Shamed by a Mob

"Burns, yer scurvy schemes will earn ye a one-way passage to the boneyard."

"MY SON WAS TORN TO PIECES! You come in here and talk to these men about private justice? You dare to do that? Why don't you go out to Harmony Hill, Sheriff Haller, and dig up what's left of my boy Brady... and explain to him about private justice. Would you want to do that?"

—Herb Kincaid, Silver Bullet

Some kinds of villains are so clearly undeserving of respect that the only appropriate response to them, after all that they have done, is for that cold stare and unforgiving tone they are so fond of using themselves to be directed back at them instead. Especially from a large group of characters all at the same time, since the dramatic impact of combining their hatred with the prior reason for it (at least to those who are familiar with the context) can create an especially epic feel, though in a darker and angrier way. This is doubly effective if the villain had very good publicity up to this point.

Sometimes the cold stare of the mob can be directed at good characters, whether they messed something up or are mistakenly believed to have done something they didn't.

Often overlaps with Shut Up, Hannibal!, because it's based on a similar theme. Also closely related to Humiliation Conga. The opposite of Shaming the Mob. Compare The Freelance Shame Squad, when a mob of onlookers laughs at a character's misfortune.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Happens to Kodai after his defeat in Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions.

Comic Books

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) issue #74 involves this when the freedom fighters discover Robotnik running an outer space sweatshop after they all thought he was dead. Their anger towards him provides two if not three Shut Up, Hannibal! moments in a row, as well as the page image for [Verb] This!.

Fan Works

• Desert Gold: The Elric brothers are half-Ishvalan here; Scar, unaware of this, attempts to kill the pair for being state alchemists. While fleeing from him, they pass through the Ishvalan ghetto; the community there confronts the Serial Killer, revealing that he was about to hurt his own kinsmen.
• The Karma of Lies:
  • After Gabriel Agreste is exposed as Hawkmoth and arrested, a mob of protestors forms around the manor, yelling at anyone who enters or leaves the grounds. Adrien regards them as a petty annoyance.
  • Chat Noir faces this after he crashes and botches a live interview, attempting to convince the public that they should let Gabriel off lightly since the Miraculous Cure meant that nobody really suffered in his terrorist attacks. Everyone present is disgusted by his Lack of Empathy, especially after Viperion realizes that this is likely why he's so dismissive of how he skipped the Final Battle.
  • Following the final confrontation with Mayura, this happens once more to Adrien, now unmasked as Chat Noir. Mayura swiped the Ring off his finger when he offered her a hand up; however, this has been mistaken for him intentionally handing over his Ring, with the public largely convinced that he was secretly working with his father all along.
• In Loved and Lost, an extended retelling of "A Canterlot Wedding", Prince Jewelius turns the entire city of Canterlot against the princesses as well as Twilight's brother and friends by revealing how they (unwittingly) let the Changeling invasion — which Twilight just stopped — take place. When Celestia is subdued by the Royal Guard, the wedding guests do nothing but shoot resentful glares at the once-worshipped princess. Crushed by this, Celestia wonders if she's feeling the same way Twilight did when she was given the cold shoulder at the wedding rehearsal.
  • In the 12th chapter, Celestia is brought along with Shining Armor, the Mane Five and Spike to a square for Celestia's hanging. They are insulted and reproached by Canterlot's angry citizens, the three original bridesmaids, and Twilight who's been manipulated into renouncing them. The discredited heroes try to expose the truth about Jewelius' true role in the invasion, but everypony is too wrapped around Jewelius' hooves and too caught up in feeling betrayed by their failed protectors to believe them. Celestia even gets an egg thrown in her face by a filly who blames her for the Changelings hospitalizing her parents.
• When Superman came to Bludhaven in Loxare Hinder, he thought everyone would be happy to be rid from the Red Hood who's kinda infamous for murdering every crook crossing his path. Needless to say, he was quite floored and dismayed when a bunch of children started to scream at him for hurting the resident Cool Big Bro and demand he leave Hood alone.
• Used twice in Rate This (Trust is Hard to Come By):
  • Gardener's powers hit Miss Bustier's class during their lunch break, meaning they're in the cafeteria surrounded by other students. While Marinette, Chloé and all of their True Companions get green numbers showing how much Ladybug trusts them, Alya, Adrien and the rest of her Fair-Weather Friends get abysmally low scores, and they find themselves scrambling to escape the judgmental stares of their peers.
  • Lila's -51 draws a lot of attention her way. After she arrives back at school and everyone sees her score, forcing them to realize that Marinette was right and they'd Easily Condemned their "everyday Ladybug" for nothing, they all glare her down in disgust.
• Real Folk Blues: A Peni Parker – Spider-Man Noir Story: Peni gets a lot of unwanted attention from Paparazzi; one such reporter broke into her room and was going through her drawers. That reporter was then ambushed by somebody^note heavily implied to be Daredevil who tied them up on a bridge with a sign declaring "LEAVE THE KID ALONE, CREEPS!"
• Recommencer (Miraculous Ladybug): After Chat Noir spends the entirety of the battle against Repeater complaining about Ladybug getting help from civilians — and then proving that she needs it by refusing to cooperate with her plan, declaring he won't help unless she gives in to his advances and 'confesses her love' — Félix steps in to do the job instead. He then calls him out, as does everyone else who witnessed his behavior. Chat Noir retreats in shame, and later has a Jerkass Realization about how he's been treating his partner.
• Scarlet Lady: Late in Season Five, the titular Nominal Heroine finds herself on the receiving end of this after all of Paris learns that she's Chloé Bourgeois, completely shattering what was left of her already Broken Pedestal. In particular, people are furious to realize that she was willing to outright abandon the city and leave them dealing with Hawkmoth without the Miraculous Cure, and demand that she hand over her Earrings to the real heroes.
• Stage One: Thwarted: Satoshi secretly kills Minami's dog, then tries to console her the next day, only to learn that she and her friends know what he did.
• Steven Universe: Alternate Future: Following the defeat of Eagle's Eye, Black Rutile and Bluebird Azurite try to escape, only to find themselves cornered by the Crystal Gems and all their allies, including Jasper, White Topaz, and the U.S. Government. Everyone present glares furiously at the duo.
• The Triptych Continuum provides an instance where the mob is purposefully assembled by the future victim of the shaming in the deliberate hope of having this trope happen to her. In Post Negative Comments Only, Cadance spends most of the story trying to get the crystal ponies to criticize her: the fear they felt towards Sombra is being transferred onto her, and she believes that if they see that they can speak honestly about her without retaliation, it'll help them heal. But after everything else backfires, her final move is to Decree that the residents of the capital assemble in front of the palace — because once it's all of them there, it'll be the strength of the herd. And with all of them there against her, somepony might find their voice. Ultimately, it works — but not quite as planned.
• Vow of Nudity: Kay’la is subjected to this after Slekkh dispels her glamour in the middle of a crowded stadium, revealing she’d secretly been wearing armor the entire time she’d gone around boasting about being “the world’s first naked knight.”
• Your Wish is my Command (Miraculous Ladybug): Lila Agreste hounds Felix about why he and Adrien transferred to their school, then switches on the waterworks when he snaps at her. To her shock, rather than rushing to her defense, the other students regard her with disgust, calling her out for harassing him over something that was none of her business.

Films — Animated

• In Balto, this happened to Steele when it was revealed that he was lying about what happened to Balto and the expedition group trying to bring home the medicine to save the town. When the dogs were leaving an anonymous one even slammed the door behind. One deleted scene shows that they would've taken things in a very dark way. Once the crowd of dogs learn what Steele did, they attempt to lynch him and steal a "Golden Collar" from him and present it to Balto as punishment for betraying the expedition group. Steele's hubris however makes him fight back against the group, winding up with him getting his collar snagged on a lever and falling into a coal pit to his death.
• Goliath II has the titular tiny elephant getting spanked by his mother for leaving the herd and getting disapproving glares from everyone, even by his parents. To the elephants, a deserter from the herd is branded a "scoundrel, a rogue elephant, a traitor to that high and imperial order of pompous pachyderms", and to make it worse, he had let his father down.
• The Lion King:
  • In The Lion King (1994), the lions shame Scar after Simba returns, the hyenas and Scar shame Simba after Scar returns to his piece of equivocation, then after Scar gets confronted by his backstabbed hyena minions, they shame him before tearing him apart.
  • In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, when Kovu is mistakenly believed to have been part of the plot to try to kill Simba, and a huge crowd is singing about their hatred for him.
  • In The Lion King 1 ½, Timon gets death glares from almost every meerkat in the colony for goofing off during sentry duty and not alerting them about the presence of Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, which nearly got Uncle Max killed by them.
• In The Lorax (2012), when the town sings "Let It Grow'' O'Hare pretends to start supporting them but then goes on to mock the song by singing "Let It Die" and a little girl is the first to rebuke him.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games: At the climax, Abacus Cinch accuses Principal Celestia of using magic to cheat, but all her students turn against her for badgering Twilight into unleashing her stored magic and turning into Midnight Sparkle just to win the Equestria Games.
  Sugarcoat: At least they didn't manipulate Twilight into releasing all the stolen magic and turning into a power-crazed magical creature that tried to rip the world apart, just to win a game.
  (beat)
  Pinkie Pie: Wow, that's a lot to take in when you say it all at once.
  Abacus Cinch: That's ridiculous!
  Spike: Nope, that's pretty much what happened.
  Sour Sweet: (guilty) Actually, we're all to blame... (grumpily) mostly it was her!

Films — Live-Action

• Beast (2017): When Moll quietly attends the funeral service of the latest murder victim, some of the other attendees are clearly not happy to see her there due to her boyfriend being the prime suspect. One man even orders her leave and tells her to "fuck off". After she hugs the victim's grieving mother and tells her she's sorry, Moll is all but chased out by some of the men; they follow her to her car and look ready to attack her until she loudly screams at them to get them to back off.
• Cruel Intentions: Near the end, as Kathryn gives a eulogy at Sebastian’s funeral, suddenly one by one of her fellow students start leaving the room abruptly. As she furiously questions their misbehavior, she decides to follow them and discovers that the students are reading the copies of Sebastian’s journal (handed out by Cecille) that expose the details of her schemes and manipulations all along. Cue, Kathryn receives a death glare from each of said students, humiliating her. To put the cherry on top, the headmaster single-handedly exposes the cocaine hidden inside her rosary as well.
• Dangerous Liaisons: Marquise de Merteuil gets booed by members of the audience at an opera after letters detailing her scheming throughout the movie become circulated and cause a scandal.
• Friday Night Lights: Whenever the team loses, Coach Gaines is the go-to guy for Odessa's ire. After the team's first loss of the season, Gaines comes home to "For sale" signs all over his front lawn. After Boobie's injury, Gaines is ripped to shreds by listeners on local radio shows.
• In Hangmen Also Die!, Mascha decides to go to the Gestapo to inform on Dr. Svoboda in order to save her father. On her way there, she is intercepted by Resistance members. When she causes a scene by demanding to be allowed to go to the Gestapo, she attracts the attention of bystanders who do not take kindly to locals collaborating with the occupiers, and proceed to tear into her for it. By the time she gets to the Gestapo, she has changed her mind about turning Dr. Svoboda in.
• Pan's Labyrinth, where even after Captain Vidal gave his son to the army waiting for him outside the maze, this was (understandably) not considered near enough to make up for his heinous evil deeds, nor even close enough to it to convince people to respect his last wish; he doesn't even get to finish expressing it.
• In The Sixth Sense a bereaved father at his daughter's wake confronts his wife after seeing a video which proves that she poisoned the girl. He is backed up by a crowd of grim-faced people who watched the video with him.
• Titanic (1997): In a deleted scene, Bruce Ismay, the owner of the titular ship who jumps into one of the last lifeboats when no one's looking, receives a Death Glare from all the survivors whilst boarding the rescue ship Carpathia. Many of them are women who lost their husbands due to a strict 'women and children only' rule. Ismay looks noticeably ashamed and guilt-ridden after his 'walk of shame'.

Live-Action TV

• Deconstructed on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. During the segment on public shaming, John Oliver points out how too often, the transgression often gets warped out of context, to the point that the backlash becomes highly excessive.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: Mr. Conklin rigs an election so the Madison High School students will election him the episode's titular "Faculty Cheerleader". Faced with an assembly of grumbling students, he relies on Miss Brooks to get his "election" through.

Video Games

• Averted in Mega Man Zero 4 where the Neo Arcadea refuges all tell off Zero and the Resistance for the war that ruined the planet. Zero gets fed up with them, and tells them that if they were so unhappy with the war then they shouldn't have left Neo Arcadea in the first place.
• In Secret Agent Clank, a theoretical version of this is visually portrayed by Klunk if Ratchet's name is to never be cleared from him being framed by him.
• In The Sims 4, Vampire expansion pack, this is a consequence that a vampire faces for drinking someone's plasma without permission, especially while in public - non-vampire witnesses will stop what they're doing, react with alarm and disgust, and subsequently hate the vampire. Zig-zagged because the shame comes from having the Guilty Drinker trait, not whether or not the vampire got caught in the act.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: In the episode "Chill of the Night", Batman confronts Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents. Joe panics and runs to get help from the Gotham Rogues Gallary, and finds out too late that they aren't happy with how he basically created the man who makes their living hell.
• Big City Greens: In the climax of "Feud Fight", Cricket finds himself pelted with tomatoes by Chip Whistler, who assumed he's throwing the match when he really tried to give a truce. This angers everyone at the Farmer's Market, who call him out for "decimating an unarmed child" and vowing never to shop at Wholesome Foods again; even most of the workers call him out and quit their job.
• Dexter's Laboratory: "Accent You Hate" has a bully who specifically goes after kids with "funny accents" targeting Dexter, along with two one shot friends, a French boy and an Irish boy. After punching them down in the schoolyard, he's immediately set upon by a whole crowd of kids with funny accents who scold him for his bullying, distracting him enough that he walks right into the school statue face first, making his jaw swell up and screwing up his own way of talking.
• Dora the Explorer: In the climax of the special "Dora Saves King Unicornio", Dora, Boots, Unicornio, Rabbit, and the entire Enchanted Forest folk get together to stand up to Owl and call him out for enforcing all those unfair rules and that the Enchanted Forest is for everyone, and Unicornio is the true ruler.
• In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Patriot Act", General Eiling injects himself with a super serum which transformed him into The General. He tries to get Superman to fight him by taking out the non-superpower JL members (who make up the Seven Soldiers of Victory). Then the mob of people the heroes were protecting calls him off, he states that all meta-humans are a threat to society, but they point out that he's the only meta-human around. The General admits that he has become what he hates, but he still thinks that he's right and leaves.
• In King of the Hill in the episode "The Texas Panhandler" a gang of panhandlers starts degrading Bobby for having a job when his father Hank makes him quit panhandling with them and has him go back to working. Bobby turns the tables on them when he starts revealing all these things that prove what useless freeloaders they are (one has basic and premium cable, another takes tennis lessons). The crowd he told looks at them with scorn and disappointment.
• Happens to Amon in The Legend of Korra after he's exposed as a waterbender to the Equalist crowd, people that had followed him hoping for equality between benders and nonbenders.
• The Simpsons: In the episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One", there is a big meeting at the town hall about Burns's oil drilling operation. When Bart is showing everyone at the meeting how crippled his dog was as a result of Burns' drilling, Burns walks in at just that moment and says, "Oh, those wheels are squeaking a bit... perhaps I could sell him a little oil!" Bart shouts, "You twisted old monster!" and runs towards Burns, who in turn reveals that he brought a gun to protect himself. Then a large crowd of people gets up, staring especially angrily at Burns, and taking turns telling him off. In response, Burns ask "Who has the guts to stop me?" Everyone immediately backs off and looks down... except for Maggie, who just continues to glare at him.
• In the South Park episode "Dead Kids", after Sharon furiously chews out Randy for his apathy towards the shootings at South Park Elementary, the townsfolk become disgusted at Sharon and storm off.
• Spongebob Squarepants:
  • In the episode "Fools in April", Squidward plays a cruel prank on SpongeBob making him cry, which the other Bikini Bottomites express their disgust at the aforementioned, and they storm out of the Krusty Krab. All alone, Squidward looks at the damage his mean prank did and begins to express genuine remorse.
    Lloyd: Man, poor kid.
    Shubie: That guy has definitely got some issues to work out.
    (The customers glare at Squidward as they begin leaving)
    Tom: April fools...jerk!
    Squidward: Wait, don't go!
    Offscreen Voice: BOO! YOU STINK!
    Squidward: Wait! Wait! It was a joke! Uh-huh... (looks around at the damage his prank caused and winces and begins to feel ashamed of himself) Why is it whenever I'm having fun, it's wrong?
  • In "Krabby Kronicle", An angry mob comes in and calls Mr. Krabs out when Spongebob writes a story about Mr. Krabs abusing him and that he is the mastermind behind the lies that he forced Spongebob to write about his friends.
  • In "Stuck in the Wringer", SpongeBob yells at Patrick for ruining his life by gluing him in the wringer and making his situation worse after that. Because he drove Patrick to tears, the other fish were disgusted with SpongeBob and tell him that he deserved to be in the predicament he's in.
  • In "Little Yellow Book", when SpongeBob runs away crying when he finds out about Squidward reading his diary and embarrassing secrets, the townspeople chastise Squidward for reading it, even though they were reading along with him just minutes ago.
• In the Thomas & Friends episode "Dirty Work/Diesel's Devious Deed", Duck is met with showers of steam blown by a hostile Gordon, James, and Henry, who accuse him of making cruel names about them to the troublesome trucks. In actuality, it was Diesel who had made those lies as a ruse to send Duck away just because he thinks Duck made a fool out of him in the previous episode.

---