History Main / DefenestrateAndBerate

* ''CSINewYork'': One episode opens with a jilted boyfriend throwing his ex-girlfriend's belongings out of the window at her and her new boyfriend. The last item is her pet dog. When the new boyfriend's legs are covered in blood, the viewer is led to believe that the dog has just splattered on the sidewalk. The camera then pulls back to show the boyfriend has safely caught the dog and the blood has come from a passing truck that was spreading salt on the icy street.

** One episode of CSI:NewYork begins with this. Eventually the man on the balcony throws the dog over, and the horrified woman below is spattered with blood... Fortunately we are then shown that the dog was caught safely, and the blood was being sprayed by a road salter.

The main variation on this trope is not the relationship breakup, but rather someone being so aggravated with whatever they're doing they chuck it out the window. A less common variation is someone accidentally tossing something out a window they hadn't intended to.

** Tossing the washing machine out the window. Think it was a Maytag or Sears commercial. Having bought the right kind of washing machine, the woman and her mate are happy again... then see a washing machine fly out of a neighbor's house and say they better go tell Sue (or whatever the name was) about the brand they just bought.
*** There was also a stain remover commercial. And both women yell "I hate set-in stains!" whilst chucking the machine out the window.

* A running theme in the ''{{SCTV}}'' show opening titles is a succession of tv sets getting tossed out of windows - when the narrative crows about the show being broadcast in Togo we see a tv set getting thrown out of a grass hut.

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* An early ''What's New?'' comic (from ''{{Dragon}} Magazine'') addressed computer [=RPG=]s, and turned this trope into a running gag. One panel showed multiple computers flying out the windows of an apartment building, all of them reciting HAL's "you're upset about this, Dave" line from ''2001''.
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The person doing the tossing in the main form of the trope is almost invariably a crazy, stupid, irrational HystericalWoman who simply can't control her emotions, unlike her calm, logical, ''superior'' male ex-partner. Most often occurs after MistakenForCheating, which makes the woman even more irrational because she's ''wrong''. It's a much more malicious trope than most people realize at first glance. Very much a DoubleStandard based on the idea that women are stupid and irrational, while men are smart and rational. The main Western aversion, a guy destroying his own stuff so his wife's lawyers won't get it, still plays on the bizarre DoubleStandard that women are all lazy, greedy leeches living off their decent, hard-working husbands. (Somehow the reality that she works and it's her stuff too never seems to be mentioned. Funny that.)

The trope is negative to men as well; it indicates they're all lecherous philandering hounds who can't be satisfied with one woman, and who think the woman they're cheating on is too naive/clueless to catch them so he can have his cake and eat it too. And when they're caught in the act, they are more upset about the loss of ''material possessions'' than a partner they supposedly love/loved.

The person doing the tossing in the main form of the trope is almost invariably a crazy, stupid, irrational HystericalWoman who simply can't control her emotions, unlike her calm, logical, ''superior'' male ex-partner. Most often occurs after MistakenForCheating, which makes the woman even more irrational because she's ''wrong''. It's a much more malicious trope than most people realize at first glance. Very much a DoubleStandard based on the idea that women are stupid and irrational, while men are smart and rational. The main Western aversion, a guy destroying his own stuff so his wife's lawyers won't get it, still plays on the bizarre DoubleStandard that women are all lazy, greedy leeches living off their decent, hard-working husbands. (Somehow the reality that she works and it's her stuff too never seems to be mentioned. [[DarthWiki/WallBanger Funny that.]])

The person doing the tossing in the main form of the trope is almost invariably a crazy, stupid, irrational HystericalWoman who simply can't control her emotions, unlike her calm, logical, ''superior'' male ex-partner. Most often occurs after MistakenForCheating, which makes the woman even more irrational because she's ''wrong''. It's a much more malicious trope than most people realize at first glance. Very much a DoubleStandard based on the idea that women are stupid and irrational, while men are smart and rational. The main Western aversion, a guy destroying his own stuff so his wife's lawyers won't get it, still plays on the bizarre DoubleStandard that women are all lazy, greedy leeches living off their decent, hard-working husbands. (Somehow the reality that she works and it's her stuff too never seems to be mentioned. [[WallBanger Funny that.]])

* How has ''WaitingToExhale'' not been mentioned? Angela Bassett's character Bernadine gets dumped by her husband for another woman. This is after she's spent the last 11 years sacrificing her dreams of owning her own business to help him build his. Her reaction? Taking his entire very expensive wardrobe, stuffing it in his very expensive car and setting the whole shebang on fire. And what she couldn't get in the car, she sold. For a dollar.

* While Peggy was separated from Al in {{Married with Children}}, Marcy helped her by showing her how to destroy Al's stuff.

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Darker, less humorous versions of this trope tend to have the woman taking fire or razors to the cheater's belongings. This is common in those glossy, colourful compilations of HighOctaneNightmareFuel they sell at supermarket checkouts. This variant does get used with men as well as women, when a divorcing husband trashes his own stuff rather than let his wife's lawyers take it away from him.

-- ''TwoOfAKind''

-->Wait a minute! Those aren't even [[DoubleStandard MY trousers]]!

-->'''David''': I have a question. What does ‘defenestrate' mean?
-->'''246''': Exactly what I did. To throw something out a window.
-->-- PaulRobinson's ''InstrumentOfGod''

* Season 1 of ''{{Friends}}'' has Rachel doing this to ThePaolo (the original, natch).

A couple is breaking up. The man has [[YourCheatingHeart cheated on his woman]], and the woman is showing both her ire and her desire to be rid of this man and all memory of his presence in her life by throwing his belongings out of the window of the apartment they shared up until she discovered the infidelity or other dealbreaking thing he's done. This is usually accompanied by the woman screaming or faux-calmly berating him for what he's done, or delivering the litany of reasons he's being dumped along with his belongings.

* In the Disney film ''Candleshoe'', Jodie Foster's character gets frustrated while searching for a clue in a book and nearly throws it out the window...only to realize that the clue was referring to the church graveyard she can see from it.

* In ''Komarr'' by {{Lois McMaster Bujold}}, this trope is subverted in that Ekaterin Vorsoisson isn't throwing her husband Tien out for infidelity, but leaving him because he's a bribe-taking traitor. And that it's ''him'' throwing the tantrum while she simply stands there quietly clutching her remaining dignity to her, demanding that she stay with him and trying to (entirely irrationally) blame her for his crimes, and pitching her prized bonsai tree (in the family for 70 years!) off a fifth-story balcony at one point to punctuate his childish rant. Her only reaction?

Darker, less humorous versions of this trope tend to have the woman taking fire or razors to the cheater's belongings. This is common in those glossy, colourful compilations of HighOctaneNightmareFuel they sell at supermarket checkouts, OrSoIHeard. This variant does get used with men as well as women, when a divorcing husband trashes his own stuff rather than let his wife's lawyers take it away from him.

* A man comes home to find all his furniture out on the pavement. He rushes in shouting: "But darling, she meant nothing to me!" only to find his wife has simply got new IKEA furniture (cue shot of his shocked wife accidently snipping the head off a rose).

*** There was also a stain remover commercial. And both women yell "I hate greasy stains!" whilst chucking the machine out the window.

* In Next Friday Craig's cousin Day-Day tells him about a girl he started dating 3 weeks ago who started claiming he was the father of her unborn child (she was six months pregnant). She gets really angry when he leaves her and starts destroying his stuff, actually going over to his home multiple times to damage his car. Its apparently subverted since the restraining order Day-Day managed to get indicates he wasn't lying about when he started dating her (and thus the impossibility of him being the father.

* Used hilariously in {{The X-Files}} episode "Dreamland", in which Mulder switches bodies with an Area 51 worker Morris Fletcher. Fletcher's wife thinks that her husband (really Mulder) is cheating on her, as Mulder was muttering something about Scully in his sleep and Scully herself showed up at the door five seconds later looking for Morris Fletcher. She ends up throwing out all of her husband's posessions while Mulder tries to convince Scully that it's really him, even though he looks like Fletcher.

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* There are many TV shows and commercials (most recent one I've seen is with an Xmas tree) where frustration leads to something being chucked out the window.
** A recent extreme: Tossing the washing machine out the window. Think it was a Maytag or Sears commercial. Having bought the right kind of washing machine, the woman and her mate are happy again... then see a washing machine fly out of a neighbor's house and say they better go tell Sue (or whatever the name was) about the brand they just bought.
*** There was also a stain remover commercial. And both women yell "I hate greasy stains!" whilst chucking the machine out the window.
* There's a turkey commercial where the woman is struggling with the frozen turkey [which is huge and heavy]. She miscalculates the amount of effort to toss it into the sink. So it overshoots the sink, breaks through the window and brains a man outside [her husband?]
** Speaking of Turkeys... ''{{Mad About You}}'' had an episode with a {{Running Gag}} that the couple tried to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving and it kept falling out a window, causing them to have to buy a new turkey.

* In one ''Gaston Lagaffe'' strip, Prunelle gets overly angry at the titular character for destroying two coat hangers and violently throws the remaining piece of one out the window. As it is shaped like a boomerang, HilarityEnsues.

* An early ''What's New?'' comic (from ''{{Dragon}} Magazine'') addressed computer [=RPG=]s, and turned this trope into a running gag. One panel showed multiple computers flying out the windows of an apartment building, all of them reciting HAL's "you're upset about this, Dave" line from ''2001''.

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* Heavily subverted with one of the couples in He's Just Not That Into You, when the cool and calculating woman finds out her husband had slept with another she tries to act rational about it by suggesting that before they do anything hasty they should go into counciling. It's not until she finds cigarettes in her husband's things (something she had suspected him of having and that he denied to the point of making her feel guilty about asking) that she realizes she wants him out of her house and after smashing some porcelain in anger, neatly packs up all his belongings and leaves them on the stairs with a note telling him she wants a divorce and that he should get lost.

* Subverted with one of the couples in HesJustNotThatInToYou, when the cool and calculating woman finds out her husband had slept with another she tries to act rational about it by suggesting that before they do anything hasty they should go into counciling. It's not until she finds cigarettes in her husband's things (something she had suspected him of having and that he denied to the point of making her feel guilty about asking) that she realizes she wants him out of her house and after smashing some porcelain in anger, neatly packs up all his belongings and leaves them on the stairs with a note telling him she wants a divorce and that he should get lost.

* ''Earth Girls Are Easy'' varies the trope a little. Valerie (Geena Davis) tosses Ted (Charles Rocket) out of the house clad only in his underwear. And then, while singing a song about how much this has hurt her, Valerie systematically destroys all of Ted's favourite belongings in the fireplace, the microwave, and randomly tossing them. Close enough for horseshoes.

* A Chevy Silverado ([=IIRC=]) commercial featured this. After a long night out, a man is driven home by his friend to find his stuff being thrown out the top floor window. The friend backs the truck up to catch it in the box. "C'mon," says the friend, "You can sleep on the couch." "...you don't have a couch." Accompanied by a howl of fury, a couch is thrown out, landing neatly on top of the pile of stuff. "...right."
* This trope happens in a Burger King commercial, because the guy...bought Play-off tickets for an anniversary. Dorky, yes. Deserving of a psychotic destruction of all his stuff? No. Guy is better off without her.
** Whenever this troper reads an example like this, she wonders if the original troper realizes that the commercial doesn't actually depict a real-life event, and the woman in question doesn't actually exist - outside the mind of a (probably male) copywriter.
*** In that case this passerby Troper would like to add that all fictional material is meant to be take in the context of a fictional reality with predicted modern morality on the behalf of the watcher. That said, it doesn't excuse the ridiculous and bothersome content mentioned in said commercial. Just another example of [[DisproportionateRetribution women being allowed to do stuff]] [[DoubleStandard that would be instantly condemned]] [[CloserToEarth if they were men.]]
**** Admittedly I haven't seen the commercial, but I'm guessing that the point is that HE likes sports and SHE doesn't. Buying a "present" for someone else that is really a present for yourself, especially if you know the other person either won't enjoy it at all or actively hates it, is really selfish. [[MenAreUncultured To turn the stereotypical tables]], imagine if her "gift" to him was tickets to a ballet or opera. Also, it's spelled [[SpellingNazi allowed.]]
***** [[{{Natter}} You meant proverbial, not stereotypical]]. (That would have been potholed to DictionNazi, but there's no such article, so I settled for something else relevant.)