Bad Boy Bubby is a 1993 Australian film by Rolf de Heer.
It relates a story of Bubby, a mentally disabled man who has spent his entire life in the home of his abusive mother. Then he manages to escape and starts his adventures in the outside world.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Bubby's mother, who also rapes him.
- Bubby starts dating a nurse named Angel. When he goes to meet her parents, they turn out to be emotionally abusive to her.
- Accidental Pervert: Zigzagged and possibly Subverted: Bubby is raised so that incestuous and inappropriate behaviour is basically normalized in his mind, and is all he knows.
- More direct example: when his father returns, Bubby tries to grope his mother in a way that she has normalized for him. When his father sees this, his mother pretends to be as outraged as his father is.
- Even more direct example: Bubby's innocent forwardness means he is mistaken for a pervert of some kind by the group of suburban housewives he meets who then attack him.
- Asshole Victim: Bubby's parents who are physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive to him, and killed by him before he makes his escape.
- Also the parents of Angel, the nurse Bubby dates, who are emotionally abusive to her and constantly belittle her for her weight, including using religion to justify such abuse.
- Basement-Dweller: Bubby has never left his mother's house due to her telling him he'll die if he goes outside.
- Black Comedy: About as dark as you can get, but some moments are clearly intended to be humorous.
- Cringe Comedy: Many awkward moments result from Bubby's total innocence and lack of social restraint, such as the scene in the restaraunt and Bubby meeting Angel's parents.
- Fan Disservice: There is nudity from the outset, but the first examples involve Bubby's large, mature mother and him together in bed.
- Also, when Bubby convinces Angel to show him her body in the shower, it's about her seeking validation that she is not as hideous as her abusive parents have always told her.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Zigzagged. The father of Bubby indeed arrives after a very long absence. However Bubby is kept in an apartment by lies and regularly abused by his mother. The father is not kind to him either. It is just that his arrival destroys the chancery of lies created by his mother and soon after the father appears Bubby makes his escape.
- Hikikomori: Bubby's mother appears to have no social life whatsoever.
- Also applies to Bubby, due to his mother not allowing him to leave the apartment for any reason.
- Manchild: Bubby is 35 but has the mind of kindergartner.
- Mind Rape: That's how the mother keeps Bubby in the decrepit apartment. She tells him horrible stories about the outside world.
- No Social Skills: Due to spending his entire life with only his crazy mother for company, Bubby has no idea how to behave in the real world.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: The apparent rationalization used by the carol singer Bubby meets, and possibly by his abusive mother as well.
- Pet the Dog: The cat is the only friend for Bubby in his confinement.
- In an equally dark way, this is how some of the people Bubby meets seem to view their relationship with him.
- Prison Rape: When Bubby ends up in a rough county jail, he is taken advantage of.
- Random Events Plot: After Bubby leaves his improvised confinement in the family home and wanders through Australian society with no plan, one event seems to follow another.
- Self-Made Orphan: Bubby accidentally kills his awful parents by smothering them with clingwrap.
- Squick: An awful lot of unpleasant situations involving incest and forms of sexual abuse are integral to the plot, covered elsewhere on this page.
- A Threesome Is Hot: Subverted: one is arranged for Bubby as a thank-you by the band he joins, but he isn't really interested, as neither of the women are busty enough to remind him of his mother.
- Two-Act Structure:
- The first part of the film show's Bubby's life with his mother.
- The second part shows him escaping his mother's house and trying to adapt to the wider world.
- Unnamed Parent: The parents are called only Mam and Pop.
