Good Victims, Bad Victims
A morality trope about the arbitrary distinctions writers make between certain sorts of victims. If a character in fiction has a problem or ailment or social situation, and the creators intend him to be sympathetic, the character will have acquired the problem in the most socially acceptable way. If the character isn't sympathetic, then he will have contracted the illness through "your own damn fault".
|
Situation |
Good |
Bad |
|---|---|---|
| Rape | chaste woman | promiscuous woman |
| Unemployment | Laid off, displaced | never hired, fired regardless of circumstances |
| AIDS | in-utero, transfusion | sex, shared drug needles |
| Cancer | hazardous worker, accidental toxin exposure | smoker |
| Abortion | response to rape | response to casual sex |
| Disaster | Absolutely unforeseen, at least by the general populace, new, not result of victim action | Foreseen by everyone but willingly ignored, known hazard, victims caused or contributed |
| Homelessness | Sudden and absolutely unforeseeable disaster, Domestic Abuse, war | Personal financial problems/unemployment, mental illness, drug addiction |
| Drug Addiction | as a result of prescribed medication | as a result of illegal drugs |
| Becoming a social outcast | Society itself is a Dystopia, one can prove extreme talent | Disagreement with anything short of a Dystopia, being a loner, Values Dissonance |
| Vampirism | in-utero, transfusion | bitten, voluntary |
| Lyncanthropy | bitten | inherited, voluntary |
| Superpowers | accident, experiment | inherited, voluntary |
| Murder | innocent child, Token Wholesome | Asshole Victim, Disposable Sex Worker |
Note that, to an extent, this trope can be justified. A person who gets carpal tunnel syndrome from writing a Nobel prize winning novel is a bit different from someone who gets it playing World of Warcraft is a bit different from someone who gets it by spending too much time whipping slaves. Where the Unfortunate Implications crop up is that most of the time, the moral gulf between the good victim and the bad victim is nowhere near that extreme.
See also Good Flaws, Bad Flaws. Compare the varying media standards between Hitmen and Assassins (both in Career Killers). Also see the difference between High-Class Call Girl and Disposable Sex Worker.
No Real Life examples, please, as they are just an invitation to an Edit War.
Comic Books
- Blade: The main character is a heroic half-vampire who contracted it not in the normal way (being bitten) but in-utero when his pregnant mother was bitten. Victims of bites are uniformly evil.
- Mutants in the X-Men mythos are feared and despised by having natural powers, yet people like Spider-Man and Mr. Fantastic are loved by the public, even though the only difference is that they got their powers in accidents.
- This is a bit of an oversimplification—nearly all heroes in the Marvel Universe have been hunted by the authorities at one point or another, though admittedly, only mutants are (nearly) always despised simply for being mutants.
- Mostly because newer writers keep forcing thinly-veiled social allegory into the X-Men series, whereas writers from other superhero comics are more preoccupied with creating entertaining storylines.
Literature
- This article discusses this trope as related to AIDS in the 1990s.
- Anita Blake: Most of the shapeshifters contracted lycanthropy from an attack by a were-whatever, making them the survivors of a vicious attack. Only a very few chose the life voluntarily.
- Wild Cards has Aces and Jokers — they have the same virus, but their reception by the public varies based on which manifestation of it they got. And they're not written necessarily sympathetically if they're pretty aces, or hatefully if they're deformed jokers either.
- In the James Bond novel Goldfinger, Bond dislikes Pussy Galore's lesbianism until she tells him she was abused by her Creepy Uncle. So apparently (in the 1950s at least), lesbianism by choice was bad but lesbianism because of previous abuse by men was OK.
- Two Weeks With the Queen is surprisingly tolerant in this regard—even the gay man with AIDs is treated sympathetically.
Live-Action TV
- An episode of Brass Eye invokes this when the host of a chat show completely changes his attitude toward a guest when he discovers the guest has "Bad AIDS" (caught from homosexual sex) rather than "Good AIDS" (caught from a blood transfusion) as the host had previously thought. Seen here.
- Sesame Street: Kami is a Muppet character from the South African version of the show who has AIDS, which she caught from a blood transfusion, despite this in reality consisting of only 2.5% of transmissions in sub-Saharan Africa. She, evidently, has "Good AIDS".
- More like: "The only kind of AIDS you could get away with talking to small children about"
- Actually, Kami contracted AIDS in-utero. Her mother died of AIDS and now she lives with a human foster mother. One sketch had Kami telling her friends that she missed her mother sometimes and how she deals with grief.
Video Games
- The demon-allied orcs of Warcraft 1 and 2 are revealed to be a peaceful shamanistic race in the backstory to Warcraft 3, as after the Horde's defeat, they lost their permanent rage. Thrall, seeking to reunite them with their roots, allies with Grom Hellscream (one of the original chieftains of their homeworld). Grom ends up being repossesed by the demons, but reveals that (most of) the chieftains gave themselves to the corruption willingly. Thrall, who is understandably more than a little pissed to hear this, brings Grom back and kicks the ass of the Pit Lord responsible for the corruption.