Basic Trope: An organization that officially doesn't exist.
- Straight: The government denies that The Men in Black exist.
- Exaggerated: The Men in Black are so secret even the government is unaware they exist.
- Downplayed:
- The government denies that The Men in Black exist, but their existence is an Open Secret.
- The government is ambiguous in regards to official stances on whether The Men in Black exist, neither explicitly confirming or denying that they are.
- Justified: The operations undertaken by The Men in Black are illegal under international law, so them not officially existing means that the government has Plausible Deniability.
- Inverted: The Men in Black officially exists on the books. However it is a complete fabrication created to embezzle taxpayer money.
- Subverted:
- Someone in the chain of bureaucracy creating them has an attack of conscience and reveals the organization.
- The Accountability Bureau doesn't exist as an organization - because it consists of undercover members embedded throughout existing departments. It is openly on the books along with the number managed by certain officials even if the precise identities are usually obscured unless it is a matter important enough to openly expose their membership by testifying in a trial and either retire from the Accountability Bureau or enter Witness Protection.
- Double Subverted: But he is eliminated before he can do so.
- Parodied: The government continues to deny that The Men in Black exist even after said Men hold a press conference.
- Zig Zagged: The nature of the organization changes, as does it's status (official, unofficial, or nonexistant), as the story progresses.
- Averted: The existence of the The Men in Black is publicly acknowledged even though the details of their operations are still classified.
- Enforced: The writers think secret organizations are cool.
- Lampshaded: "Mommy, who are those men in black suits?" "Hush, Bobby. They don't really exist, so you shouldn't look at them."
- Invoked: When The Men in Black are first created, the program heads decide to leave as few traces as possible so that they have Plausible Deniability for their controversial, illegal, or plain mind-shattering actions and operations.
- Exploited: Knowing that The Men in Black don't officially exist and witnessing them crossing the Moral Event Horizon Alice kills every one she sees and destroys their bases with legal impunity.
- Defied: The creator of The Men in Black program establishes it as a publicly acknowledged agency to ensure that his men get support and that the program heads are kept in line.
- Discussed: "These teams will operate on a covert, top-secret basis. No one outside of this facility is to know of their existence other than the President and the Joint Chiefs."
- Conversed: "You do realize they wrote The Men in Black so they don't officially exist, right?"
- Deconstructed:
- The agency head decides that since his agency has no official status, it can't be easily shut down, and he turns it into work-for-hire.
- The Men in Black having no official status means their agents can count on having absolutely no support if captured.
- The lack of knowledge leads to massive Right Hand Vs Left Hand incidents. As far as the open government is concerned the Alien Police are a highly dangerous organized crime group with a bizarre agenda.
- The work-for-hire is (at least partly) necessary since thanks to a new push on cracking down on graft and other "sweetheart deals" it's been more difficult for the Agency to get the funding it needs to operate - can't exactly petition or run a PR campaign for more funds if you don't officially exist.
- On the other hand, having no official status means you're also free to do operations that red tape would make impossible otherwise.
- The heroes refuse to co-operate with/take orders from The Men in Black, because why should they listen to them if they don't officially exist?
- Played For Laughs: The Men in Black get nothing done because all of their conversations turn into denying that they exist. At best they end up doing the opposite of what was meant due to every order including Confusing Multiple Negatives. If they even recognize the orders.
- Played For Drama: The Men in Black have to sever all ties with the society when they join the agency, resist sliding into depravity due to their lack of accountability, and live with the fact that no matter how heroic, selfless, and important to the world's safety their action are, they will never be recognized as heroes.
- Played For Horror: The Men in Black will make sure that you never become an obstacle to whatever directives they follow by making the threatening information (and you) disappear from the face of the Earth.
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