Drama Queen

Oh, why did you have to choose such horrid pictures of me? Everyone will just laugh at me now! My life is RUINED!!!

"Of all the worst things that could happen, this is THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!!"

— Rarity (on three occasions in one episode^note She actually means it the third time.), My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "Lesson Zero"

I would just die of a shattered heart if you didn't Describe Drama Queen Here!

Characters who act dramatically a lot of the time, or at least when they have little reason to.

Whether it's Fainting, hysterics, acting like they are in a second rate drama, or hyperbole to the point of bursting from it, the characters just live to be over-dramatic, even to the point of Chewing the Scenery and being a Large Ham. They also love Wangst and the tropes overlap.

Even if not everything is a crisis, when it is a crisis, it is more important than anything else could possibly be. They could be in the hospital, but who cares about the guy with the broken leg? They have a hangnail!

Although this is usually Played for Laughs, the term actually started as a nickname for Histrionic personality disorder. Yet over time, people would use the term, even about themselves, to describe people who were just being dramatic all the time. Darker examples are usually deeply unpleasant people who are continually at the epicenter of something that they swear they didn't create or invite (though a casual examination will reveal that they either caused or substantially fed into it), habitually blaming others for their own terrible choices, dragging anyone unfortunate enough to be on the sidelines into the mire, and generally living incredibly messy lives with no insight into how they got that way; what little insight they do gain typically either results in an Ignored Epiphany or is only used as an opportunity to grandstand for attention. As the saying goes, "if it smells like shit everywhere you go, check your shoes", and people who continually find themselves surrounded by chaos and strife are seldom blameless.

Teens, particularly teenage girls, are sometimes portrayed this way, often overlapping with Bratty Teenage Daughter. But this trope isn't exclusive to women. Guys can do this a lot as well, but this term is still used to describe them (occasionally the terms "Drama King" or "Drama Prince" are used, but they haven't caught on).

A Sub-Trope of Melodrama, Chewing the Scenery.

A Sister Trope to Attention Whore, Large Ham, The Prima Donna, Comical Overreacting.

Compare It's All About Me, Sickly Neurotic Geek (who overdramatizes things in other ways), Hair-Trigger Temper (who oozes anger instead of drama, though there can be overlap), Jewish Mother (who oozes guilt trips), Psycho Ex-Girlfriend, Wangst, Angst Dissonance, and Hysterical Woman.

Contrast The Stoic (who genuinely avoids drama), Stepford Smiler (who has plenty of reason to be dramatic but isn't).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Devilman: Lala, the demon who takes the form of a teenage girl. She cries if she's hurt in the slightest or if she doesn't get what she wants. On one occasion, she paused to do her makeup before resuming crying.
• Fairy Tail: While he doesn't do it too often, Happy has a tendency to respond to situations by running off in tears, including Natsu deciding to cook a fish (without first offering him any of it raw), having a mushroom grow out of his head after having laughed at the same thing happening to Natsu and Gray, or simply being called "little" by Lucy.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers: France is very prone to dramatic freakouts whenever distraught over something (for example, when the other Allied Powers are in a meeting without him), which often include Chewing the Scenery and Biting the Handkerchief.
• Ouran High School Host Club: Tamaki acts extremely emotional if anything sets him off enough. He has to lie down on a comfy bed when told how the Lobelia academy works.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Team Rocket's Jessie is the most prominent one, but the Terrible Trio all can be ridiculously dramatic at times. Whether it finding a bottle cap, losing Pikachu, or being told that they are the lucky Flaming Moltres, expect Team Rocket to make a big deal out of it by Chewing the Scenery. It's mostly the reason why they're so loved despite being so ineffective.
  • Some rivals that Ash's friends faced are giant drama queens themselves, making a big, overdramatic deal out of the protagonist for the audacity of competing against them, let alone winning, and they make it their goal to bring misery to Ash's friends for the pettiest of reasons. Harley, Ursala, Burgundy, and Georgia are biggest examples.

Comic Books

• The Joker from Batman lore is well-known for his over-the-top antics. That includes the multiple times he feigns innocence as well.
• In The Powerpuff Girls story "Drama-O-Rama" (DC issue #48), Sedusa stages a reality TV show in Townsville, knowing that everyone will be so busy hamming it up for the cameras that she'll be able to rob the city blind. The Powerpuff Girls are not immune—Blossom proudly announces that she is a drama queen, although she gets pre-empted by Bubbles and her crying.
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Liz has an outburst when Kong talks too much about Spider-Man. Mary Jane dismisses her as a mere drama queen.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin. Largely due to being a sheltered, middle-class, six-year old, he massively overreacts to incredibly minor misfortunes or just whines about total non-problems just for the sake of complaining, because he doesn't have many genuine issues to worry about.
  • Throwing a falling-down, physically draining temper tantrum when Hobbes beats him at checkers.
  • Getting a shot at the doctor and screaming as if the doctor stabbed him, threatening a malpractice lawsuit.
  • Threatening to become a psychopath when he grows up because his parents make him go to bed at eight o'clock.
  • Endlessly complaining during a family walk around the neighborhood through the snow, ranting about how he's going to freeze to death, not even noticing when they actually arrive home — at which point he immediately cheers up.
• Garfield:
  • He freaks out whenever there's not enough food in the house for his tastes. When Jon ran out of candy bars, Garfield ran around wild-eyed and demanded that someone appoint a committee to address the crisis.
  • Jon, too, sometimes: "I touched seaweed!"

Fan Works

• Child of the Storm has Harry specifically referred to as one by Carol in the sequel (the exact line is, "Oh my God, you total fucking drama queen"), and over time throughout the series, he goes from being more reserved to, when pushed, vacillating between Cold Ham and Large Ham. It's usually a sign that he's feeling confident, and/or that he's just had enough and is snapping.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • As noted in "Western Animation", Rarity does this so often that Derpibooru, the fandom's largest image host, actually has a Marshmelodrama tag for pictures of Rarity overreacting to things.
  • Nosflutteratu: Rarity's epic retelling of how Fluttershy came to be a vampire involves a puppet show and dramatic lighting. After all, "What's the point of telling a story like that if you don't make it into an experience?"
  • RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: As in the show, the Flower Trio are prone to over-the-top dramatics when something goes wrong. And then inverted when they get a dose of Poison Joke, which first turns them into over the top Surfer Dudes with No Indoor Voice, then the complete opposite of their normal personality. Watching the later has Cheerilee suggest, ethics aside, it might be an idea to keep them that way, if only for the sake of their blood pressure.
  • The Twilight Child: Averted in one instance with Rarity, who runs out of taffeta while in the middle of designing a dress. Spike and the pony she's designing the dress for brace themselves for a freak out, and Rarity declares it... annoying. She then goes to look around her stores for spare taffeta. Played with later on in regards to an older version of Rarity. Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rarity's daughter are talking when they hear Rarity scream in another room. Her daughter just calmly waits, before announcing that since she didn't hear a thump, she's not worried.
• Rise of the Guardians fanfiction often portrays Pitch Black as this. It's not entirely unjustified given his personality.
• A Snake Named Voldemort: Harry calls snake-Voldemort one when the latter objects to being coddled.
• Kamikakushi has Izuna, who monologues during katas, makes dramatic pauses in his speech and uses euphemisms to enhance the drama of the moment. He also sulks when Tobirama fails to adhere to the drama of the moment.
• Aunt Salem: Played for Laughs. Raven Branwen shamelessly calls herself a "messy bitch who lives for drama," and kidnaps Jaune despite knowing it will piss off everyone in order to prove to Salem that Raven is the true "Bitch Queen of Remnant."
  Raven: Before you dropped into my lap, I was just going to travel to Vale to visit the daughter I abandoned and be mysterious and distant to her! Maybe I'll still do it—even promise her some "answers" and then ghost her for another decade!
• In the Punch-Out!! fanfic Let Me Warm Your Heart, Narcis Prince acts very melodramatic over having a cold/mild hypothermia and weeps over having Sickness Equals Redness, as if he would never look the same again.

Films — Animation

• Howl's Moving Castle:
  • Howl is this in spades. He summons the spirits of darkness because his hair was dyed the wrong color. And apparently, the last time he summoned them, it was because his girlfriend dumped him.
    Howl: I see no point in living if I can't be beautiful.
  • These incidents were taken directly from the book, though things are a bit subverted there: Howl genuinely is a Drama Queen but exploits this over the course of the book to distract and manage Sophie, like everybody else is doing.
• Shrek 2: Queen Lillian calls King Harold a "drama king" when he complains about his son-in-law being an ogre.
• In Turning Red, part of the reason Ming gets away with a lot of her antics is that she always responds disproportionately, and no one wants to deal with her. She has a reputation for dramatics, as seen with Devon in the Daisy Mart, so most of the locals put up with it rather than point out she's making herself look ridiculous or responding to her statements. When she does cause property damage, however, she has to raise $100 million to pay for the damages and avoid a prison sentence.

Films — Live-Action

• Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen: Mary "Lola" Steppe is always prone to getting dramatic a lot, hence she's the titular drama queen.

Literature

• Earth's Children:
  • Jondalar can be this at his worst. He tends to feel things very intensely and sometimes reacts dramatically to situations if he's particularly stressed out, raging, crying and occasionally engaging in a bit of Percussive Therapy.
  • Crozie in The Mammoth Hunters has a habit of going into hysterics when she's upset; whenever she and her son-in-law Frebec get into arguments she often starts shrieking that he's intentionally trying to drive her out or even kill her. This backfires on her when she tries it with Talut and Tulie; when Tulie says Frebec is welcome to leave if he doesn't like it here, Crozie begins lamenting that now Frebec has gotten them all thrown out (referring to herself, her pregnant daughter and granchildren). Talut sharply tells Crozie that the Lion Camp would never cast out an old woman, a heavily-pregnant woman and her children, and that he finds it insulting she would even insinuate they would. Crozie has enough shame to shut up, as she was only looking for an excuse to criticize her son-in-law again rather than making serious accusations.
• Gone with the Wind: Scarlet's Aunt "Pittypat" was prone to overreaction and fainting, to the point where people even snap at her to stop fainting.
• Jeeves and Wooster: Bertie Wooster, frequently. On being forced to sing at a "clean, bright entertainment":
  Bertie Wooster: I have been subjected to a nervous strain unparalleled since the days of the early Martyrs. I have lost pounds in weight and permanently injured my entire system. I have gone through an ordeal, the recollection of which will make me wake up screaming in the night for months to come...
• Harry Potter: Draco Malfoy.
  '‘I’m dying!’ Malfoy yelled, as the class panicked. ‘I’m dying, look at me! It’s killed me!’
• The In Death series: Divided in Death has young Chloe McCoy, who is this trope, due to her lover Blair Bissel's death. She gets murdered by Blair Bissel later, and he staged it to look like suicide.
• Jane Austen also hilariously lampshades this in an early published work titled Love And Freindship [sic]. One scene revolves around two girls who are at home when a wounded soldier shows up at their door. They both freak out, but there's only room for one on their fainting couch, so they agree to take turns.
• The Dinosaur Lords: Fion cries and goes into hysterics over her issues of choice (which are often serious, but she really should've noticed them sooner), but only when somebody can see her, and increasing in intensity when she's losing the attention of onlookers.
• The Queen's Thief: The titular thief makes it clear early on that while he has a propensity for overreacting and dramatics he's usually using them for misdirection, which is why the reader should cue in earlier than other characters that his injury when attacked at court is actually quite serious when he complains about it loudly and at length but hides it from his aides and wife while leaving the room.
• Nina Tanleven: In The Ghost in the Third Row, actress Lydia Crane is one who goes into a fright multiple times when she claims to have seen the ghost of Lily Larkin. It’s all an act. Also discussed when Gwendolyn Meyer, the play's producer, goes into a rant about actresses falling into this and how she's sick and tired of it.
• Rebuild World: A villainess, Chloe, makes over the top laughing and smiling gestures taunting Akira, but most notably, any time things don't go her way, she collapses into the arms of her servants acting like she can barely walk. Since Chloe is an incompetent negotiator (despite being an executive of a MegaCorp), this happens a lot.
• Renegades: Honey is prone to dramatically overreacting and going into outright histrionics when things don't suit her. She gets better after her group is chased out of the tunnels under the city, suggesting it was her way of coping with cabin fever.
• "From the Diary of a New York Lady" by Dorothy Parker adopts the first-person perspective of a spoiled rich socialite who loves to Emphasize EVERYTHING about her tawdry personal life. Her personal opinions on anything rarely stray too far from the extremes of "too marvelous" and "couldn't be worse." The story's subtitle, "During Days of Horror, Despair, and World Change" ironically contrast with her belief that "I really have the most horrible things happen to me of anybody in the entire world."
• Cradle Series: Min Shuei, the Winter Sage and one of the most powerful people in the world, wears her emotions openly and loudly. Yerin says she once saw her cry at the sight of a storm that was just "too beautiful."

Live-Action TV

• The Brady Bunch: Marcia Brady is slightly less extreme than other examples, but she could wax hysterical with the best of them. Prime examples include her reaction to her missing trophies in "Her Sister's Shadow" and her anger at Alan for breaking their date in "Brace Yourself".
• Cheers: Diane Chambers is often one, when she gets going.
  Diane: How could you? After all we've been through...! What we had together was real—and special—and now you've...cheapened it for—all eternity—by broadcasting to the entire Boston Metropolitan Area!—that I was...nothing but—an odalisque! In your...seraglio!
• Desperate Housewives calls Susan Meyer this trope by name in Season Three, when a trail guide calls her out on how her Drama Queen tendencies ruin her relationships because she can never just appreciate what she has and always creates her own problems because she needs the excitement. Susan's response to this is to storm off in the mountains without the guide, get lost and twists her ankle and then needs Mike to rescue her. Over the course of the show, Susan always ends up getting embroiled in nearly every season's arc because she cannot stop herself sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong.
• Frasier:
  • Interestingly enough, Diane's special appearance briefly shows her seemingly invoking Rarity — before Rarity even existed.
    Diane:OH, it's not that!—It's my WHOLE LIFE! It's RUINED!!!
  • Both Frasier and Niles often act like this. Every situation that could make them look bad to Society is a reason to act like it's the end of the world.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): Lestat de Lioncourt is a Large Ham with a volatile personality who likes to raise a ruckus whenever the mood strikes him. In a podcast, Sam Reid delineates his character's histrionic temperament.
  Interviewer: There are times where we're almost getting the Drag Queen-level of drama from Lestat.
  Reid: Absolutely, yeah.
  Interviewer: He wants you and everybody in a ten-mile radius to know when he's mad.
  Reid: Yeah, absolutely. It's drama, he loves drama. [...] If he wants to create a bit of drama, he'll create a bit of drama. If he wants to be really seductive in a moment and then flip it and be really ugly, he will. He does what he wants, whenever he wants, and he'll make sure that everyone is watching him do it because he knows he looks great doing it. He's a super vain guy.
  • In the extended Season 2 trailer, Armand compares Lestat's unpredictable behaviour and turbulent mindset to a hurricane.
    Armand: There was no scripting Lestat. You cannot script a hurricane.
• Monk: In the episode "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," Natalie has one bout of this on the lottery set, which is done to demonstrate how much her personality has changed as a result of her becoming more and more distant from her duties to Monk.
• Riverdale: Cheryl Blossom is absolutely shameless about being addicted to drama. She called out Jughead in the middle of school in a clear invocation of soap opera tropes, warned her father that the cops were coming to get a good one-liner in, and burned down her own house and later attempted to drown herself for the fire/water dualism.
• Schitt's Creek: As befits a White-Dwarf Starlet Large Ham with No Indoor Voice who undergoes Riches to Rags at the start of the series, Moira Rose positively wallows in melodrama. The Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, loopy accent, and wildly over-dressing in haute couture while living in a small rural town is just gravy.
• Scrubs: Elliot is a self-confessed drama queen. There's also an episode titled "My Drama Queen" dedicated to J.D.'s new girlfriend.
  Elliot: She's a drama queen, J.D.! When her husband was in a coma, it was all, like, taboo and exciting; but now that it's okay for the two of you to be together, the relationship's got no snap... it's got no crackle. J.D... It's got no pop. I know! Because I'm a drama queen, too!
• Sherlock: Sherlock is a Manchild / Insufferable Genius combo, and so addicted to stimulation that he puts bullets in the walls of his own flat when he's bored. After two and a half seasons of this behavior, John has this to say:
  John Watson: You are not a puzzle-solver, you never have been. You're a drama queen! Now there is a man in there about to die, "the game is on", SOLVE IT!
• Newman in Seinfeld takes it to almost Shakespearean levels. His reaction to eating broccoli is memorable.
  "VILE WEED!"
• Sex and the City has Carrie Bradshaw, who will always pick the exciting, tumultuous relationship over the boring, safe one because she doesn't know what to do in a stable one, which is the root of her Love Triangle with Aidan and Big. She once went through a man's apartment because she couldn't find any character flaws in him and started obsessing over what he was hiding - he promptly dumped her because she was too crazy for him.

Music

• The subject of "End of Me" by Apocalyptica.
  Can't resist poisoning the message
  Just a narcissist trapped inside the wreckage
  And the sympathy I had is gone
  Deadened by the ceremony
  Drama queen,
  Stand behind your empire
  As your kingdom falls
• Avril Lavigne identifies herself as such in "The Best Damn Thing".
  Me, I'm a scene, I'm a drama queen
• Emilie Autumn has this bit of Self-Deprecation in "Shalott":
  And she cried out, "So the story fits but then, I could have guessed it all along and now some drama queen is gonna write a song for me."
• The subject of Family Force 5's "Drama Queen."
• "Drama Club" by Melanie Martinez, among other meanings, is a "The Reason You Suck" Speech directed at those: they always find reasons to feel offended and actually feign all their supposed feelings to attract attention.
• Mentioned in Soul Asylum's song "Misery".
  Put me out of my misery, all you suicide kings and you drama queens.
• Eminem has described himself as a "drama king" and "the Drama Setter", due to his habit of catastrophising his problems, gratuitously starting shit with anyone who winds him up, and engaging in horrific acts of Muse Abuse to shame his family and friends.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: Harriet Conklin is overemotional in early episodes.
  • In "Game at Clay City" she emotionally describes her relationship with Walter Denton thusly:
    Harriet: Walter isn't a real happy heartthrob, but he's good for a heartache or two!
  • In "Student Government Day," Harriet Conklin is elected "Mayor for a Day." At the assembly, in front of the mayor, she emotionally rails against municipal corruption. Later on, she berates a policeman by reciting the Constitution.
  • In "Stretch Has A Problem" she's fit-to-burst when she thinks Walter needs her at his side during the State Basketball Championship. She doesn't miss a beat when she finds out its actually Stretch Snodgrass.
  • In "Walter v. Stretch Grudge Match," Harriet instigates the said grudge match and then panics before the fight begins.
  • In "Poetry Mixup" and "Bones, Son of Cyrano," Harriet is ecstatic thinking she received a love note from Mr. Boynton.

Theatre

• Little Shop of Horrors: The acting script notes that Audrey should be played in a melodramatic way—not because she's being subversive or trying to parody the genre, but because she sincerely feels the emotions she expresses and "sees the world as her personal B-movie".
• The Children's Hour: Mary, the Enfant Terrible who starts the Malicious Slander that ruins her teachers lifes and drives one to suicide. She's constantly overreacting, pretending to be sweet, and crying over everything.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Origins: Taken to its highest point with the Joker. During his first therapy session with Dr. Harleen Quinzel , he goes through a dramatic monologue about how Batman ruined his life and caused him to become who he is. Of course, this is also a part of his Multiple-Choice Past method of feigning innocence, but he still gains credit for its theatrical performance.
• Dante's Inferno: Out of all characters, the devil Lucifer himself goes on a tangent about how God ruined his life for banishing him into Hell and caused him to be Driven to Villainy because of this action. As always, Lucifer blames everyone else for his suffering instead of seeing how evil he really is.
• King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow: Make that "Drama Prince"! Alexander sure acts like one while he is feigning suicide in front of Shamir Shamazel and the Pawn Shop Owner.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Demon Lord Ghirahim spends every scene he's in being as scenery-chewingly campy as possible, particularly in the English dub. In his very first meeting with Link, he throws a violent temper tantrum when he realizes he can't get his hands on Zelda, and only gets more dramatic as his repeated defeats reveal the true, sadistic monster underneath.
  Ghirahim: Do you have any idea how that made me feel inside? Furious! Outraged! Sick with anger!
• Planescape: Torment: Fhjull Fork-Tongue, a greater devil is bound by a deal with an angel to do charitable deeds. Though he can't reject any requests, he can evade volunteering aid, and then whine, guilt-trip, and passive-aggressively insult over every request he's obligated to comply with.
• Street Fighter X Tekken has different animations for the men and girls when the team is defeated. Males seem to keep to themselves but the girls appear to be making a big deal out of it before jumping off to follow the opponents.

Web Animation

• Animated Inanimate Battle has an example with a male character. To be specific, Filmy treats every moment of his life as if it is a big twist of tragedy from a five-star dramatic movie.
• AstroLOLogy: Pisces has a tendency to react overdramatically to many things. Something as simple as saying goodbye to Capricorn as she takes a bus home, cutting her finger, or the loss of her phone becomes a spectacle for her.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device:
  • Whenever Magnus's Insufferable Genius is offended, he starts acting in a theatrical and overblown manner, comparing everything to an incoming end of the universe.
  • Belial always sounds like he's about to break into tears and treats everything being said as a proof that nobody loves him.

Web Comics

• Ménage à 3: Sonya's main motivation for doing pretty much anything is to increase the drama in her life, so she can play some exciting role. Indeed, her description on the comic's cast page describes her sexual orientation as "dramasexual" — she's actually turned on by drama.
• The Order of the Stick: Julio Scoundrél (Good Version) AND General Tarquin (Evil Version). Both try to make their major actions as dramatic as possible, even though it sometimes screws up their plans and makes things miserable for their allies. Julio satisfies his desire to be an action hero by causing massive chaos and rushing in at the last moment to save everyone. Tarquin... kills a LOT of people with black-humor snarking to look up to Darth Vader.
• Selkie: Selkie gets called one by a new student, denying it vehemently.
  Giselle: "I rule with an iron fist." Literally you. Literally two minutes ago.
  Selkie: Stays outs of this, Marquez!
• Sticky Dilly Buns: The Camp Gay title character, Dillon, sometimes lurches this way, possibly manipulatively — as here. Also, the nerdy Ruby is a tightly-wound neurotic who reacts to many provocations by yelling, unintentionally increasing the drama levels.
• UC: Iku lives and breathes drama. For her, if something can be complained about it should be complained about at the top of her lungs with waving arms for emphasis. At one point she even started complaning to the author that both she and Kelsi have the same color highlights.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe: A side effect of the Exemplar powerset^note which buffs nearly every normal human ability to superhuman levels, while also turning the mutant into their personal ideal of their perfect body is "Hercules Syndrome": in short, their emotions are tweaked along with everything else, giving them a Hair-Trigger Temper and making self-control in general more difficult. The fact that about a quarter of all mutants have some degree of this trait goes far in explaining why there are so many teenaged Drama Queens at the eponymous Superhero School, Whateley Academy.

Web Videos

• This is the basic premise of the Meme Hitler Rants videos from Downfall, by having Hitler fly off the handle over just about anything.
• Hippolyte Kurtzmann from Flander's Company can easily go into overreacting heights. He's called on it once by his co-workers (when faking a cardiac arrest after learning the whole supervillain database has crashed) but he responds without shame that when things are that bad he's fully entitled to be a Drama Queen.
• French-Italian YouTuber Tess Masazza's videos often parody the behaviour of a certain kind of women when something does not go their way. There is a reason why the description of her YouTube channel is: "All the drama ladies, all the drama ladies! Now put your hands up! Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!"
• Escape the Night: Tyler from season two has a constant Oh, Crap! expression on his face whenever the group is in trouble. Tyler himself even admits to being one, calling his reactions upon seeing something unnatural or possibly dangerous to be ‘not pretty’.
• Siberian Huskies have this reputation on pet groomer channels like Girl With The Dogs, due to the fact that they often act like they're dying during the process of grooming.

Western Animation

• Arthur: Arthur's sister D.W tends to make a huge production out of what's happening to her at the time. Whenever she's involved, things need to go her way and always need to be about her. One time she ate a green potato chip and upon being told that it was poisonous, acted like she was going to die. It's worth remembering that she's four years old, though. It's not exactly uncommon for small children to be like this.
• The Crumpets: Caprice cries immediately when thinking she's not liked by her family or social media in "Going Viral" and "A Grave Affair", and in "Sound The Alarm" when she realizes the text messages she had sent to her boyfriend are typo-ridden.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: Edd is a rare male example. He can tend to overreact over the simplest things, being a Neat Freak and all. Case in point, in "Out With the Old, In With the Ed", he broke down crying when he forgot the paperclips for his school supplies. Rolf even describes him as "He who laments at the drop of a hat".
• Futurama: This is Bender's stated reason for panicking like all the others when faced by danger, even though his backup unit makes him functionally immortal.
• Harley Quinn: Stephanie, Clayface's college girl disguise/alter-ego (he gets really into character) is one, to the degree that the already hammy Clayface gets even hammier when in-character as her. Given that Clayface normally ruins his disguises through overacting, his ability to consistently stay in character as Stephanie (even during O.O.C. Is Serious Business moments) leads Harley to call it one of his finest performances.
• Hey Arnold!: Despite putting on a tough exterior, even Helga G. Pataki has her moments. This is extensively displayed in episodes such as "Das Subway", when the subway breaks down and Helga automatically fears the worst.
  Helga: WE'RE ALL GONNA STARVE TO DEATH AND GET EATEN BY RATS!!
• Let's Go Luna!: Señor Fabuloso is a major drama king. In "Hola Mariachi", Senor Fabuloso overreacts upon finding out that the band has the hiccups and are unable to perform.
• Bobby Santiago in The Loud House and The Casagrandes can best be described as a drama king. More than once, he over-reacted about getting a splinter in his finger, and, in "The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos," he and Lori (herself a Drama Queen) cried their eyes out about being away from each other even though they thought it was only going to be for the weekend.
• Miraculous Ladybug: Hawk Moth gives off this vibe at times. For example, during the Season 2 finale's climactic battle, his first order is to tell Guitar Villain and Frightningale to play some music... not in The Power of Rock sense, he just figured that this battle needed a cool soundtrack. This is especially hilarious when you compare him to his alter-ego, The Stoic Gabriel Agreste.
• Molly of Denali: In "Herring Eggs or Bust," Molly dramatically bids goodbye to herring eggs when told she can't go to Sitka.
  Molly: This is me saying goodbye to my favorite food on the planet! My favorite food in the galaxy!!!
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has several such characters:
  • Rarity. She over-reacts so frequently and so spectacularly (even using her unicorn magic to summon her fainting couch) that the local avatar of chaos eventually makes fun of her for it. At one point, she even manages to be a drama queen while writing a letter! ... but on the other hand, she's also been able to turn it to her advantage on several occasions, such as when she was kidnapped by the Diamond Dogs and pretty much took over the group by annoying them into submission.
  • Twilight Sparkle's sanity is not quite where it should be, and her Obsessively Organized tendacies can easily develop into Drama Queen tendencies, especially when things start getting out of control. It's potentially contagious, too.
    Rarity: What a drama queen. [Beat] Relatively speaking.
  • Rainbow Dash has Drama Queen tendencies, but normally she's too cool to give in to them. Still, she has had a moment or two of this, such as this line from the episode "Bats!":
    Rainbow Dash: Think of the cider! Won't somepony please think of the cider!
  • Princess Luna, in her first appearances outside the first season, is impetuous and self-confident, very emotionally sensitive, very difficult to educate, and about a thousand years behind the times.
  • Trixie turns out to be one in the Friends Forever comic series.
  • The flower trio (Roseluck, Daisy, and Lily Valley) give this impression when we first meet them in "Applebuck Season", fainting and screaming "the horror, the horror" in response to a herd of rabbits eating their gardens. They're at it again (with the same act) in "Slice of Life" when Derpy tells them that she put the wrong date on the invitations for a wedding they were providing flowers for. And one final time when Lily Valley notices a broken stem on one of the flowers, all while a monster is destroying Ponyville.
• Ready Jet Go!: Jet is this in the episode "Jet's Time Machine". He builds a time machine, and he wants to go back in time because the previous weekend, he ate a delicious pie and forgot to ask for seconds. Then he makes a big deal over it.
  "How could I have been so foolish?
• The Simpsons: A male example, Homer Simpson tends to be one sometimes.
  • In "Funeral for a Fiend", Dame Judith Underdunk, Sideshow Bob's mother, acts like one, just moments after her husband's "fake death" IV has fully taken effect on their son's body. Justified, since she is a Shakespearian actress herself.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Squidward calls Pearl this in one episode. And boy, does it show!
  • Squidward also calls Mr. Krabs one in "Clams". Like father, like daughter.
  • SpongeBob himself is a drama king as well. He once cried over being a minute late to his job at the Krusty Krab.
• White Diamond is this in Steven Universe: The Movie. She acts like an overbearing grandmother with nothing better to do but try to coddle Steven and wedge herself into his life against his wishes.
  White Diamond: But Steven! It's been soooo boring since you've left. [sobbing] I guess we'll just waiiit for you to visit us wheneeeeeever you'reeee reaaaaaady~
• Total Drama has three such characters.
  • Courtney acts as one from the second half of Action on. An particularly egregious example of this behavior is when she breaks up with Duncan for the last time in "The EX-Files", dumping a bowl of spaghetti on his head and throwing an outright tantrum in the Total Drama Plane's cafeteria.
  • Blaineley tries to act like one; however, it comes off more as Large Ham.
  • Because of her fame mongering, Dakota can act as one occasionally.
• Winx Club: Stella tends to get upset at the most trivial of things sometimes.
• Work It Out Wombats!: Mr. E tends to get melodramatic over the smallest things. In "Helper For the Day", Mr. E starts crying Ocular Gushers when he finds out that Duffy was unhappy with her purchase, thinking that it will ruin his reputation.
  Mr. E: [gasps] You're unhappy with your purchase? W-what? H-how? That never happens! An unhappy customer is a BLOT on my record, a STAIN on my reputation, a SPLOTCH on my standing in the community! [sobs]

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