History Main / AggressiveCategorism

-->-- '''Moe Syzlack''', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', when Mr. Burns wants to join the bowling team

* In ''Film/TuckerAndDaleVsEvil'', Chad gets all of his friends to believe that the local hillbillies are trying to murder them. He hates hillbillies because a hillbilly murdered his parents. [[spoiler: Eventually he discovers that his father was the hillbilly after all. Not all of them are evil psychos, but this one was and it seems to have been passed on to Chad]].

* Parodied in Nanne Gronvall's song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfR58YVqTH4 Fördomar]]. The protagonist spends the song doing aggressive categorism against all kinds of people while [[IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance considering herself to be enlightened and free from prejudice]].
* Defied in Music/{{Prozzak}}'s ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yacVgQ89b2E Be As]]'', which is about not letting people lock you into narrow categories such as white/black or straight/gay.

* In ''Film/TwelveAngryMen'', Juror #10 is one of the last holdouts for a guilty verdict. As time goes on it becomes clearer and clearer that he doesn't care about the evidence; the kid is guilty because "there's not a one of them that's any good" (referring to the Latino defendant). The 1997 version is far more explicit in this regard: Juror 10 delivers an angry rant about how "those spics stay high on dope and fight all the time" and "these wetbacks are multiplying like rabbits." He's not at all concerned about guilt or innocence, he's just wants to "get him before his kind gets us."

* In ''Film/TuckerAndDaleVsEvil'', Chad gets all of his friends to believe that the local hillbillies are trying to murder them. He hates hillbillies because a hillbilly murdered his parents. [[spoiler: Eventually he discovers that his father was the hillbilly after all. Not all of them are evil psychos, but this one was and it seems to have been passed on to Chad]].
* In ''Film/ShowMeLove'', Markus is the obvious case, with his inane rant about how women can't possibly understand cellphones and men can't possibly understand makeup. However, it's implied that the people in general are just as narrow-minded, they just don't flaunt it like he does. Life in a small town is hell.

[[folder:Film]]

* The Angels in the ''Disgaea'' series hinge in and out of this. Angels generally believe that Demons are pure evil [[FantasticRacism solely because they're demons]]. As Angels see themselves as harbingers of complete good, they lump every Demon into the category of "evil" just because. Recent games imply that they're slowly starting to change.
** In Disgaea 5, it's mentioned that Demons seem to suffer from a little bit of this toward Angels; explaining why [[spoiler:Christo hid his identity the way he did]]. To be fair, they have [[FreudianExcuse been the ire of every known Angel for who-knows-how-long]]. (Heck, it's even a voice option for the Male Angel class!) If the possibility of this being a prequel is true, however...

* Played for laughs in an episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Marshall's father needs an umbrella and suggests they ask Marshall's across-the-hall neighbors for one, because Koreans are always a well-prepared group. The punchline is that he's right: the neighbors do have an umbrella he can borrow.

* ''Series/StreetJustice'': The race-prejudice variant forms part of the plot of "Black or Blue," where Willis is suspected of shooting a white pizzeria-owner simply because he's a black man who happened to be in a predominantly white part of town at the absolute wrong time.

** In Disgaea 5, it's mentioned that Demons seem to suffer from a little bit of this toward Angels; explaining why [[spoiler:Christo hid his identity the way he did]]. To be fair, they have [[FreudianExcuse been the ire of every known Angel for who-knows-how-long]]. (Heck, it's even a voice option for the Male Angel class!) If the possibility of this being a prequel is true, however....

** [[EnslavedElves Elves]] also get this treatment. If a human does something bad, it's a lone wolf. But if an elf does something bad, their clan could be wiped out or their alienage will get a purge. Even doing the right thing can get all elves in trouble.

** Shows up in regards to "Those lousy teens" as well. When Homer and his drinking buddies get wasted and cause a ''lot'' of damage with his car (with a blatantly visible trail leading to his car parked on the front lawn), the police conclude that it was the work of "punk kids", and estate a curfew.

Sometimes combined with StrawAffiliation to make it extra insane: If you have Trait X you belong to group Y, and everyone in group Y are Z. For example, if you are a man who has long hair, you obviously turn over gravestones and nail live kittens to church doors. Because men with long hair are satanists, and satanists do that kind of stuff. Compare NonsenseClassification and InsaneTrollLogic. When used by characters rather than the narrative itself, tropes such as DepravedHomosexual, BondageIsBad, and AllGaysArePedophiles are often played as aggressive categorism. With the first two tropes, this come in the form of reducing people to their sexuality and reducing the sexuality to the sex. With the last two tropes, it comes in the form of deciding that everyone who have a certain quality X also has the unrelated quality Y.[[note]]For example, in the case of AllGaysArePedophiles, homosexuality is the X quality, while pedophilia is the unrelated-but-bundled-together quality Y[[/note]] This line of thinking easily leads to an AbominationAccusationAttack. When the aggressive categorism grows into being mentally unhealthy, it often takes the form of [[CategorismAsAPhobia a phobia]] or a tendency to [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity see everything in black and white]].

** Shows up in regards to "Those lousy teens" as well. When Homer and his drinking buddies get wasted and cause a ''lot'' of damage with his car (with a blatantly visible trail leading to his car parked on the front lawn), the police conclude that it was the work of "punk kids", and enstate a curfew.