History Main / HaveYouTriedNotBeingAMonster

** The author of the article ''[[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/feb/18/ellen-page-has-super-powers-but-why-is-this-newsworthy Ellen Page has super-powers, but why is this newsworthy?]]'' milks this for all it's worth where he writes an article discussing [[Film/XMenFilmSeries X-Men]]'' actress Creator/EllenPage [[ComingOutStory coming out]] by replacing every mention of homosexuality with "mutant with super-power" and ran with it.

There's a certain group of people. They have normal lives to an extent, but somehow they're ''different''. Not like other people. They're something unusual. [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill Something that means they can never fit in]]. If it's at all possible, they hide their differences away from everyone else to fit in. They live in secret, ostracized from society. A subculture, upholding a [[TheMasquerade masquerade]] of being normal by day but living out a secret lifestyle out-of-view. Chances are that if they ever tell anyone, they'll inevitably be asked, "Have you tried...''not'' being a monster?"

** Then during the '90s during the gay AIDS epidemic, mutants were given a disease called the Legacy Virus that was essentially mutant AIDS. When asked when it would be cured, writers responded "[[{{Anvilicious}} not until AIDS is cured]]". Apparently, nobody at Marvel actually ''expected'' a cure for AIDS to elude humanity for over two decades, so it became a PlotTumor of asking [[ReedRichardsIsUseless the greatest scientists in the universe who can create dimensional portals and cybernetics]] "When is that cure coming again?", every month. So the cure was eventually found.

* ''ComicBook/TheWitchBoy'' takes place in a magical society where men become shapeshifters and women become witches, but the protagonist Aster is a boy who cannot transform and secretly tries to study magic. It is easily read as a metaphor for discrimination in gender roles, with [[MenActWomenAre men being pushed toward violent activities and women towards domestic ones]]. It can also be read as concerning gender identity. Though Aster never displays explicit discomfort specifically with being assigned male, it's shown his preference for magic isn't just merely personality when [[spoiler:Mikasa tastes his soul and discovers it is that of a witch. Inversely, his grandmother turns out to be a partial shapeshifter.]]

In many cases, this trope is a way to introduce themes about minorities into a plot [[ButNotTooForeign without being too specific about what is being referenced]] when creators feel that an [[FantasticRacism allegory or metaphor]] will be [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar less likely to be censored]]. In this way, the writer has room to create an effective allegory without any limitations. Though on rare occasion, [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory there is no allegory at all]]: the trope is just the natural outcome of the circumstances the story is set in. This story is familiar to many real-life minorities, one prominent example being the {{queer|AsTropes}}/LGBT+ community, so it's not that surprising that it's so often used in fiction. Besides the queer community, similar circumstances may also apply to other persecuted groups like [[ANiceJewishIndex Jewish]] or {{Disab|ilityTropes}}led people, so a metaphor for one such group may be {{applicab|ility}}le to another.

In many cases, this trope is a way to introduce themes about minorities into a plot [[ButNotTooForeign without being too specific about what is being referenced]] when creators feel that an [[FantasticRacism allegory or metaphor]] will be [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar less likely to be censored]]. In this way, the writer has room to create an effective allegory without any limitations. Though on rare occasion, [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory there is no allegory at all]]: the trope is just the natural outcome of the circumstances the story is set in. This story is familiar to many real-life minorities, one prominent example being the {{queer|AsTropes}}/LGBT+ community, so it's not that surprising that it's so often used in fiction. Besides the queer community, similar circumstances may also apply to other persecuted groups like [[ANiceJewishIndex Jews]] and [[DisabilityTropes disabled folks]], so a metaphor for one such group may be {{applicab|ility}}le to another.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'': Averted with psykers: having psychic powers is very rightly referred to as a curse in 40K. Psykers are regularly hunted down and ferried in Black Ships crewed by blanks (extremely creepy to normal humans, HumanoidAbomination to a psyker) and taken to the Golden Throne where they suffer MindRape called soul-binding if they're deemed strong enough to serve the Imperium, doomed to a life of constant contempt by regular humans who are ready to execute them at the slightest sign of instability and the permanent risk of corruption by the Warp; if not, they're used as fuel for the GodEmperor's spirit. And this is far better than the alternative, which is falling to Chaos and being the plaything of daemons for eternity or exploding into a portal into the Warp that lets the forces of Chaos through to the material realm. And the sacrifice of psykers is absolutely essential to the Imperium's very existence, and they're used as fuel for the Astronomican, a psychic beacon that makes FTLTravel possible

* In ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'' the title character's TheJinx status is genetic and treated as a FictionalDisability, with the result that his best friend Melissa's father reacts to the chaos his presence causes in this way.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'' the title character's TheJinx status is genetic and treated as a FictionalDisability, with the result that his best friend Melissa's father reacts to the chaos he causes in this way.

** Vampires in True Blood are very analogous to gays. They "come out of the coffin" to demand civil rights and are mostly opposed by members of fanatical religious sects who spout catchphrases such as "God Hates Fangs". Also, the show sometimes casts vampires like racial minorities, made more overt due to its setting in the American South. During one scene, a bigoted policeman repeatedly calls Bill "boy" while treating him unfairly. However, due to the high number of murderous vampires in the show, there's a fair bit of BrokenAesop and StrawmanHasAPoint going on. Actually, for all that he is "nice" now, this used to include Bill just as much.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' pulls this a few times. First and foremost, Joyce's reaction to learning about Buffy and vampires was, literally, "Have you tried...''not'' being the Slayer?" She later describes herself as "marching in the Slayer Pride parade." To be fair, Joyce's reaction is a lot more understandable than most examples on this page, since her biggest concern is that Buffy could get seriously hurt or killed being the Slayer.
** Granted, from time to time, Buffy has [[RefusedTheCall tried to not be the Slayer]] ("Prophecy Girl", "Anne") or been faced with the possibility that she's not even destined to be the Slayer, [[ThereIsAnother due to there being]] [[TheChosenMany others now]] ("What's My Line", "Faith, Hope, and Trick", "Chosen"), etc. The SlidingScaleOfFreeWillVsFate plays a pretty central role to Buffy's character arc throughout the franchise.

** Doyle from ''Series/{{Angel}}'', who is half-human and half-demon has to deal with the issue of "passing" as a human, and in "Hero" he meets some demon relatives who look too much like demons to ever have the luxury of making the choice that Doyle does.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

** In the film Jacob responds: "This isn't a lifestyle choice, I was born like this." Through a bit of conversation, it becomes clear that she has no problems with [[spoiler:the werewolf pack simply ''being'' werewolves]]; the reason she wants them to stop is that she thinks they're responsible for the mysterious deaths going on in town. Upon being told that they're not, the issue is dropped.

** In "Phases," Larry is suspected of being a werewolf, and Xander has a talk with him about having urges and desires he can't control...but it turns out Larry's not a werewolf, he's just gay.
*** ''Series/{{Angel}}'' then reverses that: Cordelia misreads the signals she's been getting from the new vampire Harmony and ends up thinking Harmony's a lesbian. She calls Willow to ask "why didn't you tell me?" and the conversation [[http://vrya.net/bdb/clip.php?clip=5488 is full of mixed signals]]. Finally:

** Subverted by Tara's family. The women in the Maclay family are raised believing they must always struggle not to become demonic monsters - which turns out to be a lie to keep the women subjugated. The allusions to a homophobic family are also strong in this episode.

** ''TabletopGame/BeastThePrimordial'' uses this trope heavily, associating Beasts with numerous marginalized groups, relying heavily on the ideas of found families (even among other supernaturals), coming into your own by embracing that which you fear or view as aberrant (recognizing the monster in your nightmares as the other half of your soul), and dealing with enemies who hate you because they see you as an abomination. In the draft given to Kickstarter backers, the UnfortunateImplications (and the fan reaction to them) were intense enough that the developers decided to revise it before the final publication (for instance, the coming-to-power narrative of Beasts got retconned away from ComingOutStory and more towards "you let the monster in your nightmares conquer you," but there was still room for the earlier interpretation).

** ''TabletopGame/BeastThePrimordial'' uses this trope heavily, associating Beasts with numerous marginalized groups. In the draft given to Kickstarter backers, the UnfortunateImplications (and the fan reaction to them) were intense enough that the developers decided to revise it before the final publication.

* Played for ''extreme'' drama in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': when [[spoiler:Himiko Toga]]'s Quirk appeared when she was a little girl [[BloodLust it made her extremely attracted to blood as a side effect]], disgusting her parents who, alongside her counselor, demanded she suppressed her urges and Quirk, something she did... And it slowly eroded her sanity until the day in middle school she cracked and murdered her crush to drink his blood, starting her days as a ''serial killer'' [[BlueAndOrangeMorality who just can't see how her actions are wrong]].

* Also played with in a now-defunct superhero webcomic called ''Queer Nation'', where everyone gay got superpowers from radioactive dust given off by a pink comet and was written as X-Men with the subtext changed into text. Oh, and bisexuals got superpowers too, but they only worked half of the time. Asexuals and pansexuals weren't addressed. Transsexuals had powers that were mostly [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway useless]] until something amazing [[MagikarpPower would happen that would kick them into god-tier]]. One of the main characters was a male to female transsexual who called herself Miss Thang and started with the ability to manipulate clothes (first just moving them, then morphing them), but it was implied that it would one day extend to complete [[AGodAmI metamorphic control over all matter]].

* Dwarfs in Literature/{{Discworld}} are suddenly going through a period of this. The series parodies OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame by having the genders be ''identical''. Females have beards, dress the same as males, and dwarfish courtship consists largely of trying to tactfully find out what the other dwarf's gender is. But ever since ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', a few dwarfs (mainly the younger ones) have started wearing dresses and makeup, and admitting they don't actually like beer all that much (they keep the beards, though). Older, more conservative dwarfs are horrified to find that some of their sons may actually be ''daughters''.

See Also: SpaceJews, FantasticRacism, AmbiguouslyGay, HideYourLesbians, DiscountLesbians, DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything, AllOfTheOtherReindeer, WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent, RainbowLens, and StagesOfMonsterGrief.

As one can imagine, this trope can have myriad UnfortunateImplications, especially if the {{Muggles}} have [[InformedWrongness entirely justifiable reasons to fear the fictional entities in question]], such as [[HorrorHunger instinctive predatory impulses towards humans]], genuinely being AlwaysChaoticEvil apart from the occasional [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch angsty heroic one]], or being able to [[BewareTheSuperman blow somebody's head off]] by [[EyeBeams glaring at them really hard]]. That said, remember that TropesAreNotBad.

See Also: SpaceJews, FantasticRacism, AmbiguouslyGay, HideYourLesbians, DiscountLesbians, DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything, AllOfTheOtherReindeer, WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent and StagesOfMonsterGrief.

In many cases, this trope is a way to introduce themes about minorities into a plot [[ButNotTooForeign without being too specific about what is being referenced]] when creators feel that an [[FantasticRacism allegory or metaphor]] will be [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar less likely to be censored]]. In this way, the writer has room to create an effective allegory without any limitations. Though on rare occasion, [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory there is no allegory at all]]: the trope is just the natural outcome of the circumstances the story is set in. This story is familiar to many real-life minorities, one prominent example being the {{queer|AsTropes}}/LGBT+ community (see GreatBigGayMetaphor), so it's not that surprising that it's so often used in fiction. Besides the queer community, similar circumstances may also apply to other persecuted groups like [[ANiceJewishIndex Jews]] and [[DisabilityTropes disabled folks]], so a metaphor for one such group may be {{applicab|ility}}le to another.