Funeral Banishment

"The world lost a hero, but we lost a son."

"When I die, you stay away from my funeral."

— Squidward, to SpongeBob, SpongeBob SquarePants, "Just One Bite"

Funerals often bring out strong feelings in someone, be it grief, regret, confusion, a sense of duty, indifference, or even relief.

Unfortunately, something may have been done during the deceased one's life by another person or persons that may have caused a falling out, and it may be so bad that they may not be allowed to attend their funeral due to either the loved ones barring them from attending or the decedent making some sort of declaration prior to their death about some not being allowed to come. It can also extend to those who may show up at the funeral and stay, but whose presence is clearly not welcome, be it those around them who feel this and/or they feel this way themselves.

While this is usually a dramatic or sad trope, it can also be Played for Laughs if someone makes a dark request in the heat of the moment for someone not to attend their funeral (regardless if they're actively dying or not).

Related to Last Disrespects. Can be a rather specific form of Get Out!. This could possibly invoke a feeling of Never Got to Say Goodbye. If plenty of people are ultimately barred from the event, then it could end up a Lonely Funeral. This is obviously Truth in Television.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• In The Death of Superman Clark Kent's adoptive parents Jonathan and Martha Kent aren't able to attend his funeral as the world doesn't know about Superman's secret identity and only famous people and other major superheroes are allowed to attend. They end up having to watch it on television.

Films — Live-Action

• Captain Fantastic: The plot of the film is kickstarted when the protagonist's father-in-law prohibits him and his children from attending his wife's funeral, but they decide to come anyway.
• In the Chilean film A Fantastic Woman Marina's partner Orlando dies of an aneurysm. His entire family (who disapproved of him for having a relationship with a transwoman) gives Marina a hard time, including taking Orlando's dog from Marina and evicting her from the apartment they shared. His estranged wife tells Marina to stay away from the funeral. Marina attends the wake and the ex orders her to go.
• In Prince of the City, Danny Ciello works as an undercover cop, exposing corrupt policemen, lawyers, and mobsters. Eventually, his cousin, who is in the mob, is killed for his association with Danny. Danny is not allowed in the funeral home. His father is sympathetic. His brother...not so much.
• In The First Wives Club, After a very publicized divorce that led to her suicide, Cynthia's former husband Gil and his new wife show up at her funeral to many people's chagrin, especially Brenda's. When Annie tries to allay her worries citing how she doesn't know what he's really feeling, he is seen playing with his current wife's breast.
• Hellboy (2004): While not formally kept from the procession, Hellboy is unable to attend the funeral of his adoptive father, due to his inhuman appearance, and can only watch it from a distance.
• Knives Out: Harlan Thrombey was extremely close to his nurse Marta, to the point that he named her as his sole inheritor. Despite this, when Harlan dies his surviving family doesn't invite her to the funeral, only allowing family members to attend. Humorously, most of the family members Marta talks to claim that she's "basically part of the family" and that they wanted to invite her but got "outvoted".

Literature

• Artemis Fowl - The Opal Deception: At the end, while Holly has been deemed innocent of the charges placed against her, Ark Sool still prohibits her from attending the funeral of Commander Root, an act that infuriates Holly enough to tell Sool Take This Job and Shove It straight to his face.
• Jumper: After David's Missing Mom is murdered in a terrorist attack shortly after they reconnected and started repairing their relationship, his abusive father who drove her away shows up at her funeral. David is furious, jumps him back to his house, and then returns and tells anyone who asks that his dad "left".
• In the YA novel Tangerine, Paul's older brother Eric beats up Paul's friend Tino after Tino makes fun of him. Later, at Eric's football practice, Tino's older brother Luis comes to confront Eric about this. Eric orders his lackey to hit Luis in the head with a homemade blackjack. The blow gives Luis an aneurism, and he dies a few days later (but not before telling his family what happened). Paul knows what happened because he saw the whole thing, and Tino told all of his friends. As a result, even though they all know Paul didn't do anything, Tino requests that Paul not attend the funeral.

Live-Action TV

• An American Justice episode had the best friend of a young woman who was murdered by her mentally ill and abusive father be barred from attending her funeral. While sympathetic other family members attempted to sneak her in to pay her respects prior to the event, her father still catches wind of the friend's presence and kicks her out.
• In Cold Case episode "Honor", a 1970s former POW returns home after five years of imprisonment during the Vietnam War. Due to the circumstances of his detainment (where he was forced to disavow his country and his fellow troops to stop his torment and go home), he is shunned when he tries to attend the funeral of his best friend, another serviceman whose death several of his fellow soldiers and former friends blame him for. He winds up accidentally killed by the man's teenage son.
• Subverted on Coronation Street. In 2004, shortly after the death of his newborn son Billy, Todd Grimshaw (and to a lesser extent, his mother Eileen and brother Jason) was expected to stay away from the funeral due to feuding with his former fiancée and the child's bereaved mother, Sarah Platt, and her angry family. While he does eventually show up and many of the guests are shocked or grimace in response, Sarah's kid brother David shouts at him to leave and blames him for the death (as he had just come out as gay and was carrying on an affair with another man, which severely stressed Sarah out, albeit the pregnancy was already risky). While his family members broke up the fight, the Grimshaw family was allowed to stay as the other mourners gave them their privacy to say goodbye.
• The George Lopez Show: In "Mementos", George reads the will of his late father Manny and learns that he wants him and Benny to stay as far away from his funeral as possible, as he doesn't want the public to know he had a child out of wedlock with a 16-year-old before leaving them and becoming a successful businessman.
• The Golden Girls:
  • Played for Laughs in the episode "The Heart Attack." Sophia (who believes that she is dying of a heart attack) requests to Dorothy not to allow an aunt to attend her funeral, citing how she will make the whole thing about herself. Subverted as she neither was dying nor was having a heart attack, but rather a gallbladder attack from eating too much.
  • Discussed in "An Accurate Conception." When Blanche's daughter Rebecca admits that she's going to be artificially inseminated to have a baby, Blanche orders her to wait for both her and her friends are all dead, claiming that "the last thing I need is whispering at my funeral!"
  • The trope is Played for Drama in "Ebbtide." Blanche gets a call from her father Big Daddy about coming to visit, but she's too interested in a festival she's organizing to go and blow him off—only to learn that Big Daddy was actually quite sick and wanted to see her before he died. When he does pass away, Blanche travels to Atlanta, where her sister Virginia calls her out for her selfishness and refusal to be there for her family, heavily insinuating that she shouldn't be at the funeral. Blanche angrily declares that she won't go, which leads to her having to say goodbye to Big Daddy in private and in turn realizing that she has been selfish.
    Virginia: To tell you the truth, I'm surprised you even made it to the funeral at all.
    Blanche: Maybe you would be happier if I hadn't!
    Virginia: Maybe not happier—but at least this family would be able to grieve for Big Daddy without wondering what is in it for Blanche!
• It's a Sin: As the AIDS crisis takes hold, lovers and even friends of victims are shown being prevented from attending their funerals, either due to being barred or the funerals taking place in secret in order to exclude them.
• Only Fools and Horses: As "Class of 62" reveals, disgraced former police officer and all around loathsome scoundrel Roy Slater's father died whilst he was serving a sentence for smuggling, and his mother wrote to the prison, specifically to tell them not to let him out as they had both agreed previously that he was not welcome at the funeral.
• Skins: Following Chris' death, his friends are barred from attending his funeral by his father. In response, Tony and Sid steal his casket, before Jal convinces them to return it. In the end, all of his friends hold their own funeral for him on a hill overlooking the service overseen by his father.

Theatre

• In Evita, Eva holds a grudge against the middle classes due to her working-class family being hidden at the back of the mourners at her father's funeral by his middle-class legal family — Eva being an illegitimate daughter as Eva's mother was his mistress. This is based on a real event in the life of Eva Perón (then Eva Duarte) when her father died her family was only briefly allowed to pay respects on the day of the funeral but were escorted out of the actual church and not allowed at the ceremony.
  Augustín Magaldi: If you were rich or middle class...
  Eva Duarte: SCREW THE MIDDLE CLASSES! I WILL NEVER ACCEPT THEM! My father's other family were middle class...and we were kept out of sight...hidden from view...at his funeral!

Western Animation

• Discussed in the Bob's Burgers episode "The Ring (But Not Scary)". When his kids lose his anniversary present for Linda, the wedding ring he could not initially afford, Bob tells them they're not invited to his funeral, something the kids accept as even they know how badly they screwed up.
• Justice League: Downplayed in "Hereafter". Lex Luthor shows up to Superman's funeral uninvited, which causes a furious Lois to confront him and slap him for having the gall. But he's not actually banned, nor asked to leave.
• Played for Laughs in SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Just One Bite". Annoyed at SpongeBob pestering him to eat a Krabby Patty, Squidward finally acquiesced, but not before quipping, "When I die, you stay away from my funeral."

Real Life

• In the Brian Pillman episode of Dark Side of the Ring, Jim Ross briefly attended his funeral, as did a camera crew. While the crew tried to record his funeral as part of a Vince McMahon mandated storyline, Brian's older sister Linda specifically barred them from entering the ceremony. While Ross was able to say his private goodbyes, the cameras were not allowed.
• Before her 2014 death following a medical procedure, Joan Rivers barred both Adele and Michelle Obama, both of whom she had publicly criticized, from attending her funeral.
• Prior to losing his battle with brain cancer in 2018, John McCain made sure to invite former presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama to his funeral, but not his running mate on his failed 2008 presidential ticket, Sarah Palin, his 2008 presidential campaign advisors Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, or then-current President Trump, who had publicly disparaged him and his military career.
• Inverted at times with members of famous comedy teams or musical acts who didn't want to overshadow the ceremony:
  • Jerry Lewis made pains to very unobtrusively visit Dean Martin's funeral and did not allow himself to be seen or photographed while attending so as to not have the services overshadowed by the legacy of Martin and Lewis;
  • When Davy Jones died in 2012, the remaining members of The Monkees made a pact to stay away from the funeral so that the day would be focused on Davy and not on a Monkees reunion. They instead mourned their bandmate at a later private memorial service in Los Angeles.
  • Similarly, when Corey Haim passed away from pneumonia complications in 2010, his best friend Corey Feldman declined to attend his funeral out of respect to his family to not publicize his procession to the media.
  • After Chris Farley died in 1997, his Saturday Night Live co-star and best friend David Spade notably did not attend his funeral, saying "I just couldn't have gone into a room where Chris was in a box."
• Following her suicide in 2013, Tiffany Sedaris (sister of David and Amy) stipulated in her will that her entire family be banned from attending her funeral. (With the way she was treated by them as told by David's essays — particularly "Put A Lid on It" — you could hardly blame her.)
• Defied by counter-protestors of the Westboro Baptist Church. While members of the church would picket the funerals of various people whom they disapproved of, from fallen soldiers to members of the LGBTQ community, those against the church would set up their own picket lines to "block out" them or anyone else hoping to disrupt the event or disturb the mourners.
• After Dimebag Darrell's 2004 murder, former bandmate Phil Anselmo, whom he had a falling out with as well as his older brother Vinnie Paul and said in a magazine months earlier that he should receive a beating, was barred from attending his funeral by Vinnie and Darrell's longtime girlfriend Rita Haney. The latter even told him in a phone call that she would shoot him if he showed up.

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