Butt Monkey/Live-Action Films

• Sid Melton, famously from The Danny Kaye Show and a lot of B-movies. There's a reason his Fan Nickname (inspired by Mystery Science Theater 3000) is "Little Monkey Boy".
• Jenny Curran (Robin Wright) in Forrest Gump. Played straight.
  • She gets occasional breaks when she's in Forrest's close proximity, though she keeps moving away from him. She would have been touched by Forrest's charmed life if she'd only stayed with him all along.
• Captain James T. Kirk in the new Star Trek film is definitely one of these, with many of the film's action sequences, and much of its humor, involving him getting owned in one way or another.
• Bernard from Stardust gets kidnapped by the witch Lamia, turned into a goat, put into a girl's body, almost trapped in a burning inn, kidnapped and kicked around by Septimus, before finally making an appearance at the end sequence looking surprisingly happy for all he's been through.
  • Probably because everybody who did those things to him had died horribly and the people who were nice to him just became King and Queen. I'd be happy, too.
  • Also, he dies in the book, so he's probably thankful for living at all.
  • According to the DVD commentary he was found by Captain Shakespeare and joined his crew.
• The protagonist of The Butterfly Effect is a Butt Monkey taken to the extreme.
• Bruce from Bruce Almighty is a token example of this trope, and while it's not a strong showing, the movie gets bonus points for having a Literal Butt Monkey: i.e. a monkey that emerged Bruce summoned from the anus of a man who was harassing him.

Bruce: Okay little anal-dwelling butt monkey, its time for you to go home!

• Jan in The Brady Bunch Movie is treated like crap and overlooked to the point where she's hearing psychotic voices in her head.
• Kenny "Squeak" Scholarri in Baseketball is scapegoated and picked on nonstop by Trey Parker and Matt Stone's characters. It is implied that this is an exaggerated look at the real-life relationship between Dian Bachar and Parker/Stone
• Apparently, Louis Tully in Ghostbusters. Let's see... he has a crush on Dana Barrett, a cellist who lives in the same apartment complex as him, but she initially shows no interest towards him. He is also often locked out of places, in particular, his apartment room. To add insult to injury, Gozer's minions Zuul and Vinz Clortho enter the human world via the apartment complex, so Clortho chases poor Louis down (at a party he was holding) and possesses his body.
  • However, he redeems himself in Ghostbusters 2 by helping the Ghostbusters take down Vigo!
• David Leary from Big Bully. Most of the crap he goes through was in his childhood, where he is picked on by the bullying Roscoe, A.K.A. Fang. However, young David eventually turns the tables on Fang by telling the school that the bully stole a moon rock that was shown on display one day, which Fang did, and got sentenced to reform school. Since then, David became a writer, as well as town hero, but he's still a Butt Monkey because people would rather buy the new Stephen King book than The Last Straw. Also, his wife divorced him and his son Ben is hardened and mean from said split, which makes him resent David and become a bully to a nerdy child named Kirby, who turns out to be Fang's son. Worst of all, Fang himself, who was thought to be changed... hadn't really changed since being sent to reform school and resumes picking on poor David, who is perceived as paranoid by the school staff.
• Psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) from What About Bob?, whose life as he knows it is ruined when one of his patients (Bill Murray) follows him on his vacation.
  • It could be argued that Dr. Marvin brings his misfortune on himself, as he is revealed through the course of the movie to be a closet Jerkass.
    • As much of a Jerkass as Leo arguably is, many of the bad things that happen to him are the result not of Laser-Guided Karma but of Bob being a total pest and occasional idiot. Ironically, Bob actually likes Dr. Marvin for helping to cure him of his anxieties, and his attempts to be friends with the doctor and his family inadvertently cause all the trouble for Leo.
• Harry and Marv in the Home Alone films, especially Marv. Also, the hotel staff in the second film.
• Milton from Office Space, who gets fired but not told about it, has his pay suspended without his knowledge while they allow him to keep on working for free, gets bullied by his supervisor into working every weekend, has his favorite red stapler stolen, and is never allowed to have any cake at office parties. He does get even however when he makes good on his threat to set the office on fire and burns the building down, making off to an exotic beach club with the proceeds of Peter and Michael's ill-formed scheme.
• Elias, Randall and Dante's nerdy co-worker in Clerks II, is frequently teased and picked on by Randall for his devout Christian beliefs, his fandom of Lord of the Rings and Transformers, and his lack of sexual experience.
  • Although he loosens up quite a bit after he watches a homosexual donkey show under the influence of pot and alcohol.
• Vince Vaughn's character in Wedding Crashers, especially during their stay with the family.
• Muerte (Stanley Tucci) from Undercover Blues is established as a borderline Ax Crazy after his first encounter with Jeff Blue (Randy Quaid) but by the end of the film, most people I know are feeling a little bit sorry for him because of the sheer amount of hell the Blues put him through.
• The diction coach in Singin in The Rain serves no other function other than being the victim of Don and Cosmo's tap-dancing stunts in the number "Moses Supposes".
• The Godfather: Fredo Corleone. He's considered too soft for a responsible position in the family business. On the other hand Michael, not he, is sent to college so he can get a profession. Then Michael takes over the business anyway. When Fredo tries to get his own back Michael assassinates him. That must count.
• Harold Lee in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Not only does he get no respect at work, but Kumar often steals his stuff, and throughout the movie, Harold is the one who gets victimized by extreme sports enthusiasts, the police, tree branches, raccoons, and Neil Patrick Harris.
• Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He isn't successful for any more than twenty consecutive minutes in the film. Of course, he is a vengeful, opportunistic bandit...
  • Also, even if he didnt get the gold, he was one of only 2 characters in the entire movie who didnt die.
    • Well, in fact he got half of the gold ("Four for me, and four for you.")
• Gimli in the The Two Towers seems to always be the butt of the comic relief.
• Ben Stiller is a distinguished career Butt Monkey.
• In the film Feast, the character "Beer Guy" is a hapless loser from the get-go. It only goes downhill for him; a monster vomits on him, causing him to become infected with maggots and rot away slowly for the rest of the film. Nobody ever takes him seriously, and he never does anything right; the film treats him like a punching-bag.
• Several scenes were actually cut from Serenity to avert this. While Mal generally has a lot of these anyways, the producers of the film felt that Whedon was taking things to far (which, arguably, he was), and asked him to remove some of the scenes to make his hero more of, well, a hero. This also serves as one of the few (or perhaps only) instances where a Joss Whedon project actually benefited from Executive Meddling.
• Meet the Parents (and its sequel, Meet the Fockers) is all about making poor Greg Focker actually, Gaylord as miserable as possible, having everything that could possibly go wrong, go wrong when he's meeting his girlfriend's parents.
• How about Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) in the Lethal Weapon movies? Granted, he's a bit annoying but his heart's in the right place and he is actually useful. Despite this, he's treated horribly. At one point Riggs alters his medical chart in hospital so that he has to undergo unnecessary RECTAL surgery.
• Paul Hackett in the film After Hours. Going with a girl to SoHo has him losing $20, running out because he thinks the girl is severely disfigured, doesn't have enough change to return back because it's past midnight, a bar owner unable to get into his cash register to get change so they exchange keys so he can get it, seeing a robbery take place and incapable of doing anything about it, the girl he ran away from committed suicide after he goes back to apologize, two girls who like him but later abandon him when he's mistaken for a burglar by a mob, going to a punk nightclub leads to his hair is forcefully shaken into a mohawk, finding out the bar owner he met previously is the boyfriend of the girl who committed suicide after seeing him grieving, chased back into the club which is now empty and after meeting a sculptor there he is hidden in papier mache, but it hardens and she won't let him get out, as she convinces the mob he's not there, and finally, he is stolen as artwork by the original two robbers, as they put him inside their truck. It gets better as he later falls out from the back of the van, as his casing cracks and he's nearby the gate to his office, and then simply goes back to work. This is the happy ending.
• Several of Rob Schneider's roles.
• Angus "Nutty" Nutsford in The Boat That Rocked. Even the audience is in on it.
• Goofball coach Phil Brickman in Rookie of the Year. Poor Brickman having to get himself locked between two hotel doors connecting both rooms and inside a storage cage locker during the final game.
• Ouiser from Steel Magnolias is an eccentric Grumpy Bear in a Crapsaccharine town and often becomes the butt of cruel jokes and outright mocking, whether she provokes it or not.
• Regina George from Mean Girls. Half the plot and humor of the movie is about trying to mess up her life, for goodness sakes. Cady gives Regina foot cream disguised as face-wash, gives her high-calorie weight-gain chocolate bars, claiming that they'll help her lose weight, reveals to Regina's boyfriend that she's cheating on him, then proceeds to come on to said ex-boyfriend, and secretly turns her Girl Posse against her. Oh, and Regina also gets hit by a bus and survives. And of course, this is all Played for Laughs. Since Regina is a total Jerkass, however, she probably deserves it.
• Rodan from Godzilla qualifies. He loses his mate to a volcano and he is left for dead by Godzilla and he is also losing battles against Mechagodzilla. His fans think of him as The Woobie.
• Badass he may be, but Ash from the Evil Dead series is often this.
• Poor Arthur. Especially when it comes to testing out the "kicks", somehow Arthur's always the one getting his chair knocked over, his gun dissed by Eames, and so on. His awesomeness at the end makes up for it, though.
  • It helps that he is clearly sleeping with Eames.
  • Not to mention he gets shot twice at the beginning. Once just to cause him pain, and once BY HIS OWN TEAMMATE (admittedly to wake him up).
• Roman Holiday: Irving. Endlessly.
• In the 2008 film "Wild Child" whenever the plot calls for (or even when it doesn't call for)a student of Abbey Mount to make a fool of herself, get hopelessly drunk and pass out in a puddle of vomit, someone other than Poppy to be bullied or even for someone to be in a life-threatening situation, it WILL be Drippy.
• C3PO in Star Wars. He gets little camera time in episode 1 and the camera time he does get, he's not covered, and starts off missing an eye. In episode 2 he falls down a shaft and switches bodies with a droid. in episode 3, he is gets his mind wiped. in Episode 4, he is captured, and he is trapped under several wires. in episode 5, he is blasted into several pieces. He is given a break in episode 6 when the ewoks treat him like a god.
  • Poor R2D2, he is always blasted, and C3PO blames him for everything. But this is mostly a result of what happens to C3PO.
    • Nah, he just gets too many 'save everybody' moments (in Episode 1 he saves the queen's starship, in 3 he redirects the elevator, in 4 he stops the trash compactor and in 5 he re-activates the Falcon's hyperdrive), as well as any number of other moments when he only makes badass.
• The Chinese in the third Pirates of the Caribbean film.
• Paul "Dibbs" Plutzker in the 1995 film: Casper
• Lewis in RoboCop varies. She gets a few pretty good moments beating up street level mooks, but generally she seems to exist to show how awesome Robocop is. In the second movie she nearly gets strangled to death by a twelve year old. And let's not forget the third movie when Lewis refuses to take her body armor.
• The eponymous Mystery Team, but especially Duncan. The trio takes a lot of abuse, but probably nothing tops Duncan being forced to plunge his hand into a gentleman's club toilet in order to retrieve a ring that may or may not be the one they were looking for... and then refusing to help him out the window as the angry bouncer chases after them
• Ryan Reynolds in this trailer for The Proposal.
• In Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, the unnamed assistant of the Mexican professional wrestler El Santo, whom Jesus calls in halfway through the film to help him defeat the vampires preying on the local lesbian population, serves as one of these, having no lines and being observed piled with luggage that weighs more than she does, rolled over and flattened into the mud under her boss's (substantial) weight, and otherwise subjected to various humiliating and unpleasant mishaps for no apparent reason. A somewhat literal example, as the most common mishap to befall her is having her ample and shapely posterior randomly fondled by any of the other members of the cast, which she accepts with a sigh of quiet annoyance.
• High-school student Max in Hocus Pocus. His virginity is repeatedly invoked and commented on. The biggest offender is his eight-year-old sister, Dani.
• Stu is the designated Butt Monkey of The Hangover films. In the first movie, he is henpecked by his horrid and unfaithful bitch of a girlfriend, loses a tooth, and accidentally marries a Hooker with a Heart of Gold while under the influence of date rape drugs.
  • The sequel takes it Up to Eleven, in which his soon to be father-in-law humiliates him in a pre-wedding speech. Then, after Adult Child Alan drugs them yet again, he gets a PERMANENT Mike Tyson tattoo and nearly has his wedding ruined. Oh, and he receives anal sex from a transvestite.
• In Clue, Mr. Green spends the entire movie being verbally and occasionally physically abused by the other characters and/or falling victim to his own klutziness. He gets his payoff in the third ending, when it's revealed that he was a Deep-Cover Agent for the FBI, and he gets to shoot the Big Bad and make a few pithy one-liners of his own.
• The private investigator in Victor Victoria is an example of a tertiary-character Butt Monkey. Every single scene featuring him (all four of them) involves slapstick at his expense.
  • In his first scene:

Club owner: Be careful.
Private eye: I am always careful.
Club owner: That chair is broken.
Private eye: It is? (chair collapses)

• • Later he hides outside Victoria and Toddy's apartment during a thunderstorm and is struck by lightning.
  • He later hides in Victoria's bathroom closet, with his finger stuck through the door so he can see out. Guess what happens.
  • To add insult to injury, when he presents the club owner who hired him with the bill, said club owner takes out a hammer and brings it down on the already-broken finger. Hard.
• Dawn "Wienerdog" Wiener, Welcome to The Dollhouse. Especially if her bratty tutu-wearing kid sister Missy has anything to do with it.
• Not a speaking role, and not human, but arguably the "little anal-dwelling butt monkey" from Bruce Almighty has a life something like this. Or at least has Word Of God going for categorizing it so.