Circle of Shame

She'll send me back to MAGIC KINDERGARTEN!

"This is not happening. The cruel slow-motion laughter is just your imagination"

—Sue Sylvester, Glee

The inversion of Laughing Mad - a character's humiliation is depicted with a pan around a group of people laughing at them, often in slow motion. May be more or less fancifully depicted, ranging from a simple shot of a bunch of people pointing and laughing, to a Fish Eye Lens low-angle "swallowed up by the floor" shot Whip Panning from Grotesque sneering face to sneering face.

Can occur in Bad Dreams, or can just be an Imagine Spot. Every now and again it might even happen for real.

Can be used in Flashback to set up They Called Me Mad and/or Who's Laughing Now?.

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Examples of Circle of Shame include:

Comic Books

• Captain Boomerang experiences a hallucinatory one when Mindboggler unleashes his greatest fear in an early issue of Suicide Squad. He hallucinates that he surrounded by the superheroes who have defeated him the past; all laughing at him.
• Another hallucinatory example happens with Toa Kopaka in Bionicle comic 14, after he is hit by Kuurahk's Staff of Fear

Film

• Used in Thunderbird 6 - The Movie. When Brains outlines his idea of building an airship, a roomful of air industry executives laugh at him. The film's DVD Commentary points out that, since all the characters are marionettes, lots of laughing puppet heads had to be constructed even though each of them would only appear in one shot.

"Sure, they laughed - and then they built it!"

• In Pocahontas 2: Journey To The New World, this happens to the titular heroine when she attempts to stop a bear-baiting at King James' party.
• Used in combination with the Scream Discretion Shot with the rape of Lucy Barker in the climax of the "Poor Thing" scene from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
• Carousel: "Shame on you! Shame on you!"
• Carrie - "They're all gonna laugh at you!"
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure - "There's no basement in the Alamo!" - eveyone laughs at him, and a kid takes his picture.
• Austin Powers Goldmember - happens twice to Austin as the crowd reacts to his father not being there at a royal award and, in flashback, winning an award at spy academy - and there's a toothless old gardener laughing at him both times.

Literature

• In Warrior Cats, Graystripe has a nightmare that StarClan cats are surrounding him and screaming that it's all his fault that bad things happened to ThunderClan.

Live Action TV

• Lampshaded on Glee - "This is not happening. The cruel slow-motion laughter is just your imagination"
• The Vicar in Rev has a Bad Dreams featuring one of these, as all his friends and family point and jeer at him that he'd make a terrible father.

Theatre

• In Lady in the Dark, the Circus Dream ends with Charley's voice rising in accusation and the chorus laughing at Liza. As they leave her and the dream fades, they chant, "Make up your mind! Make up your mind!"

Western Animation

• The Simpsons has used it more than once, for example when Bart fantasizes about his family's reaction to him "ruining Thanksgiving"
• In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic:
  • Discord's Break Them by Talking to Pinkie Pie in the Season 2 premiere convinces her that her friends are always laughing at her behind her back. The scene features one of these to drive the point home, complete with mocking laughter as Pinkie trips and lands in the mud.
  • In "Lesson Zero", Twilight Sparkle freaks out when she worries about being late sending in a friendship report. She has an Imagine Spot where she's sent back all the way to Magic Kindergarten, and all the little ponies are laughing at her. Later, Twilight hears some giggling little ponies at play in the park, and imagines that they're laughing at her.
  • Same thing happened in "Hurricane Fluttershy" but with adult ponies, on account of it happening to her for real when she was a filly.
    • Taken Up to Eleven when Fluttershy starts hallucinating about many, many disembodied eyes staring at her, laughing demonically.
• In Doug, Doug has a fantasy about this happening about Once an Episode.
• Hey Arnold! has this happen dozens of times. Often, several of the characters forming the circle were laughed at in an earlier episode, because Kids Are Cruel.
• At the start of the Phineas and Ferb episode "Out to Launch", Candace asks Jeremy out to a dance, and he and literally everyone in Danville start laughing at her. Then the Earth blows up, and we find this was just Candace relaying her "worst-case scenario" to Stacy.
• Used in an episode of The Weekenders when Carver gets his revenge on an Alpha Bitch by tricking her into showing up to the mall wearing a snorkel mask, a bathing suit, and flippers under the false impression she'll get to meet her favourite celebrity. Because of her ridiculous appearance, this results.
• "I'M STOCK!!!"