Insignia Rip Off Ritual

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    Newman: You're a disgrace to the uniform. *rips off badge*
    Jerry: You know, this is your coat.
    Newman: ...Damn!

    —Seinfeld

    That's it. You've had it with the organization you work for. They've made you work too hard, they've grown corrupt, or they've done something morally questionable in pursuit of their goals. You're quitting, but you don't just want to turn in your Two Weeks Notice and walk off the job. You want to let your employers know just how disgusted you are with them. What better way to do that than by walking up to them, tearing off your chevrons, ranking insignias, and other badges of office and throwing said items into their faces? (If you've recently been awarded a Medal for Valor or for some other reason, feel free to rip that off and cast it dramatically to the floor as well. Your employers should get the message.)

    Alternatively, you could be the leader of a military organization who finds themselves dealing with a lazy or corrupt member. Perhaps that person has become too enthusiastic in their pursuit of the law or has grown to love the violent parts of their job just a little too much. You want to get rid of them, but telling them to get lost isn't enough. You want to send them a message on how disgusted you are, so you summon them to your office, and after a verbal dressing down, you tell them to turn in their badge. Or you just rip the badge right off of them. (Obviously, if they're Ax Crazy, you'll want to have a lot of bodyguards standing around while you do this.) Alternatively, your employee's dismissal ritual could be a lot more stylized and formal than this, with him or her forced to stand stoically in front of their peers while you strip them of their rank. That done, they turn slowly and head towards the exit while the soundtrack swells defiantly.

    An Insignia Rip Off Ritual is often played up for as much drama as can be milked from it, but just as often, it's played for comedy. In such cases, half of the dismissed employee's shirt might get accidentally ripped up along with the badge. Or the type of things that are ripped off aren't formal "signs of office" like pins or badges, but silly things like hairpieces or lapel flowers. A clown might lose his big rubber nose, for instance, or an accountant his pocket protector.

    However you decide to perform a Insignia Rip Off Ritual on your employee, don't expect it to be the last you'll see of them. If they don't join the Other Side, they'll almost always return after a Ten-Minute Retirement, either to redeem themselves, or to bring you to justice, take over your organization and perform a Insignia Rip Off Ritual on you. (That's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, they'll just wreak bloody vengeance upon you.)

    A Insignia Rip Off Ritual might be the starting point for a Humiliation Conga. Expect a Defector From Decadence to perform this if he's particularly fed up with his former group. When done to a military officer by his superiors, expect his sword to be broken.

    A formalized version of this, known as Cashiering, is used by many of the world's militaries when someone is dismissed in extreme disgrace. Just to mention, beforehand the insignias and buttons are removed and re-sewn on with light thread, which explains how they can be removed without tearing the entire jacket.

    See also Turn in Your Badge. Also see Smash the Symbol.

    Examples of Insignia Rip Off Ritual include:

    Anime and Manga

    • In a flashback of Naruto, Itachi throws a kunai at an Uchiha clan crest on a wall before denouncing the clan at one point after he kills Shisui and before his massacre. The Akatsuki members with visible headbands and Sasuke who may or may not count, have slashes through the the emblem of the village to which they formerly swore allegiance.
    • Tower of God: After Baam's fall, Leroro, at this point disgusted with the procedures of the tower's adinistrative staff, storms into Yu Han-Sung's office and turns in his Ranker Badge. After that, an upset Quant protests to Han-Sung that he let him leave, to which the latter replies by taking his badge as well and sending him off, stating that they only came as a pair.
    • The Big O: Dan Dastun shames the military police with a speech about them following Alex Rosewater’s deranged leadership and then performs the Insignia Rip Off Ritual. Later, the rest of the military police follows his example and attacks Alex Rosewater. , , ,
    • In One Piece, after learning that Arlong had Nezumi steal all the money she worked for eight years to earn, Nami begins stabbing the Arlong Pirates tattoo on her arm in anger. In the fourth movie, Gasparde has the Marine emblem crossed out on his ship.
    • In Fullmetal Alchemist after a bunch of central soldiers are shown how utterly corrupt the High Command of Central is, they refuse to follow orders, and rip off their ranks and Amestris insignia and throw them at the General.

    Comic Books

    • Parodied in a 1970s Mad Magazine cartoon by Don Martin. An army officer rips off his subordinate's insignia and epaulets, unsheathes the subordinate's sword, hoists his knee in the air to snap it in half...and accidentally amputates his own lower leg.
    • Used in a 1960s Legion of Super-Heroes story (and cover) when Bouncing Boy (the sixties were different) defeats the rest of the Legion with his super bouncing (no, really). For added humor value, note that the male Legionaires leave holes in their costume. Saturn Girl's emblem just seems to pop off, leaving her costume Comics Code Approved. (In the story itself, all the emblems pop off without clothing damage.)
      • In another Legion story, Ultra Boy's emblem was burned off when the Legion believed he was a fugitive who had joined under false pretenses. (Oddly, that didn't leave a hole in his costume.)
      • Of course none of those insignia were bestowed by the Legion, so it's odd that they took it upon themselves to remove them. (Especially since there was a Legion-specific symbol available, the flight ring, which could have been used for a Turn in Your Badge scene.)
    • In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Luke's childhood friend Janek "Tank" Sunber became an Imperial officer and served in a long, grueling campaign against basically endless waves of primitive tribal aliens. His tactics and work ethic seriously impressed the general in charge, who gave him a field promotion to commander before dying. However, a captain who was jealous about being passed up refused to verify the promotion, and Tank was humiliatingly stripped of his rank as soon as they were offworld. Unusually, Tank stayed Imperial even with a few doubts, even becoming a Fake Defector at Vader's order. Redemption Equals Death. Wow, all of Luke's old friends who pop up in the EU die.
      • No, he survived. And in fact, his escape pod left Rebel One and was rescued by the Empire.
    • In a Superboy (90s clone version) story, Supergirl (90s Matrix version) tries to persuade him to come with her and sort out why he's currently a wanted fugitive. When he refuses, she uses her telekinesis to pull the S-shields off his chest and the back of his jacket.
    • At the end of Gotham Central, when her partner is murdered by Jim Corrigan, Renee Montoya is frustrated and enraged when he manages to get off scot-free after the evidence is tampered with. She breaks into his apartment prepared to murder him but can not bring herself to go through with it. Disgusted with herself and the entire police force, Renee ended the series dropping her badge and gun on Captain Maggie Sawyer's desk as she quits the department.
    • In the middle of Infinite Crisis Superman rips the S from the costume worn by Superboy-Prime to indicate he is not worthy to wear it.

    Film

    • In Gladiator, Maximus cuts up his arm where his Roman tattoo is in angry sorrow that the country he defended betrayed him.
    • A particularly wonderful parodic example occurs in the film Mary Poppins when Mr. Banks is being dismissed from his job. The entire thing is played off as a solemn, hallowed ritual—but one that involves Mr. Bank's bowler hat and umbrella getting destroyed in an overblown, stylized manner. (Meanwhile, his fellow employees are looking on in horror, gasping "No -- Not that!" as his umbrella is turned inside-out.)
    • Star Trek: Insurrection: When Picard has failed to persuade Command that they are doing the wrong thing, and has chosen to defend the Prime Directive in violation of orders, he removes his pips himself, though not in front of anybody.
      • There's no dramatic ripping, but notice that when the gang decides to ship-jack the Enterprise in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, everyone shows up in regular clothes, after showing off their stylish unis the previous film.
    • Looney Tunes: Back in Action plays with this trope. Early on, Brendan Fraser's character gets fired and undergoes the ritual, having his security guard insignia torn off of his shirt. And then, he's ordered to turn in the shirt as well.
    • Adenoid Hynkel does this to the Goering Expy in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator after one failure too many. He removes all the badges and flings them away one by one, then proceeds to attack the jacket itself.
    • At the start of Spider-Man 2 Peter Parker has a day job as a delivery boy at Joe's Pizza, and (apparently once again) can't make good on the 29 Minute Guarantee because of a "disturbance". Peter is fired and, after him pleading to keep his job, the manager rips the company logo sticker from Peter's helmet.
    • Happens in Dirty Harry. At the end of the movie, after finally stopping the Scorpio killer and finding that the only way it was possible was in direct opposition of the system he worked for, Harry throws his badge into a body of water in disgust.
    • In Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, the CIA agent who takes over the Autobot task force from Major Lennox goes out of his way to rip off the major's rank insignia, saying, "You won't be needing this anymore". Unlike most examples, the ripping off doesn't have much impact. For one thing, Lennox is wearing Army-issue ACUs and his rank insignia was being held on with Velcro. For another, Lennox was not in any way being demoted, only relieved of operational command of the task force, so ripping off his rank is nothing but meaningless spite on Agent Douche's part. The only thing Lennox lost was the the thirty-odd seconds it would take him to pick it up and put it back on.
    • Pukar has the military degradation version, since the character has been framed for treason. By the end of the scene, the main character is wearing only tatters.
    • A poignant moment at the end of High Noon, where Will Kane takes off his sheriff's badge and drops it in on the ground in front of the town that's abandoned him.
    • Inverted in the very first scene of Patton where the eponymous general is promoted, and immediately takes his new insignia out of his pocket and glues them onto his uniform. (A subordinate protested that the promotion was not official until approved by the Senate, but legal niceties never troubled George Patton in the slightest.)
    • In The A-Team this happens to the team after their conviction.
    • Iron Eagle II has a scene where after deciding to work together after all to take down the bad guys, the American and Soviet pilots all rip the velcro flag patches off their flightsuits.
    • Referenced in Twelve O'Clock High. After the same man gets busted from sergeant to private and then promoted back to sergeant later the same day -- on two separate occasions -- the general responsible for the demotions and promotions tells him to get zippers installed on the extra stripes.
    • A Jerry Lewis movie (Sadsack?)[please verify] had two career soldiers (a corporal and a private) mentoring the eponymous character (played by Lewis). After being marched back to the barracks by a platoon of WAC soldiers the three are called in front of the unit's First Sergeant. The First Sergeant just stares, so the corporal tears one stripe off his uniform and the private tears the only stripe off his uniform. Lewis reaches for his sleeve, finds nothing, and says, "I guess I'll have to owe you one."
    • In the third RoboCop movie, the Detroit cops in a police station are ordered by an OCP company director to expel by force some civilian from their houses (so that OCP can level the block for redevelopment). One of the older veterans refuses, yanks off his badge and throws it on the floor. The whole unit then walks past the director, each throwing their badge down. The director then used the prisoners/criminals to perform the task, along with its own para-military unit.

    Johnson: Now, sergeant... 15 years on the force is quite an investment. Your job, your pension. Maybe instead of worrying about these squatter people, you might think about your own family.
    Sgt. Reed I am. I'm thinking I have to go home and face them.

    • This happens early in Up!; when Charles Muntz is suspected of having fabricated the skeleton of the mysterious monster from Paradise Falls, he loses his membership in an explorer's society and is seen having the badges ripped off his jacket.

    Literature

    • Happens in Bloodhound to two officers who fled the Bread Riot.
    • In the Honor Harrington universe, this is the kind of ceremony used when someone is cashiered from the space navy. The characters who experience this tend to deserve it; it takes a lot for a member of the peerage to be kicked out of the Royal Manticoran Navy. The fourth book has one of these ceremonies as its central premise and Title Drop, complete with breaking the officer's sword. It also happens at least once in flashback, in the backstory of a villain who is an ex-military officer.
      • The most notable incident of this is the cashiering of Pavel Young, who had embarrassed the Navy -- not to mention getting some of his comrades killed -- by running away in battle. The court decided by one vote not to execute him either because there was a bit of odd dislike at executing people for a Navy of very efficient killers, or because Young's father was a factional leader of the opposition and his support was needed for the war effort. Instead the Court Martial summary was a giant "The Reason You Suck" Speech which one reporter said was written almost the same way as if the court had sentenced death. Then they pulled him up in full dress Bling of War made especially to be shredded, and sliced off all his insignia, broke his sword and so on -- basically going through a long series of rituals to tell him what a piece of no-good, bottom-feeding, slime the Navy thought he was.
    • "Danny Deever", Rudyard Kipling's poem about a British Army hanging: "They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away, / An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'."
    • Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold combines the flavors. Asked to resign, Miles Vorkosigan is upset but reasonably stable until he's told to give back his insignia...at which point the dam breaks. He first gets hysterical, then collapses in one of the seizures which he had been trying to hide from his chain of command, then becomes angry, and he tears them off. Several of his friends happen to see him leave; seeing the torn places where the insignia were, they think Miles's superior tore them off.
    • In Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, a child-killer in the protagonist's unit is subjected to this by MI authorities. Even uniform buttons are removed. This is before he's executed by hanging. The act is described with a euphemistic nod: "He'll dance to Danny Deever". And they play the song "Danny Deever" as they march the condemned man to the gallows.
    • Parodied in the Discworld novel Jingo, where it's noted that "Sergeant Colon took his grimy badge out of his pocket and was a little disappointed that it didn't make a defiant tinkle when he threw it on the table but instead bounced and smashed the water jug."
    • Played perfectly straight in the Star Wars Expanded Universe with the second novel of the second Han Solo trilogy. The first book ended up with him a full-fledged Imperial officer and proud. The second book starts with him drunken, unshaven, and trying to get this goddamn Wookiee to leave him alone. He was dishonorably discharged (for refusing to let said Wookiee slave be killed), and in the ceremony, a fellow officer and someone he considered a friend tore his insignia from his uniform.
      • With Imperial officers, rank tends to come in both those square multicolored badges and in "rank cylinders" set into special pockets in their uniforms. At one point in the X Wing Series a high-ranked character looks at an agitated lower-ranked character and says something to the effect of "If you don't calm down, your rank cylinders will just fall out", mortifying the lower-ranked Imperial and causing him to cover them.
      • Also implied to happen for the Corellian Bloodstripes (like the modern day Medal of Honor), although Han didn't lose his during his discharge because they were awarded by the Corellian military and not the Empire's military.
    • In the novel By the Sword of the Heralds of Valdemar series, Kerowyn reads the mind of her mercenary company's employer and learns that he intends to avoid paying them by sending them to certain death. She stands up and gives a speech to that effect, rips off her mercenary badge, and storms out to go live the hard life of an unaffiliated merc. Unbeknownst to her, because she leaves in such a tearing hurry, it inspires the entire rest of the company to similarly "quit," graduating from resignation to an odd form of Disaster Democracy. Eventually, they track her down and make her the Captain of the reformed company.
    • Shortly before the Mutiny broke out in India, Flashman witnesses several sepoys subjected to this for refusing to bite the paper cartridges for the new Enfield rifles. The sepoys were a mixture of Muslims and Hindus and the cartridges were rumoured to be greased with beef tallow and pork fat; Flashman discovers that they were in fact waxed.
    • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novels, Gaunt does this to General Sturm. It features, and is inverted in Necropolis, when Gaunt removes the blowhard, glory-hungry Commissar Kowle's rank insignia, but when Kowle sacrifices a grenade bandoleer and his arms to destroy a Chaos beast, Gaunt also restores them.
    • When magicians are exiled in The Black Magician Trilogy, the highest ranking members of the guild make a small rip in their robes and say "I cast you out, [name]. Do not enter my lands again". Then every other magician in the guild performs the ritual. Then they are escorted out of the city, stopping at every intersection to have their crimes and punishment announced. From there they're taken to the border, where their crimes are announced again and the guard are told to remember their faces. When they rip your insignia off, they don't mess around.
    • Right at the end of the very first issue of Perry Rhodan, the titular character and then-Major of the US Space Force takes advantage of a quiet moment to himself while standing in the Gobi Desert just after returning from the moon with an alien passenger and some pieces of extraterrestrial high tech that every nation would dearly love to get their hands on -- 1971 Earth is very much a Cold War setting in that 'verse, though with three major power blocs rather than just two to remove his insignia and symbolically break his ties with his former organization.
    • The mercenary companies of The Deed of Paksenarrion have the practice of "turning out tinisi turin" (meaning "shorn sheep") that does not involve literal insignia but fills the dishonorable discharge role in a humiliating and painful way. The offender is paraded in front of the company and stripped of his/her uniform. He is then shaved of all body hair (yes, even there), branded with an identifying mark, probably whipped as suits the offense and then sent off naked, expelled from the realm.
    • This trope occurs several times throughout the D'Artagnan Romances, with characters breaking their swords over their knee when they surrender, yield or refuse to obey the King, effectively quitting their job.
    • Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff in The Lord of the Rings serves both to demonstrate his new power and as an example of this trope, since the staff symbolises his position as one of the Istari.[1] Also, Denethor's last act before lying down on his burning pyre is to break his own scepter of office over his knee.
    • In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Black Colossus", Yasmela demands that Count Thespides return her glove and leave; she doesn't have to actually carry it out.

    "Count Thespides," said Yasmela, "you have my glove under your baldric. Please give it to me, and then go."
     "Go?" he cried, starting. "Go where?"
    "To Koth or to Hades!" she answered. "If you will not serve me as I wish, you shall not serve me at all."
    "You wrong me, princess," he answered, bowing low, deeply hurt. "I would not forsake you. For your sake I will even put my sword at the disposal of this savage."

    • Subverted in the Wing Commander Expanded Universe novel Fleet Action: Admiral Tolwyn receives this treatment, only for it to later be revealed as a part of a Zero-Approval Gambit so that he could go on a secret mission while giving his higher-ups Plausible Deniability.
    • Frank G. Slaughter's Flight From Natchez opens with the main character's court-martial for embezzlement (he was framed) and the ritual includes not only the tearing off of insignia and breaking of his sword (over his head, not the other officer's knee), but a final disgrace still legal at the time though usually no longer used : literally booting him out of the British Army. Slaughter researched for his novels with great care, so the described procedure is most likely accurate.

    Live Action TV

    • The old TV series Branded opened every episode with the hero going through this ritual.
    • Subverted in Seinfeld with the above quote. Jerry is quick to remind Newman that he's wearing Newman's uniform.
    • A comedic example occurs in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where TV's Frank gets fired by Dr. Forrester. Not only does Dr. Forrester rip off Frank's "Deep 13" badge, but his iconic forehead curl as well.
    • Happens at least Once a Season in most Star Trek series. Since combadges double as tracking devices in the Star Trek universe, this is sometimes as pragmatic as it is idealistic.
      • Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation has been known to solemnly and slowly remove his combadge and place it on a table when he has to do something more Klingon than Federation, or when he has a Ten-Minute Retirement.
        • Although there is no insignia ripping, this is the idea behind Worf's "discommendation" ceremony.
        • Worf was, at one point, told not to wear Klingon emblems such as the family crest on his baldric during the trial.
        • This ceremony was the result of Quark's Crowning Moment of Awesome when he maneuvered a corrupt Klingon into getting himself discommendated on the spot.
      • By contrast, in one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Chief O'Brien was temporarily and against his will put on medical suspension; as he took the turbolift away from Ops, he tore off his combadge and threw it at the ground. Less dramatic, but even more powerful in its way.
        • Deep Space Nine, being Darker and Edgier, had a number of incidents where characters Do What They Have To Do, but don't want to disgrace the ideals of Starfleet (and/or don't want to be tracked), so they pull off their combadges to indicate that they are no longer acting as Starfleet officers.
        • In "Paradise Lost" Sisko walks into the office of the Admiral who planned a military coup (and was also Sisko's former captain), yanks the combadge off at phaserpoint, and says that he has come to ask the Admiral for his "resignation". When the coup is stopped, the Admiral finishes the job by laying his rank bars on the table.
        • In Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges Bashir and Ross remove their combadges for an ‘off the record’ discussion about Section 31. Bashir quotes Cicero when he compares the United Federation of Planets to Caesar and Rome.
      • Voyager did this a few times. The Kazons "confiscated" the crew's combadges when they stole their ship. Also, Janeway removed one of Paris's pips when he violated orders and she busted him down to Ensign.
    • An old episode of British cop show Dixon of Dock Green saw Dixon collaring a corrupt colleague, demanding that the corrupt copper remove his uniform (jacket only - this is a family show) so that Dixon could arrest him.
    • In CSI episode "Goodbye and Good Luck," Sara Sidle slowly rips off her badge, hangs her jacket in her trainee's locker, and drops the badge in the garbage can before (finally!) kissing Grissom goodbye and literally climbing on a bus.
    • In Due South, Inspector Thatcher, cuts Fraser's RCMP lanyard as a symbol of him being suspended after he tries to cover for his sister, Maggie and doesn't arrest her as Thatcher orders.
    • In the final episode of the TV series Jericho, some soldiers vote to rebel against the new "Allied States of America" and rip off their flag patches. It was snarkily noted in some quarters that the patches came off so easily they appeared to have been velcroed on.
      • If they were wearing the newest uniform, the Army Combat Uniform (ACU), the flag patch is velcroed, along with the rest of the insignia.
      • Earlier, in "Semper Fidelis", Johnston ripped the insignia off of one of the fake marines as they were leaving.
    • The French-Canadian TV Show called Dans Une Galaxie Près de Chez Vous (In a Galaxy Near Yours) is a TV show somewhat like Red Dwarf, only even less serious and with even less budget (and proud of it). They subverts this trope when the captain demotes his traitorous second-in-command, named Brad by ripping off his rank badge on each shoulder of his jacket... leaving gaping holes through which he can see that there are similar badges on Brad's undershirt. The captain then orders him to remove his jacket so he can rip those off too... Only to see through the left-over holes that Brad has a third set of insignia glued to his skin. The captain orders him to remove his shirt and rips those off too.
    • Majorly spoofed in an episode of Married... with Children where Al became a security guard at his old high school, only to have everything that wasn't nailed down was stolen on his shift. The next scene after this shows the tiny gray haired principal doing this ritual to Al's uniform, complete with ridiculously sad heroic music in the background. Judging by her reaction to the smell when she rips off part of his shirt insignia, she probably wished she'd gone a more orthodox route in firing him. The sequence in question is a direct parody of the opening of Branded, mentioned above.
    • Happens a lot on [[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|the rebooted Battlestar Galactica]]. Adama alone has done it multiple times.
    • Lampshaded in the "Abyssinia, Henry" episode of M*A*S*H. As Henry Blake is set to go home the following day, in grand solemn "ceremony" while Henry is celebrating at Rosie's Bar with Hawkeye, Trapper John, and Radar, Trapper rips the flaps off Henry's shirt pockets while pronouncing him "Mister Doctor Henry Blake", and they present Henry with a new (civilian) suit.
      • It should be noted that none of his actual military insignia was removed in this scene; Hawkeye and Trapper just ripped the shirt itself.
    • The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon tries to do this when he steps down from his self-appointed position of captain of the Physics Department paintball team, but because he's weak and he sewed it on too perfectly, it stayed.
    • A sketch on The Dave Allen Show featured a male officer removing a female officer's hat, then ripping off her epaulettes, then her brass buttons, then her blouse...
    • Inverted on Stargate SG-1. When the team got back together at the beginning of season nine, Mitchell put all of their patches back on.
    • Ned does this in episode five of Game of Thrones when he resigns his position as hand of the King, removing his insignia pin. Robert gives it back to him in episode six when Ned is not in a position to refuse.
    • Starsky and Hutch: in the first part of "Targets Without A Badge", our burned-out heroes decide to quit the police force after the death of a witness they were protecting; this leads to a dramatic freeze-frame shot of them throwing their badges into the ocean.#
    • The Western episode of The Prisoner had a Special Edition Title in which Number Six is a sheriff throwing down his badge, instead of a secret agent throwing down a letter of resignation.

    Music

    • In the full-length version of Tom Lewis's "Buntz!", the accompanying dialogue relates how Buntz the dachshund was ceremonially stripped of his naval half-pip in front of the whole crew. Harsh punishment for falling in love with a French Afghan hound, but he had engaged in conduct unbecoming in a British ship's mascot, in public and in front of the press.

    Theatre

    • In a production of Othello, Cassio is forced to go through with this after having his rank taken away. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Iago (who engineered this fall) is the one who actually removes the insignia, and is promoted in Cassio's stead.

    Video Games

    • Done very well in Suikoden II, when the noble leader of the Blue Knights defies his lord, tearing off his knight's insignia and dropping it at his feet. The lord orders the easygoing leader of the Red Knights to arrest him. He tears off his insignia as well. Cue every knight in the room doing the same, the 'plink' sound of the metallic badges striking the stone floor resounding in the throne-room...
    • Roger Wilco suffers a humorously over-the-top dismissal from the Star Confederation in this manner at the beginning of Space Quest 6. The decommissioning officer starts with his insignia, then his uniform sleeves, and by the end of the humiliating speech, he's ripped off Roger's pants and undergarments as well.
      • And for punchline his muscles are revealed to be a suit with a zipper, also torn off revealing his less than impressive real upper body.
    • An unusual variation is mentioned in the backstory of Homeworld (quite literally All There in the Manual), with the kiith[2] Soban having initiates perform this ritual upon themselves to symbolise the fact that they are forsaking all prior allegiances in favour of The Spartan Way of their new clan.

    Western Animation

    • In the Ren and Stimpy episode "Hermit Ren", after Ren is kicked out of the Hermit's Union for inventing imaginary friends, he gets his beard torn off as he's drummed out.
    • Parodied on Clone High when Scudworth rips off the insignia from Abe's basketball shirt, exposing his nipple.
    • Futurama:

    Farnsworth: This is an outrage. I demand that you hand over your captain's jacket.
    Leela: This is my normal jacket. I've had it for 10 years.
    Farnsworth: I said hand it over!

    • Parodied multiple times in The Simpsons. When Homer was kicked out of the Stonecutters for violating their sacred parchment, he had to turn in his robes and Stonecutter underwear, then he was ordered to walk home naked, chained to the "Stone of Shame". Later on when he was kicked out of the Gun Club, he was told to turn in his tattoo, which Moe offered to remove with a cheese grater (to Moe's disappointment, Homer never got the tattoo).
      • When Apu was fired from the Kwik-E-Mart his various advertising badges were taken and he was ordered to turn in his pricing gun and his back-up pricing gun (which he kept in a holster on his ankle).
    • In the Looney Tunes short Forward March Hare, every time Private Bugs Bunny fouls up, his commanding officer is demoted. Although the act is never seen, it is implied by his insignia disappearing bit by bit, exposing the differently toned fabric underneath.
      • Parodied in the short Fresh Hare where Bugs impersonates Elmer Fudd's commanding officer (Elmer was a Mountie in this story) and decides to "drum you out of the service!" He starts by ripping off Elmer's buttons, then his epaulets, then goes into a frenzy of cloth-tearing until he finds he's holding a pair of boxer shorts, which he sheepishly hands back to Elmer.
      • Bugs also gets to do this to Hermann Goering in the short Herr meets Hare while in a paper-thin disguise of Adolf Hitler, Goering gives out some choice insults.
    • In Transformers Animated, Sentinel Prime tears Wasp's Autobot insignia off after arresting him for espionage.
      • Transformers does this a lot. Jetfire does this when he decides he wants to be an Autobot instead of a Decepticon, and Waspinator, fed up at being blown up all the time and essentially being the eternal Chew Toy, tears off his insignia near the end of a long rant. In keeping with his Butt Monkey status, he is blown up just before he finished his speech.
    • Spoofed in an episode of Dudley Do-Right, in which Dudley is sent undercover to foil yet another Snidely Whiplash scheme. Inspector Fenwick's scheme requires him to be expelled from the Mounties, but every evil plan Dudley dreams up turns out to be fortuitously helpful - for example, he dynamites a dam, but his actions actually relieve a severe drought further downstream. He is finally dismissed for eating his peas with his dinner knife, which results in him being stripped to his heart-print boxers.
    • In Exo Squad, Thrax is demoted and has his insignia ripped off for not finishing off an Exofleet pilot during the retreat from Mercury.
    • Played for laughs in Family Guy when Tom Tucker is fired and told to turn in his moustache.
    • Parodied in an episode of South Park, where when Mr. Garrison is given leave from his job as a third grade teacher, he goes to turn in his gun.
      • Eric Cartman was in that third grade class. You'd want to be armed too.
      • Also parodied in the episode where Stan is banished from South Park: Part of the banishment ceremony consists of his neighbors ripping off parts of his parka and spitting on him.
    • Done in the Disney war short "Home Defense"; after Donald Duck sees through the boys' ruse of an attack, he rips off their chevrons and destroys their (wooden) swords. Then, when he (again falsely) believes he's under attack (and makes sure that it wasn't the boys this time), he sews the chevrons back on and gives them new swords.
    • In one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, when Squidward is fed up with the way the Krusty Krab is treating him, he takes his hat off and stomps on it. He tries to get Spongebob to do it too, but Spongebob can't bring himself to and just steps on it limply.
      • Kevin the sea cucumber has his "crown" ripped off after being relieved of his position in the Jellyfishing Club. Turns out it was part of his head.
    • In the 2011 ThunderCats reboot, Turncoat General Grune rips off the cabochon that marks him as a member of Thundera's military, when he reveals his treachery.
    • Skyfire does this in the Transformers Generation 1 episode Fire in the Sky when he rips off his Decepticon insignia before proclaiming himself an Autobot.
    • In an Imagine Spot on Doug, Mr. Dink removes all of Doug's Bluff Scout badges and yanks his hat down to his neck.
    • Taz-Mania: Happens to an elderly Francis X. Bushlad when it is discovered that he never completed his manhood ritual.
    • In The Legend of Korra, Lin Beifong does this when she's using Metalbending to get dressed, to show that she is no longer affiliated with the police force.
    • In the Dr. Seuss animated TV special Pontoffel Pock the protagonist is sacked by the owner of a pickle factory, who tears the company's logo off his uniform with an angry "You are a disgrace to your dill pickle badge!"

    Real Life

    • The singer Tony Bennett was demoted and reassigned after some remarks he made against the Army's racial segregation policy. His CO ripped off his insignia, spat on it, and told him he was "a private again."
      • This is actually a traditional element of military punishment. A famous engraving shows "The Degradation of Dreyfus": The hapless Captain Alfred Dreyfus (of the "Dreyfus Affair" that fiercely divided France in the 1890s and 1900s), framed and convicted for espionage, having his insignia stripped from his uniform and his sword broken before being sent off to Devil's Island.
      • The concept of a soldier being "drummed out of the corps" in some particular form of ceremony (which usually involved breaking his sword over his head while a drum played slowly in the background) is Older Than Steam.
    • The British orders of Knighthood provide for a public degradation ceremony for disgraced Knights. The last victim was Francis Mitchell in 1621, sentenced for 'Grievous Exactions' (abusing a government position). In his case his spurs were broken and thrown away, his belt cut, his sword snapped over his head and a declaration made that he was "no longer Knight but Knave" before he was led away to be imprisoned in The Tower of London.
      • For nobles this could be taken further with an "Attainder": an attainted person is not only stripped of their insignia of rank but also of any inherited titles and everything they own, and their children are forcibly disinherited (their lands etc. default to the Crown).
    • In World War I, this was inverted to some extent as Allied machine gunners were advised to rip off their machine gunner patches just prior to been captured by the enemy. This was because the Germans feared the machine guns to the degree that if a prisoner of war was believed to be a machine gunner, he was treated much worse.
      • In World War II, prisoners in German camps were identified as part of various groups by insignia on their garments - mostly triangles of various colours, with a Star of David used to identify Jewish prisoners. When the camps were liberated, the inmates ripped these insignia off their garb post-haste.
    • Truth in Television to some extent, as witnessed by quotes from several US veterans of WWII; one submariner in particular recalled a captain who had been relieved as mentally unfit for a frontline command having his dolphins (submariner's insignia) torn off at the very same ceremony as he was awarded a Silver Star for his first patrol, by the same officer who had pinned the medal on.
      • A mass ritual was once done to the American Paratroopers in WW 2, as explained in Band of Brothers. The 506th Regiment was given leave, but almost none of them returned before curfew. The next morning, the commander had the entire unit form up, and then drummed out one soldier from every company, complete with a lieutenant tearing off their jumpwings, stripes, Airborne badges, anything that would mark them as a paratrooper, before being sent off to the regular army with their uniform shredded.
    • During the attack on Pearl Harbor, able to do little more but watch in horror from his office, Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet Husband E. Kimmel removed his (acting/temporary/brevet) Admiral (four-star) insignia and replaced them with his (permanent) Rear Admiral (two-star) insignia, correctly anticipating this loss of status and command. (Officers cannot be reduced in permanent rank, but any temporary rank can be revoked.)
    • Modern US Army uniforms have rank insignia attached by Velcro. It's customary for commanders to tear off rank if a soldier is demoted, but this is usually done in private. (Although, to clarify, insignia are not attached by Velcro because of potential demotion. Displaying your high rank in the field is a "shoot me first" sign among other issues.)
      • Sewn-on ranks normally have most of the threads cut prior to the soldier reporting to the commander for a demotion. This allows the commander to quickly and dramatically tear off the rank insignia to reinforce the psychological impact of the action. Or for the commander to take a razor to the threads in front of their supervisor and anyone else present. Given the cost and time of properly setting up dress uniforms, this has a fairly significant impact
      • Although it's pretty common for soldiers to tear off or trade ranks, nametapes, flags, and organizational patches just for the hell of it. Or to screw with one another.
    • Similarly, the first bomb loads dropped onto Imperial Japan by American forces in WW2 were accompanied by dozens of medals that had been awarded to American servicemen in the previous war by the Japanese.
    • John Kerry famously threw his medals over the wall of the White House while protesting the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Several of these medals later reappeared in time for his presidential run in 2004. Various political opponents asserted that either the medals he threw in 1971 or the medals he wore in 2004 must have been fake.
      • Political opponents who Did Not Do the Research. The medals are not the awards, they are symbols of the awards, and replacements can be obtained.
    • Marshal Zhukov often did it to generals. Since, theoretically, general ranks were only given and taken by the collective decisions of the government, and no one man could do it (in practice, it was about the same principle, but the real government was different), it's not surprising that in the end, Zhukov was kicked out himself.
    • Not long after Russell Williams was convicted of murder, the Canadian Forces burned his uniform and his commission scroll, destroyed his medals and crushed his official vehicle.
    1. ↑ Hence Saruman's earlier accusation about Gandalf desiring 'the rods of the five wizards'
    2. ↑ sort of like a Nakama crossed with a kibbutz; it's complicated
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