"The Hero Sucks" Song

The opposite of "The Villain Sucks" Song where a song describes how cruel the villain is. This trope is about a song that insults a hero. One way to show how cruel and sinister a villain can be is singing a song to mess with a hero, even so much that the hero will either suffer a Heroic BSoD or it may be a way for the hero to unleash his righteous indignation against the villain.

This can also include Jerkasses and bullies singing nasty and hurtful songs to good-natured characters, especially if it happens in high school (expect cheerleaders to engage in songs like this.) The song can involve the villain ranting about the hero always stopping them from taking over the world, complaining about their justice and moral character, or simply talking about how they don't like them.

Can overlap with Villain Song if it's the villain who boasts about being better than the hero. Compare "The Reason You Suck" Speech. If the villain sings it while the hero fires back with a "Villain Sucks" Song simultaneously, it's a Hero vs. Villain Duet. May also be sung by neutral characters about a Hero with Bad Publicity. It can also be form of Shamed by a Mob if the song is focused on how the hero had done something bad.

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Examples

Films — Animation

• Jafar from Aladdin loves singing these. Towards the end of the original Aladdin movie, he sang a short song to the tune of "Prince Ali" while revealing to Princess Jasmine that Prince Ali is really Aladdin in disguise. In Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, he sang "You're Only Second Rate" to show how inferior Genie's magic is compared to his. Besides Jafar's songs, "One Jump Ahead" establishes how the people of Agrabah view Aladdin as a thief and a nuisance.
  • Jafar and Iago also had a cut song from the original movie about undoing Aladdin and pranking him called "Humiliate the Boy".
• "He's a Tramp" from Lady and the Tramp counts as one of these, although Tramp is really more of a lovable rogue. Peg, the wayward lap dog who sang the tune, even admitted in the lyrics that "I love him" and "I only hope he'll stay that way."
• Beauty and the Beast:
  • "The Mob Song" is sung by the village mob and Gaston about how scary and mean the Beast is.
  • Downplayed with "Belle". A good portion of the song is spent discussing how Belle is an outcast and considered kind of weird by the town. However the lyrics also point out how "beautiful" and "gorgeous" she is.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride has Kovu "booed" off of Pride Rock as all of the animals sing "One of Us"; the song denotes that they have been banished. The entire song is practically a lyrification of "The Reason You Suck" Speech, even though its entire premise is based on an erroneous assumption. This is because Simba believes that Kovu attempted to ambush him while the two had a friendly chat on a trek through the jungle.
• The Boxtrolls has a song simply titled "The Boxtrolls Song" in which Big Bad Archibald Snatcher Disguised in Drag as Madame Frou Frou sings about the titular monsters and how evil they are. It's this trope instead of "The Villain Sucks" Song because the Boxtrolls are actually friendly.
• A Boy Named Charlie Brown: Failure Face, sung by Lucy, Violet, and Patty right to the titular character's face, when he suggests that he should enter himself in the school spelling bee.
• Corpse Bride: "Tears To Shed" is a variation. Maggot and Black Widow use the song to tell Emily how much she's better than her rival Victoria. The song insults Victoria quite a bit, however both Emily and Victoria are heroic characters even if they are rivals (Maggot and Black Widow were just trying to cheer Emily up).
• Moana: the second half of Tamatoa's Villain Song "Shiny" is about him pointing out all the weaknesses of Maui in an attempt to Break Them by Talking - while also physically beating him to pulp.
• Tangled: "Mother Knows Best" features Mother Gothel ruthlessly berating Rapunzel’s appearance and intelligence while framing it as her giving Rapunzel a loving bit of brutal honesty.

Films — Live Action

• In Love Me Tonight, while Maurice prepares to leave the chateau in disgrace, the inhabitants (servants included) sing of their horror at discovering that he is not actually royalty: "The Son-of-a-Gun Is Nothing But a Tailor."
• Played with in Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein). The two stepsisters have a whole song where they criticize Cinderella...but they don't realize it's her they're singing about; they think they're just singing about a random princess.
• "Scotty Doesn't Know" from Euro Trip. It was the film's main theme song which cruelly deals with the affair Fiona was having with the singer, Donny, while she was with Scotty.
• In Flesh Gordon (an X-rated spoof of Flash Gordon from 1974—it was later trimmed for an "R" rating), it appears Flesh and his crew meet their demise. The villain, Wang the Perverted, sings "Flesh Gordon Is Dead" in celebration.
• The North Korean national anthem at the beginning of The Interview is this kind of song about America.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where Sir Robin's wandering minstrels switch from singing his praises to mocking his cowardice after he runs away from the Three-Headed Knight:
  Brave Sir Robin ran away.
  Bravely ran away, away.
  When danger reared its ugly head,
  He bravely turned his tail and fled,
  Yes, Brave Sir Robin turned about,
  And gallantly he chickened out!
  Bravely taking to his feet,
  He beat a very brave retreat,
  Bravest of the brave; Sir Robin!
• In Grease, "Sandra Dee" is a lighter version of this:
  Rizzo: Miss Goody-Two-Shoes makes me wanna barf!
  Sandy: You're making fun of me, Riz?
  Rizzo: Some people are so touchy...
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Envy Adams' cover of Metric's "Black Sheep" in the context of the film is calling out Scott for cheating on Knives with Ramona and that his refusal to take responsibility for his actions will drive away everyone around him.

Literature

• In Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator the Vice-President of the US, who was the President's nanny when he was growing up, sings insulting songs about him. He likes them.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Slytherins make up a song taunting new Quidditch player Ron, mocking his frequent goofs:
  Weasley cannot save a thing,
  He cannot block a single ring,
  That's why Slytherins all sing:
  Weasley is our King.
  • Later given a Triumphant Reprise when Ron leads Gryffindor to beating Slytherin.
• The entire point of Lokasenna, where Loki taunts and insults all the other Aesir.

Live-Action TV

• Community: The episode "Home Economics" has two examples:
  • "Getting Rid of Britta" is a song Vaughn wrote with his band after his breakup with Britta, naming Britta by name and calling her "a bitch and a liar" in the song.
  • Later, after the aforementioned song becomes a huge hit on the Greendale campus, Pierce and Vaughn get into a huge argument over it. Vaughn kicks Pierce out of the band and writes the song "Pierce, You're a B" to get back at him.
• Degrassi: After her breakup with Craig, Ashley writes "Mr. Nice Guy", a song bashing Craig (the title is obviously ironic). Ashley's band becomes an anti-Craig band and performs with their new anti-Craig t-shirts.
• Nicely subverted on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as season three has Rebecca confront Josh in a church to rip into him on all the stuff she's gone through because of him. However, all it does is expose to everyone how Rebecca has basically been stalking Josh since the show began and made his life miserable, thus freeing him of any guilt breaking up with her.
• Lizzie McGuire: In the first episode, Kate and the other cheerleaders sing a "U-G-L-Y, You ain't got no alibi, you ugly" cheer to Lizzie, ending it with "who's the girl we love to hate? Lizzie, Lizzie... Big Loser! Loser! Big Loser!"
• Shameless (US): After Fiona leaves her husband Gus, he writes a Take That! song called "The F Word" which his band performs and dedicates to her live in a crowded bar. The lyrics are about what you'd expect from the title. To be fair to Gus, she totally deserved it.

Music

• Miracle of Sound: "Duke, You Used To Be Cool" is about how Duke Nukem has lost his magic after twelve years in Development Hell, turning into "a fucking pussy hiding behind walls" who gets drunk off one beer.
• !HERO: The Rock Opera has "Kill The Hero", where Chief Rabbi Kai denounces Hero as being a seditious rebel before Governor Pilate and Pilate just dismisses Hero as a pathetic sad preacher.

Professional Wrestling

• "Shelton Benjamin Sucks," which Chris Jericho came up with after tracing the root to his perceived asoflate slump to Shelton beating him for the intercontinental title. But, as you call tell, a lot of thought was not put into the lyrics.
• In a backstage segment, The Prime Time Players made a song mocking Ezekiel Jackson before their tag team match against him and Yoshi Tatsu:
  Big Zeke ain't got no cuts
  Big Zeke ain't got no cuts
  He big, he strong,
  but he ain't got no cuts!

Theatre

• Dear Evan Hansen has "Good For You", started by Heidi when she realizes Evan is planning to take the Murphy's college fund for Connor and feels like Evan is trying to replace her with a new, better family. The song is continued by Alana and Jared when they realize Evan has just been using them to raise his own social profile.
• Elisabeth has Kitsch, which Lucheni sings to show how selfish and vain Elisabeth is, and to insult the people who love her — which includes the audience.
• Giulio Cesare in Egitto has Ptolemy and his L’empio, sleale, indegno – "Julius Caesar Sucks" song.
• Hairspray Live gives us Cooties, sung by Amber von Tussle.
• Hamilton has a bunch. Most notably "The Reynolds Pamphlet", which combines this with a Crowd Song as everybody (lead by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and King George III for some reason) gathers to mock Hamilton's political downfall. Others include "Burn", "Washington On Your Side", "You'll Be Back"'s reprises ("You'll Be Back" is written as more of a love song, and outside of a few threats, isn't really George III telling the colonists they suck), the beginning of "A Winter's Ball", "The Adams Administration", and "Your Obedient Servant" (Burr frequently takes the opportunity to tell the audience how Hamilton has screwed up/outdone Burr this time), and the cut song "Congratulations". The cut song "An Open Letter" may also apply. Adams isn't a villain or a hero, as he hasn't really done anything wrong outside of implied incompetence, but the show also takes any opportunity to diss Adams, the longest form being "An Open Letter".
• Heathers: "Yo Girl" is about Veronica's victims praising her for being just as evil as they are (and sardonically narrating her psychotic ex-boyfriend's ascension towards her bedroom to kill her).
• Into the Woods has "Last Midnight", sung by the Witch to the Baker, Cinderella, Litte Red, and Jack about how they are hypocritical for thinking her bad when they are all selfish themselves.
• Les Misérables has a few. Most notable is "Stars", Javert's Anti-Villain Song where he asks God for help finding Valjean. Others include Javert's part in "One Day More" where he almost gleefully plans crushing the rebellion (a particularly horrifying line is "I will join these little schoolboys/They will wet themselves with blood"), as well as the Thenardiers' part where they eagerly anticipate the schoolboy's seemingly-imminent death so they can get rich off of robbing the bodies.
  • The Thenardiers also get a rare The Audience Sucks song in "Beggars at the Feast", where they rub their Karma Houdini status in the audience's face and promise to see the audience in Hell. Depending on the production, Thenardier also gets a dig at the audience in "Master of the House":
    Thenardier: "They fall in through my doors/And their money's good as yours!"
• Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 has several:
  • In "The Duel", Dolokhov mocks Pierre for being a cuckold and Hélène says she is disgusted that she married him. It prompts Pierre to challenge the former to a duel where he non-fatally wounds Dolokhov. This does nothing to impress Hélène, who ends the number calling him a fool.
  • Marya berates Natasha for her plan to elope with Anatole during "In My House". She softens her tone by the end of the number, but only a bit.
    • In "A Call to Pierre", Marya says Natasha has brought shame upon the family and Pierre calls her "a bad woman" like his wife.
• "The Mocking of Hel Helson" from the Benjamin Britten opera Paul Bunyan.
• Peer Gynt plays this far more seriously than usual in the fifth act, with several ghostly choirs condemning Peer for his failures.
• "Biggest Blame Fool (In The Jungle Of Nool)" from Seussical mocks Horton for "talking to a speck of dust."
• In the musical Two by Two, when Noah tells his family about God's plans for him to build an Ark and fill it with animals, they sing "Put Him Away."
• Westeros: An American Musical: "King Robert Baratheon" is about how much of handful Robert was to both his parents and Jon Arryn as a child and a teen, got better thanks to Ned's influence, lead a sucessful rebellion, became King, quashed a rebellion, then let himself go. By the time the song finishes, the company is singing about Robert currently being in a brothel, fathering yet another bastard he won't pay any attention to.
• Wicked obviously has some that involve "No One Mourns the Wicked", referring to main protagonist Elphaba, who isn't exactly all wicked.

Video Games

• Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 will get a violin and play horribly with it after he kills Bloodwing. He finds it too late and says that the joke would have been funnier if he found it earlier.
  Jack: Oh where the hell is it? I had a violin somewhere I was gonna play all sarcastically-godamnit. It was gonna be awesome.
  Jack, upon entering Sanctuary: Alright, sweet, sweet. Found it! Alright this is for Mordercai's stupid bird, in E...
  [violin noises]
  Screw you. It would have been hilarious if I'd found it earlier. Shut up.
• In No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, rank #4 assassin, Margaret Moonlight, spends her entire boss fight singing an incredibly catchy song with parts insulting our "hero", Travis Touchdown:
  Reaper, Reaper! That's what people call me!
  Why? 'Cause they all die!
  When I sing, I end their lives!
  You act as though payback makes you a noble man! Is that a fact?
  Well, you're a God damn philistine!
  [...]
  Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
  Go on and drool; the otaku cannot resist
  You think the fire in your eyes makes you a tiger in disguise?
  Dream on, you goddamn pussy.
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has the Phantom of the Bwahpera sing two of these, the second of which is shown in the Combat trailer for the game. Take Thats abound, including one regarding the Blue Shell. However despite the Phantom's merciless insulting to Mario and death-threats, this is meant to be FUNNY.
  • The sequel, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope has a DLC featuring Rayman and the return of the Phantom. During the final boss fight against the Phantom, he sings a swing song with countless jabs towards Rayman. After the first two phases, he then sings a song that also has jabs against Beep-0, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Mario.
• The Bard's Tale has a hilariously accidental one. The Bard joins up with a musical group in a tavern, who sing a song about the fearsome Nuckelavee and the total idiot who released it into the world, and what they'd like to do to that idiot if they ever get their hands on him. Said idiot is, unbeknownst to them, the Bard himself.
  Nuckelavee, oh Nuckelavee,
  You're big and evil and heinous!
  Who could it be who set you free?
  He really must be an anus!

Visual Novels

• "Turnabout Reclaimed", the DLC case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, features a witness who is fond of rapping. Phoenix eventually has him so backed into a corner that said witness decides to deliver a testimony by way of rap. The name of the testimony? "The Dissin' of Phoenix Wright".

Web Animation

• Striker in Helluva Boss performs a rock ballad aptly titled "Striker's Song", which is filled with lyrics proclaiming how awesome he is. It's blatantly obvious that he's trying to get under Moxxie's skin, especially since he throws in "Moxxie, go fuck yourself" near the end.
  • "Moxxie's bad trip", from the following episode, is an even more blatant example. It features Moxxie venting his many frustrations at a hallucination of Blitzo while the real Blitzo is tormented by hallucinations of everyone he's driven away.
  • "House of Asmodeus" is another and is also an interesting take on this trope as it switches targets throughout the song. First, it begins with Asmodeus and Fizzarolli dissing Moxxie for singing a sappy love song that doesn't fit the club's mood. Then, when Blitzo attempts to jump in to defend his employee, Fizzarolli promptly switches the target to him, with Verosika also joining, with both talking about how bad Blitzo is at being in love. Finally, once Asmodeus notices Stolas, the target swaps to him, with Asmodeus calling him out for ruining his life over an affair with an Imp.
• "A message to loser", "A message to loser (reprise)" and "A message to loser (extended)" from Battle for BFDI are songs where Four sings telling that despite loser (original) /Non woody members of the Have Nots (reprise) popularities he is eliminated(original)/they got a insane vote battle(reprise) or in the extended version telling him everything wrong that he did in the show and mocking him for it, then telling that he is eliminated.
• The start of the song "Oblivious" from Episode Two of Of Weasels And Chickens. Marcus, the hero, has just been exiled to the forest, where he meets the forest weasel Prima. Since he's new and unfamiliar to the forest, the song starts with Prima making fun of him.
  Prima: Oblivious! You don't have a clue!
  I know a hopeless case when I see one and that's you.
  Piteous, really! How are you surviving,
  Stumbling blankly around with your little head bowed down without eventually collapsing to the ground?
• Many of the Salem and Cinder-centric songs in RWBY such as Divide, All Things Must Die and When it Falls are about how the heroes will inevitably fail, and that Ozpin has been leading people to fight a war he secretly knows he has no hope of winning, treating it as though he is outright murdering his followers.
  • I'm the One works as this. It comes from the point of view of Emerald and Mercury, describing their Curb-Stomp Battle against Coco and Yatsuhashi and how despite their power and reputation, they are utterly destroyed by the villains who have already been through worse and come out stronger.

Web Original

• Empires SMP Season 1: From the musical adaptation, "Your Old Friend Xornoth" has several verses dedicated to Xornoth bragging about his accomplishments and ambitions, while the rest is dedicated to making fun of his younger brother Scott, from thinking he could trap Xornoth "in a little bit of glass" (which is actually what happens at the end of the song) to mentioning he allegedly didn't show up to Xornoth's graduation.
• Team Four Star has always had fun riffing on Yamcha in Dragonball Z Abridged, but seldom was that more apparent than when they gave a special gift to fans by recording the song "Yamcha the Scar-faced Bandit." The song is done to the tune of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", and in the song they mock Yamcha's uselessness and failures. For extra salt on the wound, next year they did a Christmas themed version of the movie The Tree of Might during which the member of Turles’s gang who went up against Yamcha played the song during their fight before easily defeating a completely overmatched Yamcha.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs: The "Frontier Slappy" episode has this happen to Daniel Boone, as he repeatedly tries (and fails) to chop down Slappy's tree to make a door. The song, which is a parody of the Davy Crockett TV series theme, gradually changes from praising Daniel, to insulting him, 'til he's finally had enough and fires the chorus!
  Chorus: Daniel Boone was a great big jerk...
  Yeeesss, a stupid JEEERRRK!
  He had another dumb plan that more than likely wouldn't wooorrk....
• In Arthur, D.W. has a short but funny one about her titular brother.
• In the Musical Episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the villains (and some of the heroes) sing a song called "Drives Us Bats", venting their frustration about how Batman is always showing them up.
  • "The Mask of Matches Malone" features a rare example where heroes (well, two heroes and one Anti-Villain) are the ones who sing an insulting song about other heroes. Black Canary, Huntress, and Catwoman get caught infiltrating a mob-run nightclub and try to distract/charm the monsters by singing a mocking song that contains subtle hints that prominent male superheroes like Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow are poor romantic partners or have small penises. The crowd enjoys the show and chants along with the chorus at one point.
• The Patrick Star Show: Evil Twin FitzPatrick's first attempt to damage Patrick's reputation is to disguise himself as him, do a bunch of destructive acts at an ice cream parlor, and sing about how bad of a person "Patrick" is (despite the fact that the actual Patrick hasn't done any of this). The restaurant's robot band, the Goofy Scoopers, sing backup, saying "Patrick Star! Patrick Star!" after every line.
  FitzPatrick: Hey there, kids, who ruined your day?
  Messed up your music, took your ice cream away!
  Remember my name when you scream and cry!
  I hope you hate me 'til the day I die!
• The South Park episode "Asspen" has Dash's "Stan Darsh" song.
• In a variation of a hero giving it to another hero, there's "Eveybody Hates Ned Flanders" from The Simpsons episode Dude, Where's My Ranch:
  F-L-A
  "His name is Ned
  E-R-S
  That's a stupid name
  He's worst than Frankenstein or Dr. No
  You can't upset him even slighty, he just smiles and nods poliety
  Then goes home and worships nightly, his leftorioum is an emporium of Woe!
  F-L-A
  Don't yell at Ned
  D-E-R
  His Wife is dead
  Everybody hates that stupid jerk
  Springfield rocks with Homer's joyous loathing
  Filling clubs (Sip) with angry valentinos
  You don't have to move your feet
  Just hate Flanders to the disco beat
  He's your perky, peppy, nightmare neighborino!
  If you dislike polite left handers then I
  Doubt you'll like Ned Flanders
  Or his creepy little off-spring
  Rod and Todd
  F-L-A!!
  His name is Ned
  D-R-S
  He is so white bread
  The smiling moustache geek who walks with god"
• Thomas & Friends:
  • In "Off The Rails", some boys come by to sing a mocking song to Gordon after he — in a fit of vanity — accidentally drives off the turntable and into a nearby drainage ditch while refusing to pull trucks. Gordon's unimpressed glare while covered in pond water, moss and weeds just makes the scene.
    "Silly old Gordon fell in a ditch
    Fell in a ditch, fell in a ditch
    Silly old Gordon fell in a ditch
    All on a Monday morning!"
  • In "Special Funnel", Peter Sam is the butt of the other engines' jokes due to his funnel being wobbly, and after said funnel was knocked off by an icicle while he was passing by a tunnel, Sir Handel sings about Peter Sam's funnel, much to the amusement to the other engines.
    "Peter Sam's said again and again
    his new funnel will put ours to shame
    He went into the tunnel
    lost his old funnel.
    Now his famous new funnel's a drain!"
  • In the episode "Toad Stands By", the troublesome trucks sing "Pop Goes Ol' Ollie" to Oliver as ridicule for him falling into the turntable well in "Oliver Owns Up".
    "Oliver's no use at all;
    Thinks he's very clever.
    Says that he could manage us;
    That's the best joke ever!
    When he orders us about,
    With the greatest folly,
    We just push him down the well!
    Pop Goes Ol' Ollie!"
    • Bonus points for being sung to the same tune as “Pop Goes the Diesel”.
• When Moralton does a play about Jesus in Moral Orel, Orel gets cast as Judas and does a whole song-and-dance number that opens with the line "I hate you Jesus, you rotten little fink." It became the only part of the play anyone remembered.
• In the Cowboy Episode of Duck Dodgers, the Riders in the Sky get fed up of singing about "Dodgers, brave Duck Dodgers", when the villain is just a theme park animatronic. (Except it isn't.)
  Dodgers, Duck Dodgers,
  Danger he never did avoid.
  Dodgers, cowardly Duck Dodgers,
  He knows he's only fighting an android!
• Played with in "Christmas with the Joker" in Batman: The Animated Series, where the Joker sings the schoolyard version of "Jingle Bells," that continues, "Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..." Mark Hamill, as the voice of the Joker, sells the heck out of it.
• An international promo for Steven Universe starts out with the first few lines mocking Steven for being unable to use his powers and being seemingly useless, but then goes on saying that he has potential of becoming the hero that Earth needs.
  • Also, Steven's time-travel clones in "Steven and the Stevens" sing the song: "Steven's a big fat meanie! A big fat meanie zucchini!"
• Janja's song "The Worst Hyena We Know" from The Lion Guard episode "Rescue in the Outlands" is supposed to be this, as he's singing about all the traits he hates most about the heroic Jasiri, but viewers have noted that it sounds like the opposite...

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