of both general retail and fast-food (Low skilled job, idiots or no motivation) as well as frequently dealing with people in a rush, however- it's common that they don't have the luxury of passing the customer off on a manager, nor the authority to bend/break rules in the customer's favor - as they're usually the only one there. If that convenience store is also
===[[Music]]===
* [[Bob Rivers]] "Minimum Wage" is a song about a worker in a drive-through who spits in the client's food.
* [[Weird Al]]'s "You're Pitiful" is an entire song lambasting a worker who operates a slurpee machine in a convenience store.
== People who own comic book/card shops ==
They're [[Always Male]], fat, slovenly, [[No Social Skills|socially retarded]], [[Insufferable Genius]]es who are invariably rude to those who don't take geekdom as [[Serious Business]]...and even those who do. And then there's also the [[Nerds Are Virgins|permanent virginity]] thing.
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
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== Clowns ==
As discussed at the trope entry, [[Monster Clown]] is about the ''only'' clown portrayal that exists in fiction these days, aside from the occasional case of the clown who [[Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight]], which isn't much better. While the basis for [[Real Life]] mime dislike is their being annoying, clowns have the baggage of more ostentatious appearances and criminals (i.e., murderers, pedophiles) like John Wayne Gacy. On top of this, they're not seen as particularly talented performers even in non-evil portrayals (i.e., the obnoxious birthday party clown). The fact that circus, the medium in which most of the best and often non-stereotypical [[Real Life]] clowns work, is not as popular as it once was doesn't help.
Addressing someone as "a clown" when they're not actually engaged in live artistic performance as one is a fairly common pejorative.
=== [[Music]] ===
* [[wikipedia:Charlie Brown (The Coasters song)|Charlie Brown]] by The Coasters ("Charlie Brown / Charlie Brown / He's a clown / that Charlie Brown / He's gonna get caught / Just you wait and see / (Why's everybody always pickin' on me?)") dates to 1959.
* [[Bob Rivers]]' parody of [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s "I'm Goin' Down" (as "The Dow is down, down, down, down / The NASDAQ's down, down, down, down / Greenspan's a clown, clown, clown, clown / My stocks are down...") is more of the same.
== [[Everyone Hates Mimes|Mimes]] ==
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== Social Workers ==
Usually portrayed as lazy, heartless, stupid, and/or tied up by [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|bureaucratic red tape]] (causing them to either ignore obvious problems or to insist on enforcing rules in petty and counterproductive ways). On many TV shows and movies, they are usually played by emotionally cold Black women who are plagued by a crappy childhood or a failed relationship. If a black woman is not available, the social worker from the [[Department of Child Disservices]] is played by well-meaning but overworked and overwhelmed, frumpy looking white guys.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* The hospital social worker on ''[[HawthoRNe]]''. She's an overweight, frumpily dressed White woman (as compared to the hot looking nurses) who can't seem to do anything right or doesn't care enough about people to help. Then of course the title character (played by Jada Pinkett Smith) comes in and makes everything better.
* ''[[Reba]]'' featured an especially loud, overweight black woman who publicly embarrassed her when she [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!|tried to stop them from giving her family food stamps]].
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== Proctologists ==
Despite them being fairly important in preventing and treating certain types of cancer, few people will see past "a guy who sticks his fingers up people's asses for a living."
* In some ways, proctologists are the new dentists.
=== Music ===
* [[Bowser & Blue]] have a comedy song that pokes gentle fun at the field. "''We praise the colorectal surgeon, misunderstood and much maligned, slaving away in the heart of darkness, working where the Sun don't shine.''"
== Contractors ==
Contractors are often portrayed as lazy stick-in-the-muds who charge exorbitant amounts of money for work that is shoddy at best.
== People With Mundane Desk Jobs ==
At best, they're seen as restless and wanting more out of life. At worst, they're seen as vapid, mindless pod people or useless lazy paper-pushers. Occasionally the [[Crazy Cat Lady]] stereotype is thrown in there for pink collar workers. It rarely occurs to anyone that people work those jobs because they genuinely enjoy them.
== [[Honest John's Dealership|Used Car Salesmen]] ==
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== Teachers ==
Despite being the reason for any profession's continuation, and blamed for everything involving students (Hello, Parents!). Don't even start with the jokes involving sex or pedophilia. Despite [[Truth in Television]] and [[Real Life]] aspects, not all teachers enjoy, want, or desire extracurricular activities with their students, even if they are in the [[Hot for Teacher]] or [[Hot Librarian]] category. Other insults include becoming a teacher "for the great holidays" and nothing else, digs about the wages (most common in US based shows), and running the gamut from alcoholic to depressive to passive-aggressive to [[Hippie Teacher|pleasant but useless]]. The reasoning behind teachers as acceptable targets could probably be put down to familiarity - almost everyone in countries where education is mandatory has met a teacher at some point. Not many of us can claim that a marine biologist was nasty to us, but most people had a teacher that they didn't like.
* See also [[Sadist Teacher]], for the teachers who use their positions to abuse students.
* One popular insult aimed at teachers is "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Teachers of younger children get this particularly badly with comedians often cracking jokes such as "all you have to do is make stuff out of pasta". Tip: before making this comment, try teaching someone who doesn't know how to hold a pencil how to write. The fact that high school teachers are normally very well versed in their chosen field is normally dismissed, leading to characters who became teachers because "they weren't good at anything else".
* Once someone is identified as a piano teacher, you know what will happen.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* There also is the stereotype of drama, music or other fine arts teachers as being washed up performers who can't get work anywhere else (see ''[[The Steve Harvey Show]]''). This can be [[Truth in Television]]. It may be easier to keep a job as a teacher (at least until recently) than to keep a job as an actor or artist.
=== Western Animation ===
* ''[[Daria]]'' shows several teacher stereotypes.
== Priests ==
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== [[Inhuman Resources|The HR Department]] ==
[[Truth in Television]] - HR are responsible for vetting job applications, usually without any knowledge of what skills are needed to do that job. So they tend to be responsible for stopping you from getting a job you could do in your sleep, hiring obvious morons, or firing the best worker in the department for some imaginary infraction. Their actual background is in industrial relations, not in actual manufacture of whatever it is the company employing them is supposed to make.
== Government Employees ==
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== Scientists ==
They are often [[Mad Scientist|evil]], [[Bungling Inventor|quixotic]] or [[Absent-Minded Professor|clueless]]. They will more often than not lack [[Not Good with People|basic social skills]] and common sense; the latter usually so the [[Good Is Dumb|book-dumb hero]] can show them how intelligence isn't all about "book learnin'".
* There's a joke that goes like this: A biologist is a chemist who can't do math, and a chemist is a 3rd-rate physicist.
* Marine biologists often find themselves the butt of jokes involving [[But You Screw One Goat!|bestiality]] with [[Squick|fish, dolphins, seals, squid]], or really [[Anything That Moves]] in the ocean. (In reality, of course, most (if not all) of them just want to study sea life, not have sex with it!)
* Computer scientists have it bad as well, by virtue of computers being a stereotypical [[Nerd]] interest since they first entered the public eye. Computer scientists (in the rare event they are actually called that) are either reclusive [[Basement Dweller]]s, [[Techno Babble]]-spouting academics, or trapped in dead-end tech support jobs... when they're not busy starting [[World War III]], ''[[War Games]]'' style.
== Police Officers ==
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== Actors, Actresses, and Celebrities in general ==
Always shown as living by [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]], also hated for having nearly ''every'' aspect of their life. Overlaps with the ''Rich'' stereotype in [[Acceptable Lifestyle Targets]]. Often shown as being a complete doofus subject to [[Manipulative Editing]] and being targeted by "Sleazy Tabloids". (examples: [[Paris Hilton]], [[Britney Spears]], and Jade Goody, at least before [[Awful Truth|she died of cancer]])
* Celebrities are often hated for their [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad|tendency to choke news networks]] upon deaths. [[Michael Jackson]] and OJ Simpson, for example, developed [[hatedom]]s merely ''because'' people were so sick of turning on the TV and finding nothing but ''more'' news on their death or trial.
* And then there are the actors/actresses that aren't famous. When they aren't portrayed like wanna-be celebrities [[Waiting for a Break]], they're usually shown as starving artists and weirdos that can break into random monologue at any moment.
* In Renaissance Times, acting, at worst, was a step or two above prostitution.
== [[Intrepid Reporter|Journalists]] (aka, Newshounds) ==
Shown as always getting in the way of things. Also shown as being bought easily to slant the news, and writing biased news that covers up the truth. Any gossip journalism gets this double, and quintuple for ''any'' tabloid or magazine journalist. Add in some [[
* e-Journalists (ie, bloggers and people who post stories on the internet) are often called "slackers". Yeah, anyone can ''have'' a blog, except not everyone's as willing to devote as much time to their blog as professionals do. (ie, most bloggers won't interview people, they won't go out of their way to do the research whereas most blogs about other gossip is a mere response or chain-linking)
* Since the 2011 News International "phone hacking" scandal broke, revealing evidence of widespread unethical activity on the part of certain areas of the tabloid press—including hacking people's phone messages, in too many cases for no other reason than to find tawdry gossip (although one example involved the case of a missing teenager who's phone was hacked and messages deleted to try and prompt more information, giving her family reason to hope that she was still alive which turned out to be cruelly unfounded) and bribing members of the police to look the other way—the general reputation of journalists and tabloid journalists especially has sunk to new lows.
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** For bonus verification points, "[http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/ Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?]"
=== Live
* In ''[[Community]]'', Annie has stated her reason for being on the school newspaper is to mitigate the fallout to a previous drug addiction.
{{quote|'''Annie:''' No one will think about my time in rehab if they think I'm a writer!}}
=== Web Comics ===
* [https://xkcd.com/2512/ This] ''[[xkcd]]'' strip shows a journalist asking whether he can share a quote from [[The Bible]], apparently thinking it was a new phrase.
== Economists ==
They practice one of the [[Hard on Soft Science|softest sciences]] ''and'' have the potential to be influential on a national scale, making scientists of every other discipline hate them. At the same time non-professionals don't like them because economics is so tightly entwined with the very polarizing subject of politics.
* It doesn't help their image that most of the field of economics is (perhaps [[Truth in Television|
* Even economists themselves acknowledge this negative view of their profession, calling their field of study [[Self-Deprecation|"the dismal science"]]. For extra deprecation, some even say that calling economics a "dismal ''science''" is only half-right.
=== Web Comics ===
* ''Offshorecomic'' written by a trader and certified financial analyst, so it got Economist (on the banner, that balding guy who sucks on his finger) as "bona fide [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All|intellectual-yet-idiot]]". Though not nearly as stupid as risk managers ([[Too Dumb to Live|RIP]]).
* ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' has an [//www.smbc-comics.com/comic/responsible-2 idea] of what could make economist "No Longer Most Hated Profession".
== Truck Drivers ==
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== [[Operator From India|Telemarketers]] ==
One of the few professions that you never see a positive portrayal of.
== Advertising Executives ==
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=== Real Life ===
* Old joke among advertising execs: "Don't tell my mother I work in advertising, she thinks I play the piano in a brothel."
=== Web Comics ===
* ''Diabolica'': "[http://diabolica.comicgenesis.com/d/20000605.html are we looking for an assassin or a marketing executive?]"
== [[Super OCD|Librarians]] ==
Pretty much an [[Always Female]] subset of the [[Sadist Teacher]], with the added benefit of never actually helping or teaching anyone. Aside from looks of scorn, most will only get a trademark "SHHHHHHHHHH!" Outside their realm of power, they're depicted as lonely, bitter, anal-aggressive spinsters. However, as a contrast, there is the [[Hot Librarian]].
=== Film ===
* ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'': {{spoiler|She's just about to close up the library!!!}} Oh yes, definitely the worst fate that could befall anyone.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* Totally averted in ''[[Wishbone]]'' where the main (human) character's mother and neighbor are librarians and are generally decent people. The neighbor tends to be the closer to playing this straight, but she's just as helpful as the mother. This is of course expected for a series designed to get children to read more books.
* And in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' where the Librarian at Sunnydale High School, Rupert Giles, is a father figure, oracle and Watcher to the entire group of Scoobies, not just our eponymous heroine.
=== Western Animation ===
* ''[[Moral Orel]]'': [[Meaningful Name|Ms. Censordoll]] is a text book example of this. Unlike most librarians, she [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|actively embraces censoring books.]]
== [[Egomaniac Hunter|Hunters]] ==
Usually portrayed as a closet [[Tarzan (Disney film)|Clayton]] or [[Kimba the White Lion|Viper Snakely]], hunters in media love nothing more than [[Kill the Cutie|kill off baby animals]] and [[And Your Little Dog, Too|their parents]], and personality-wise, totally egotistical and [[Trigger Happy|trigger-happy]].
== Female Ballet Dancers ==
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== Violists ==
* [http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/viola-jokes.html Viola Jokes]
== Physicians ==
Most portrayals of physicians are fairly positive; it's hard to get down on an occupation whose sole raison d'etre is healing the sick and alleviating suffering. However, when physicians go wrong, they go terribly wrong. Given the gravitas of the Hippocratic Oath, there's intense drama to be played out when a physician chooses to go against his code. It's still acceptable to portray a doctor as a complete quack, especially in a comedy. In dramatic works, expect a cold sociopath who sees patients as dollars or a collection of symptoms whose suffering is irrelevant. Finally, a growing minority in the West have embraced unproven, unscientific alternative healing practices. Proponents rarely distinguish between criticism of the health care industry, criticism of pharmaceutical companies, criticism of health care protocols and regulation, ad hominem attacks on medical practitioners, and criticism of the principles of science-based medicine (peer review, controlled studies, etc). Each is a completely different topic.
* On a vaugely-related note, practitioners of alternative health care will often be portrayed as [[Granola Girl]] ditzes or knowingly malign peddlers of [[All-Natural Snake Oil]] in works which embrace Enlightenment on the [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment]] conflict.
* Another topic is the illegal organ trade.
* Physicians who treat life-or-death cases are likely to be sued for malpractice when they fail to help a patient, even if there's nothing that could have been done. This means that they need extensive malpractice insurance, which invites accusations that they are incompetent or casual murderers. After all, why would a doctor insure himself against malpractice if he didn't plan on committing some?
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=== Live-Action TV ===
*The Ferengi in the Star Trek Franchise are something of an example of this stereotype. Though in DS9 it is downplayed and they come off as more [[Adorkable]] then distasteful. Even Ferengi Arms dealers are [[Adorkable]].
== Postal workers ==
There are three different, independent stereotypes involving delivery people or the various neighbourhood workers who come to the door.
* One is that whatever they're delivering arrives invariably late, damaged or not at all. (Or, conversely, in some [[Parallel Universe]] everything shipped arrives yesterday.)
* Another is the [[Cheating with the Milkman]] trope, which (like [[Pizza Boy Special Delivery]]) seems to get applied as a [[Porn Tropes|porn trope]] to every one routinely sent to the house. The mail man, the milk man, the pool boy, the grounds keeper, the parcel courier, the repair man — just so long as they're [[Totally Eighteen]], all are fair game for the wayward house wife. In porn, their [[Distaff Counterpart]]s (such as the [[Gag Boobs|silicone-breasted]] pizza delivery lady) are even more sexualized.
* And then there's [[Going Postal]], where the targets of all of these tropes abruptly cease to be gruntled, unexpectedly snapping and opening fire on everything and everyone. OK, ok. I'll put down the tropes and back away now... just so long as no one gets hurt. I didn't mean what I said. Any of it. Really. Just please don't shoot. Please?
Most often, the derision and the stereotypes are directed against the overall system, not the individual letter carrier — who occasionally gets a friendly or sympathetic portrayal and who, alas, must trudge through hail and snow and sleet<!-- or "heat", in the wording on the main NYC post office in [[Miracle on 34th Street]] --> and dark of night to complete their appointed rounds. In most nations, the main post office is run by the government — and in some places the "swivel service" in general is (or is perceived to be) inefficient or just plain unreliable.
=== [[Film]] ===
* The two ''[[Back to the Future]]'' sequels play with the stereotypes about mail being delivered late. In 1885, a message is [[Product Placement|placed with a Western Union agent]] for delivery to a specific named person at a seemingly-arbitrary highway crossroads in 1955. It arrives exactly on time. In 2015, a weather forecast predicts rain ending at some very exact time, down to the second — which proves correct. Doc Emmett Brown then exclaims "If only the mail were this reliable!" (playing on stereotypes that neither was reliable in the era the films were shot, 1985).
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
* One of the [[Wayne and Shuster]] CBC TV specials in the [[The Seventies|late seventies]] opened with "We're already getting hundreds of letters of mail from people praising this episode." When questioned "We're getting mail? About this show?" the immediate response is that, as soon as the post office started operating more like a private business<!-- as a Crown corporation, instead of a government department--> the mail is moving!
=== [[Music]] ===
* Songs about someone eagerly awaiting a letter from a loved one, or a lover, are historically commonplace; the song "Please, Mr. Postman" has been re-made by many musicians.
** [[Bob Rivers]], as a [[Song Parody]], has "Please, Don't Shoot Mr. Postman" which plays directly into the [[Going Postal]] tropes, complete with incompetent police ordering the Uzi-toting letter carrier to "put down that letter opener".
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[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
[[Category:Acceptable Targets]]
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