"Shut up, you damn cripple!"
Black iron greaves made for Commander Gaius.
A cruel joke, for he could not wear them.
Riding atop the boar he called his other half, Gaius was in fact a warrior of albinauric extraction.
A cruel joke, for he could not wear them.
Riding atop the boar he called his other half, Gaius was in fact a warrior of albinauric extraction.
— Description for Gaius's Greaves, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
An easy way to make a character loathsome is to have them ostracize or tease someone with a (usually physical) disability. Most bullies wouldn't mock someone for having a disability — it's seen as too mean to mock someone who is "helpless" or someone who has an issue they have no control over — so only the cruelest characters do. Usually only younger characters act this way, however adults and even parents are also known to. Expect the ones who use this trope to later receive some form of punishment for their behavior.
This is also a lesser-known part of fascist rhetoric in real life. In addition to the better-known racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and more, they also consider disabled people to be parasitic drains on society and/or inferior by definition to non-disabled people. They may also claim that disabled people are using their disabilities to justify misbehaviour, are faking their disabilities or at least exaggerating their severity etc. and need to be "taught a lesson."
Super-Trope to Infertility Intolerance. Compare to Bury Your Disabled, Disability Exploitation, Abandon the Disabled, Neurodivergence Stigma, and Politically Incorrect Villain. Sub-Trope to Kick the Dog and Moral Event Horizon. May be a reason for the disabled character Hiding the Handicap. Also compare to its approximate counterpart Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery. Contrast Handicapped Badass, where bullies should not mess with this disabled character or they will be disabled themselves, and Wouldn't Harm the Disabled for characters who refuse to harm disabled people. See also Disability Aid Loss and Mistaken for Faked Disability. May overlap with Disability Gag if it is Played for Laughs or with Would Harm a Senior if the bullied character is elderly. Related to Braces-Based Bullying and Bullying the Bespectacled.
Examples:
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- "Our Daughter Grace''
: An infamous incident of a candidate for President of the United States blatantly doing this to mock a reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who has Arthrogyposis for contradicting said candidate's talking points is featured as part of the campaign ad.
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You:
- Shizuka didn't have any friends before meeting Rentarou because her schoolmates disliked her and thought she was weird for using a book to communicate, and her mother tried to force her to speak normally on separate occasions by hitting her and taking her phone away.
- Ahko was the victim of social bullying from her friends, being shunned and ostracized for her Frozen Face and seemingly clueless behavior, without consideration for how that was hurting her.
- Joséphine of the Rose (2011): Madame de la Touche throws a dig at Hortense, Joséphine's daughter, for being born prematurely and tells her that even Alexandre is disappointed in her because of it.
- My Hero Academia: Katsuki Bakugou has been bullying Izuku Midoriya for no less than ten years, on the grounds that Izuku is a Quirkless in a world where most people have superpowers (so, by the standards of that world, Izuku would be disabled). That, and Bakugou has somehow convinced himself that Izuku is looking down on him. Unfortunately, because of Values Dissonance, Bakugou's bullying (going as far as a Suicide Dare) is treated as no big deal, even though realistically it would have terrible consequences.
- A Silent Voice: Ableism in Japan is a reoccurring theme, so naturally, this happens a lot.
- The manga is about a New Transfer Student elementary schooler named Shoko Nishimiya who is bullied for being deaf. The protagonist, Shoya Ishida, is the worst of the bullies. He constantly makes fun of her, teases her, yanks her hearing aid off, and gets into a fight with her. After Shouko moves away, the class turn their bullying onto Shouya instead. Years later, a high school-aged Shouya learns sign language and tries to atone by befriending Shouko. Despite this, it doesn't help Shouko's feelings of inadequacy due to her deafness and the suicidal thoughts she's had since elementary school.
- Shouko's own mother has acted cold towards her due to her deafness. However, she doesn't hate her daughter. Yaeko made Shouko stay in her elementary school so that she could toughen up. When someone does complain about her daughter, she slaps her hard. It turns out that Yaeko's in-laws blamed Yaeko for Shouko's deafness and thought that it was the reason why Yaeko's husband divorced her, giving a reason for her distant behavior towards her daughters.
- Ueno is a Clingy Jealous Girl who hates Shouko's guts for being close to Shouya. She takes out aggression on Shouko by mocking and bullying her, at one point even telling her You Should Have Died Instead when Shouya saves her from suicide and ends up in a coma. Unlike the other bullies, she shows no remorse towards it. Ueno even tries to shift the bullying away from herself.
- The Summer You Were There: Shizuku tried to help her elementary classmate Ruri, who often missed class, but what started out as somewhat tactless reassurance of Ruri escalated and became outright verbal abuse, as Shizuku believed that what she was doing was right due to virtually no one calling her out on her behavior. Five years later, Shizuku is horrified when she learns that Ruri had a chronic illness when she was younger, which was the cause of her missing class.
- That's My Atypical Girl: Saito was the subject of intense bullying both at home and in her school life growing up because of her autism, leaving her with all sort of mental problems.
- With the Light: Hikaru is autistic. He receives a lot of criticism and bullying because he's autistic. Sadly, his family is also on the receiving end of this, too, for siring and raising an autistic child.
Comic Books
- Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra: Trey is celebrating that the police dropped the investigation on him, so he takes Matt's cane.
- Uncanny X-Men (2024): After having to enroll in school as a condition for staying with the St. Juniors family, Sofia is repeatedly harassed by one of her new classmates because of her stutter, before Valentin and Hotoru "convince" the guy to back off. Flashbacks show that she was previously bullied in her native Singapore; she got outed as a mutant when a bunch of her female classmates jumped her in the bathroom, convinced that she must have cheated in order to get good grades, because they assumed that her stutter indicated that she was stupid.
Comic Strips
- FoxTrot: Peter once punched out a bully who was making fun of his blind girlfriend Denise. Denise herself is initially miffed that Peter punched another student—then upon learning the reason why, she's miffed that Peter had only punched him.
- Garfield: A week-long sequence had Odie bullying Garfield who was stuck in a body cast. When Garfield recuperates, he gets his revenge by whacking Odie with the cast.
Fan Works
- Bubbles: Derpy's mother abuses her for being disabled. Other foals also tease Derpy due to her impairments as well.
- Burning Bridges, Building Confidence: Through Malicious Slander, Lila convinces most of her classmates that Cole is faking her vision problems, despite the fact that she's missing one of her eyes. This leads to her followers bullying and belittling Cole, even declaring that she deserves to have lost her eye. This bites Alya in the ass when she assaults Cole, as her mother responds by getting the act labeled an ableist hate crime. Ms. Bustier and the school also face more serious consequences for allowing the bullying to go unaddressed for so long.
- Elements of Justice: A Hollow Diamond: Scootaloo and her parents sued Diamond Tiara for emotional trauma solely because Diamond picked on the pegasus who can't fly back in "Flight to the Finish" and the blackmail attempt that spiraled out of control was due to Diamond Tiara stealing Scootaloo's scooter akin to someone stealing a wheelchair from a paraplegic.
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse:
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Discussed after Chloe's classmates are Caught on Tape gloating about how much they enjoyed tormenting her. Sara, the Gang of Bullies' ringleader, declares that anyone who's not considered "normal" deserves to be crushed, like Chloe... and Franklin Borage, another student at their school who happens to be autistic. So not only does the whole gang of bullies get into hot water for how they caused Chloe to run away, the public now assumes that Sara and her lackies are willing to attack anyone with special needs.
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus discusses the matter further. Patricia served as Sara's Beta Bitch; after their bullying was exposed, her grandather quietly asked if he will end up on her list of acceptable targets. Patricia ends the story by describing how he pushed his wheelchair away.
- Lady Fairy (I_dont_know_whats_going_on_either): Much like in canon, Chloé and Lila bully Marinette. Only in this fic, Marinette is blind.
- Lost, Found:
- Ryuuko touches upon this with a one-eyed Nui. According to her, the other kids at the "orphanage" liked to pick on Nui because, being blind in one eye, she wouldn't see them coming.
- Something similar to Nui's situation also happens in Orange Juice with Ryuuko herself, who's visually impaired note . The store owner and clerk think it's funny to trick her into buying orange juice when she's trying to buy milk because the cartons feel the same and the colors on either aren't bright enough for her to see.
- Nymph and the Corrupted Miraculous: Mostly averted due to Marinette's status as the school's Lovable Alpha Bitch. However, at one point Lila (who has a crush on Marinette) transforms into Volpina and kidnaps Marinette from her date with Adrien. When Catastrophe disgustedly asks her why she kidnapped the girl in the wheelchair, Volpina snidely points out that it was easiest to grab the one person who couldn't run away, and silently mocks Marinette's disability by holding her hostage in a place that an able-bodied person could easily escape from. Notably, though, this is the only time in the fic Marinette receives such harassment.
- Pokémon: A Marvelous Journey:
- The main character, Julia, often mentions that she was frequently bullied in school due to her autism, and many kids thought she was weird. Her second-grade teacher, Ms. Amoretto, also bullied her because she assumed Julia was some bratty kid whose parents didn't discipline her correctly. There was an incident where Julia was somehow trapped in a PokeBall storage shed in the midst of four Pokémon fighting each other. She was rescued, but Amoretto suspected she started it. This culminates in her trying to strangle Julia in front of one of the other teachers, several students, and a police officer visiting the school that day. Unsurprisingly, Amoretto got arrested, fired from the school, and was blacklisted from ever teaching again. Amoretto also got her butt sued off by Julia's VERY pissed-off parents.
- Her older sister, Amara, is especially hard on her, going from calling her names to blaming her for all of the family's problems. This is because Amara is struggling to cope with the death of a friend in a healthy way, and takes her aggression out on pretty much everyone, even when they haven't done anything to her.
- Beta Bitch Lakeisha Knowles, who bullied Julia, also bullies her younger sister Merlin (who is also autistic) due to the growing influence of Alpha Bitch Kirsten. This peaks in Lakeisha recording a video of one of Merlin's meltdowns, without her permission or knowledge, and texts it to her friends in an attempt to show them that having an autistic sibling is horrible. It does not go well for her at all. All her friends are disgusted with Lakeisha for violating her sister's privacy like that, and then her former friend Cindy (whose mom is autistic) reports what happened to one of the teachers and the principal, getting Lakeisha in serious trouble both at school and at home.
- Son of the Sannin: Subverted. Naruto mistakenly assumes this is happening when he spots Hinata being bullied by three kids who call her eyes creepy. After driving them away, he warns them to never make a girl cry again, "especially a blind girl". While Hinata is grateful for his help, she needs to clear up that she's not actually blind.
- Suddenly (Shattered Glass): In this AU, Miko is deaf. She's regularly harassed by the Esquivel siblings, who bully her for being both a foreign exchange student and deaf.
- The Sun Will Come Up, and the Seasons Will Change:
- The main character is an autistic girl named Mary, who has been subjected to years of bullying from her own mother. Mary's mother makes no secret of the fact that she resents Mary for being autistic and subjects her to punitively strict discipline in an attempt to "cure" her. This involves physically restraining and/or berating Mary whenever she engages in any kind of autistic behaviour such as showing signs of distress at loud noises. Mary's discovery of her mother's online blog, which paints her in an extremely negative light and talks about getting her sterilised when she's older so she can't pass on her autism to the next generation, is what leads to her running away from home and ending up on the Infinity Train.
- Chapter 19 reveals that Nora got suspended for two weeks for beating up a wheelchair-using classmate because "she was hogging the entire hallway", and she almost kills her younger autistic brother, Julius, twice on the same night note .
- With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: Several characters are mistreated for their disabilities and neurodivergence, often escalating to sexual abuse.
- The Sugar Rushers use Vanellope's Tourette's Syndrome to pick on her, though the actual reason they're doing so is because she's the only one of the group who hasn't been molested.
- Ursula assaults Ariel while she's in the bath, and due to Ariel's paraplegia she can't get away.
- Daffy's considered an easy target by the crooked cops because of his autism and ADD, as well as his traumagenic amnesia.
- Lucifer attempts to assault Gus, who has Down Syndrome here.
- The men Entrapta's dated, including Hordak, get Mistaken For Pedophiles because she looks and acts young due to autism, but fellow students picking on the men overflows into them also bullying her.
- Duncan Mathews looks down on the disabled, calling the kids at the Xavier Institute "a house full of freaks", and assaults Scott Summers, who has glaucoma.
- Mr. Mint's helper Lord Licorice took advantage of his learning disability to sexually abuse him.
- Feliciano and Yao both get looked down on for their Tourette's-related Verbal Tics.
- Greta Murphy runs a daycare for autistic kids and abuses them whenever they show any signs of their autism.
- The Wolves in the Woods: After Marinette transfers to another school, Alya tries to convince the rest of the class that the best way to "get her back" is by 'proving' her new friends at St. Catherine's 'aren't worthy'. Her game plan involves spying on all of said new friends and spreading Malicious Slander; as part of this, she reveals that one of them spends a lot of time at the hospital. While she doesn't know what kind of condition she has, Alya still mocks the idea of her being so Delicate and Sickly, much to the disgust of her classmates.
- your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue): This is combined with Innocent Inaccurate when Sakura and Kiba reflect back on how Bekko-sensei's hands constantly shook while he was teaching them. They conclude that he must have had weak hands, and joke about how he's unlikely to survive for long on the front lines as a result. However, it's heavily implied that the real reason he struggled to keep his hands steady was his horror at how he was teaching four and five-year-olds how to kill, knowing that they'd be shipped out shortly as Child Soldiers.
Films — Animation
- Barbie Fairytopia: At the beginning of the film you can see a pair of fairies making fun of the protagonist Elina because she is a fairy who was born without wings, so she could be considered disabled within said universe. Later this turned out to be an advantage, since she is the only one that is not affected by Laverna's poison precisely because she cannot fly.
- Beauty and the Beast (1991): This is used for Deliberate Values Dissonance. The townspeople take joy in Gaston trying to put the supposedly "insane" Maurice into an asylum, despite knowing he's not dangerous or helpless enough for it to be necessary. They mock him and think he deserves it.
- My Depression: Discussed. Liz is worried about random people finding out about her depression and judging her for it. She's then surrounded by a group of talking heads saying things about how she has it "too good" to be depressed, how depression isn't a serious issue, and how she needs to do little things to cure her depression.
- My Little Pony: The Movie (2017): Tempest Shadow is a unicorn with a fractured horn. Her Start of Darkness involves her friends abandoning her after she broke her horn.
- Transformers One: Energon miners such as Orion Pax and D-16 are frequently derided as "no-cogs" or "cogless" by Iacon City guards like Darkwing, due to them being born without the transformation-cogs necessary for them to scan alternate modes and transform. This bullying becomes even more cruel with The Reveal that all the Cybertronians supposedly born without cogs did possess them—only they were stolen by Sentinel Prime so he could make them weak and subservient.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Vanellope is relentlessly bullied by the racers in her game for being a "glitch", which is treated as a disability in-universe.note . The way they mock her for it is painfully similar to how one would mock a person with tourette syndrome.
Films — Live-Action
- Dominick and Eugene: The brain-damaged Nicky is a frequent target of this. Once, some boys surround him, knock his groceries out of his arms, and try to force him to touch their boogers until Gino chases them away.
- The Elephant Man: John Merrick is hideously deformed, walks with a limp due to a crooked spine, only has the full use of one arm, and has a head so heavy that he would break his neck if he were to lie on his back. He's mercilessly beaten by his "owner" Bytes at the circus freakshow, and is later tormented by the drunken night porter and his friends at the hospital.
- Forrest Gump: As a boy, Forrest Gump had to wear leg braces to help him walk after he got sick from polio. When a group of bullies threaten young Forrest and with Jenny's command "Run, Forrest, run!", he flees with such fervor that he shatters his braces and bolts away with astonishing speed. He also has an intellectual disability and gets called "stupid" for it, which he hates. Lieutenant Dan, who lost both legs from an injury while they served in Vietnam, flies into a rage over this and being called a "cripple".
- Freaks: This sort of prejudice is why the sideshow performers defend each other so fiercely. For example, the trapeze artist Cleopatra launches into a tirade disparaging the "freaks" — which is especially shocking considering that she just married one of them, namely the dwarf Hans. As it turns out, she plans to kill Hans for his money and then shack up with the strongman Hercules, but the others in the sideshow figure out her plan and get their horrific revenge by mutilating Cleopatra until she's a "freak" too.
- Friday the 13th: Jason Voorhees was physically deformed and possibly developmentally disabled. As a result, he was picked on and ostracized by other children when he was a boy, especially at the Crystal Lake summer camp where his mother Pamela worked as a cook. This abuse eventually spiraled into a chain of events that led to an on-off murder spree that lasted decades; first by Pamela, who was seeking revenge after Jason drowned in the lake because of the bullying and neglectful camp counselors, and then by Jason himself, seeking revenge for the death of Pamela after the events of Friday the 13th (1980).
- Novocaine (2025): At one point, Nathan Caine mentions to his love interest that kids used to mock his congenital inability to feel pain (the title, the reference to an anesthesic, turns out to be the nickname they gave him) and beat the everliving hell out of him every day because they knew he would not pass out from the pain.
- The Pianist: There's particularly twisted scene in which Nazi soldiers raid a building in the Warsaw Ghetto. One of the Jews inside is an old man using a wheelchair, and the German officer orders everyone to stand up. He obviously can't, and as a result the Nazis throw him off the balcony to his death.
- Recovery: Alan Hamilton has brain damage, the result of a car accident that landed him in a coma. During a "trial day" at his job, Alan gets confused about what task a client wants him to do, leading to her yelling at his friend, who was supervising him, for employing an "incompetent lunatic", stating Alan as "not right in the head". Alan overhears this while hiding in the bathroom, crying, responding with "I BUILT THIS HOUSE, I MADE THIS HOME!!", before continuing to sob.
- SHAZAM! (2019): Billy steps in to defend his disabled foster brother, Freddy, attacking the bullies with Freddy's own fallen crutch. It's implied that this was the event that led the Wizard to pick him as his new Champion. The bullies, who are both bigger than Freddy and going two-on-one, made a sneak attack on him in front of the whole school. Way to introduce yourself to the movie-going public, guys.
- Thir13en Ghosts: In the Ghost Backstories, this is what happened to the Great Child, an intellectually disabled and infantilized circus freak. The end result was the circus destroyed and a lot of people axed after his mother was killed as a result of a prank, as well as the Great Child being torn apart by a mob and becoming a fairly dangerous ghost in the afterlife.
- The Whale: Ellie frequently treats her morbidly obese father like dirt. At one point, she pushes his walker so that he must stand up even though he is unable to.
- What's Eating Gilbert Grape:
- While she's not disabled in the usual sense other than her morbid obesity making her need a cane, the townsfolk gawk and make fun of Bonnie "Mama" Grape, with Gilbert even charging some of the kids for a peek at her through the windows and this is trope is why the Grapes burn the house down after they discovered that she died in her sleep.
- This trope is played with on Arnie's end. From what we see, people tend to be nicer and don't pick on Arnie, other than Ellen being rough with him, but some of that could be because of Gilbert's "Nobody Touches Arnie" rule.
Literature
- The Baby-Sitters Club: Stacey moved to Connecticut from New York because she was bullied for being diabetic.
- The Ballad of the Sad Café: Marvin treats the hunchbacked Lymon like crap, calling him "Brokeback" and hitting him for no reason at all. This doesn't stop Lymon from worshiping the ground Marvin walks on.
- Black Bullet: A bunch of jerks put different objects like soda can tabs into a blind beggar girl's bowl instead of money. Rentaro gives her real money, but he later comes back to find the girl being beaten up. Rentaro threatens them with his gun to make them stop.
- Carrie: When Chris Hargensen was in junior high, she put a firecracker in a classmate's shoe and nearly mutilated the poor girl's foot because she had a cleft lip.
- The Dolls' House: Birdie is a cheerful and inexpensive modern doll made of celluloid, who is shown to have intellectual disabilities. She struggles to remember things she has been told, has limited speech patterns, and physically it sounds as though something is loose inside her head. She is supported by her loving family and generally is coping well until the antagonist Marchpane is introduced. Marchpane specifically targets Birdie as the weak link of the family, undermining her relationship with her son, and ultimately bringing about her death when she rescues him from a fire Marchpane indirectly causes.
- Early Riser: Protagonist Charlie Worthing grew up in a "Pooled Parentage Station" (aka an orphanage), having been surrendered by their biological parents due to a congenital facial deformity. Gary Findlay, one of Charlie's pool-mates, bullied Charlie mercilessly until Charlie snapped at the age of nine and bit Gary's ear off.
- The Famous Five: Defied in the book Five go to Smuggler's Top. On meeting Block, learning that he is deaf but can lip-read, George declares that it would be beastly to say things in front of him that one would not say if he was not deaf; this is before she has learned how sinister Block is.
- Flowers for Algernon: Charlie's coworkers (at a factory in the original short story, and at a bakery in the later novel) take advantage of his intellectual impairment to play all manner of nasty pranks on him. Worse, he still considers those people his friends because he doesn't realize what's going on. After Charlie gets an experimental operation to enhance his intelligence, he's quite shocked when his supposed friends try to toy with him again and he finally gets a grasp on what they've been doing, and his coworkers soon feel so intimidated by his burgeoning genius that they get him fired. After his newfound intelligence starts deteriorating and he can no longer continue his brief scientific career, he goes back to his old workplace, but hearteningly, his coworkers are genuinely friendly to him now; one even stands up to a new employee who was bullying Charlie.
- Ghost of Spirit Bear: Keith and his friends target Peter for his limp and brain damage. And it's not just Peter; all the bullies at Minneapolis High School tend to pick on those who aren't able to fight back, which means they bully the disabled as much as they bully others. For example, Cole sees a boy with Down Syndrome getting bullied at one point.
- I Am J:
- As a child, J once got into a fight because other kids were bullying a girl for being in Special Ed.
- Politically Incorrect Hero J internally pokes fun at a man with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome because he wears wrist braces.
- Red Thread Sisters: Shu Ling is subjected to quite a lot of mistreatment at the orphanage for having clubfoot, from new girls calling her a "cripple" in the showers to being called "defective" and denied an education by Director Feng. All of this discrimination is one of the major factors that cause her to internalize being considered unadoptable, and have a hard time letting new people into her life.
- The Ship Who... Won: In both the original book and The Ship Errant, Carialle feels that Inspector General Dr. Sennet Maxwell-Corey is out for her in particular. Not for being a shellperson, but for having endured serious trauma sixteen years ago and slowly recovered with the help of a lot of therapy. She can never go back to how she was before and PTSD lingers, but she's able to manage it by now. The Inspector General seems to approach her every time she makes stationfall and has what Carialle sees as an obsessive desire to prove she's unfit for service, demanding lengthy psychological profile sessions, prodding the PTSD that rarely bothers her otherwise, and fixating particularly on her LARP hobby as being irrational. Avoiding him kicks off the plot of The Ship Who Won, as she and Keff hare off somewhere he's not going.
- Skallgrigg by William Horwood features a character known as Dilke (real name Jack Sprayle), a nurse at a long-stay hospital for the physically and mentally disabled, who physically and emotionally abuses the patients in his care. This includes getting Arthur (one of the patients in the hospital) dressed up for a party, only to tell him at the last second that he isn't going because of alleged "misbehaviour", as well as threatening patients with a stick designed for opening high windows.
- "Something in the Rain" by Seanan McGuire has a post-apocalyptic world where there are only two people left alive in the town: the autistic and mentally ill protagonist, and the girl who bullied her in school. The bully tries to move in with her upon seeing that she's better off but eventually goes back to her old ways despite the fact that she relies on her. This culminates in her trying to kill the protagonist's cat and getting thrown out of the house, then being killed by the deadly rain when she tried to get back inside rather than run for cover.
- Sword Art Online:
- Shino was often bullied for her PTSD which led her to have a phobia of guns. A certain group of bullies used this to extort money out of her. She eventually Grew a Spine and gets over her fear, preventing the bullies from ever taking advantage of her again.
- When Kirito is rendered catatonic and a full-time wheelchair user, some jerks steal his sword and mock him when he falls out of the wheelchair and crawls after them trying to take it back. Fortunately, Alice steps in and forces them to back off and give the sword back.
- A Tale of...: Maleficent's lack of wings is essentially a birth defect. She was teased and called a "wingless freak" as a child.
- Warrior Cats: Crookedstar was born "Stormkit". After breaking his jaw, his mother renamed him "Crookedkit". Rainflower abandoned Crookedkit after he received his injuries (complete with moving to a separate den) and didn't even give him a life when he became The Leader of his clan. It's implied that, on top of being horrified by his face, she refused to love a kit that would likely die.
- Wings of Fire: Several characters aren't shy about either mocking Sunny for her weird looks or calling her "defective". Sunny isn't deformed like everyone thought. She's a SandWing/NightWing mix.
- Worm: During a photoshoot with a bunch of superheroes, Taylor's bullies made incredibly obnoxious comments about a disabled girl. This led them to being chewed out by Glory Girl. The incident kickstarted Madison's realization of how awful she was.
Live-Action TV
- Boardwalk Empire: At one point, Al Capone is outraged to hear that his deaf son is being bullied at school, and demands to know what kind of bully is that low. His wife points out that the son goes to a special school for the Deaf, so disability doesn't really factor into it, it's just a result of Kids Are Cruel.
- The Daily Show: This is referenced during the 2012 election in The United States, regarding a report that Republican candidate Mitt Romney was harsh to a "widow" who he encountered. Jon Stewart jokingly wondered if Romney had tripped a blind orphan too.
- The Eric Andre Show: In the episode with Wiz Khalifa, Eric mentions that he and his friends used to feed LSD to a mentally disabled girl and screamed to her 'NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE'. And that cured her disability.
- Everything's Gonna Be Okay: Tellulah is not above this. She picks on Matilda, despite knowing full well that the latter is autistic. One episode sees her planning a party for Matilda as she waits to find out if she got into Juilliard... because she fully expects that Matilda will be rejected and have a meltdown in front of everyone.
- Fawlty Towers: Played for laughs in "Communication Problems", with the deaf and demanding Mrs Richards. Basil mouths some words, causing Mrs Richards to bark "What?", and turn up her hearing aid. He keeps doing this until she turns it right up, then he yells into it, causing Mrs Richards to jump and bang her head on a shelf behind her.
- Haven: This is part of Nathan and Duke's never-fully-explained We Used to Be Friends backstory. It's implied that they were, at one point, at least on civil terms, but when the Troubles returned the last time, and Nathan developed his Feel No Pain Trouble, their relationship tanked because Duke began to bully him for it. Including, at one point, tricking Nathan into thinking a girl he liked returned his feelings, and having everyone in their class give him congratulatory "pats" on the back. In reality, they were sticking him with thumbtacks to see how many they could stab him with until he noticed (16).
- Malcolm in the Middle:
- Zig-zagged with Reese's bullying of Stevie: while Reese still gives Stevie the occasional hard time, he makes it perfectly clear as the school's Alpha Bully that Stevie is off-limits because he's disabled, and when he performs said bullying he actually tries to accommodate Stevie's disabilities in order to make it fair (like numbing his legs so he'll remain seated during a fight challenge, so Stevie will be able to hit him back). And when Reese 'retired' at one point, leading to unregulated bullying, one thing that convinced him to become Alpha Bully again was how Stevie was being treated; yes, he would hassle someone in a wheelchair, but there are some lines you don't cross'. Style matters.
- When Stevie's parents were about to get divorced, Stevie took a lot of steps backward, becoming unable to speak. Malcolm didn't believe he was really unable to speak and pretended to bully him in an attempt to get him to fight back, making himself look like a colossal jerk to an onlooking crowd.
- María la del barrio: Soraya Montenegro, Alicia's Wicked Stepmother, loves to attack and torture the disabled Alicia in creative ways. She has absolute contempt for her, and calls her "damn cripple!"
- Mr. Bean: In the "Bus Stop" sketch, Mr Bean is determined to be at the front of the queue for a bus. When a blind man takes this position, Mr Bean walks along the road and imitates the sound of a bus approaching and the door opening, causing the blind man to walk straight into the road, in front of an actual bus. Another passenger grabs him.
- The Outer Limits (1995): In "Stream of Consciousness", Mark frequently verbally abuses and condescends to Ryan Unger, who is unable to access the Stream due to brain damage.
- The School Nurse Files: In the final episode, the teachers make fun of Mr. Hong because he walks with a limp.
- Quantum Leap: In one episode, Al tells Sam about when he was a child and he came to the defense of a girl bullied for having Down Syndrome, because "that's what big brothers are for."
- The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Our Selena is Dying", Martha Brockman (while pretending to her daughter Diane) describes the deaf Orville as "our sort of combination handyman and village idiot." She does so in his presence but with her face turned away from him so he can't read her lips. Her niece Debra is shocked and disgusted.
- What Would You Do?: In one scenario, a man with a traumatic brain injury was belittled by a waitress after struggling to order and knocking over his drink. Without fail, the restaurant's other patrons intervened to defend him, and several spoke to the manager (also in on the scenario) demanding that she be fired for her rudeness.
Music
- Eminem's Slim Shady character often bullies disabled people. In "Greg", he beats a 'retarded' kid over the head with his wooden leg and has a long-running beef with Christopher Reeve which involves him doing things like throwing him into quicksand and making him drink piss. The Death Of Slim Shady presses on Slim's ableism in order to turn him into a Rounded Character, with Marsh accusing Shady of being a bigoted Manchild attacking pointless targets as a form of public self-harm.
Radio
- The Man Born to Be King: Judas's mean-spiritedness is established when he teases John for his stutter.
Theater
- Ride the Cyclone: Occurs in song form, where six high school choir members who've died in a roller coaster crash make the case as to why they deserve a chance to return to the land of the living. As part of her "I Am Great!" Song, Ocean belittles all of her classmates for their lack of potential and "personal failings" compared to her — and with Ricky, she pulls no punches when it comes to his disability. She confidently tells her classmates Ricky's "never gonna breed," and questions how much mileage he'd get out of a second shot at life with his degenerative disease (which, at the time of his death, had already made it impossible for him to speak or to walk unassisted).
Ocean: Oh no, comic books? Spiderman?
This kid doesn't have the attention span!
What's he gonna do, solve a Rubik's cube?
How long's he got if they feed him through a tube? - Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier: Aladdin, as part of his Establishing Character Moment, steals the crutch of a young disabled boy and proceeds to mock him for it.
Video Games
- Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree: Commander Gaius, one of the DLC's major bosses, is an Albinauric, who will all ultimately lose the use of their legs, and then likely lose their legs altogether, due to problems with how they were created. He was given a set of greaves (leg armour) as a mean-spirited joke. Given that he's a fearsome warrior with his sword, giant boar, and gravity magic, this was likely also a case of Bullying a Dragon.
- Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves: Subverted. For one mission, Bentley has to rile up Muggshot into picking a fight with him, which turns out to be a bit harder since aside from being paranoid about the local security, he's legitimately uncomfortable with picking on a guy using a wheelchair.
- Small Saga: Duke Josh has rounded up all kinds of people to put into the dungeons under the Ash Tower, for all kinds of reasons, most of them bigoted. Once he's deposed and the prisoners have been freed, it turns out that one of them was there for using a wheelchair.
- to a T: A trio of bullies mock Teen for their condition of being stuck in a T-pose by sticking their own arms out and pushing them over. They eventually apologize and become their friends.
Visual Novels
- Katawa Shoujo:
- Played with when it comes to most characters. While they have a history of being coddled and looked down upon for their disabilities, most haven't been outright mocked for them.
- Shizune Hakamichi's father and her little brother don't see her as a worthy heir due to her deafness. Her father Jigoro never even bothered to learn sign language and mentions he has in the past hired tutors trying to get Shizune to speak.
- Hanako Ikezawa has noticeable burn marks on her body that led to her being bullied growing up.
Web Animation
- ATTACK on MIKA:
- Ririna threatens Sakura for being the center of attention thanks to her prosthetic leg. A day later, she ambushes her in the school backyard and breaks the latter's prosthetic leg in twain.
- Rui's family became cold and dismissive towards her after she got an artificial eye to replace the one she got extirped for tumor surgery. However, her younger sister Misa actively mocks her and calls her "ugly" for it, even going as far as stealing her boyfriend Kaname from her.
- This story stars a blind girl being abused by her parents and older sister. This escalates to the point she leaves her home and almost gets taken advantage of by a drunk man had Namiko not shown up.
- Miyura-kun bullies Yui Kashiwabara for being hard of hearing and orders the entire class to ignore her.
- Kasumi abuses her older brother Satoshi for being born with a three-fingered hand. Things escalate when she takes a picture of him with notorious delinquent Rena Mikami and makes it look like the latter prostituted herself. This drives Satoshi to yell his heart out, with Rena exposing Kasumi's usage of the school computers to doctor the accursed picture.
- Lilian and her mom bullied Hinata to tears for her prosthetic leg. The second time the duo shows up, they steal Hinata's wallet when her brother Toma tried to pick it up.Badass Biker Namiko not shown up.
- Ririna
- Cyanide and Happiness: Zig-Zagged in the short "Gym Class". The short starts with a gym class being told that they're going to do an obstacle course. A kid named Brian snickers and suggests that Suzy, a classmate who uses a wheelchair, be the first one to do the course. The gym teacher starts to call him out on his shittiness, but Suzy agrees and does all sorts of incredible stunts and feats of strength to complete the course. Brian then attempts it himself... and we get a Smash Cut to him in the hospital, using a wheelchair, and his entire body bandaged up. The doctor informs him that he'll never walk again, and the gym teacher from before and the rest of the kids who joined him in mocking Suzy now laugh at Brian instead because he's disabled.
- Manga Soprano: Misuzu and her Girl Posse had a wheelchair-user Kanade plan their graduation trip for them, finally deciding on Disneyland. When the day comes, the bullies take the train early, leaving Kanade and Haru behind. Luckily, she arranged another trip with Haru to "Disney Sea" [sic].
- Manga-Waido:
- I saved Nezuko, but then an angry Shinobu Kocho appeared, and...: Maika waved Michiru, who is hearing-impaired, to leave the Fan Convention where they cosplay as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba characters, even when the latter tells Junta that her purse was in a locker. The other members claimed Michiru wanted them to leave her alone according to Maika's words, and when questioned, Maika herself said Michiru wanted her to leave. However, Junta showed the staff photographs of their last interaction, showing Maika acting cold towards Michiru, which leads to the former verbally abusing the latter for being cuter than her. While this wasn't the first time she did things like these, her bullying of a disabled girl cost Maika her reputation.
- On the club trip I got left behind by a girl who made fun of me for being disabled: Reina Sasaki bullied wheelchair-user Ayano Hirose for being close to male school idol Toda-san. Her jealousy escalated to the point of taking Ayano away to the woods and leaving her there. Much to Reina's dismay, a bunch of Yakuza showed up to search for Ayano as she was their boss' daughter. After the workers scared the crap out of Reina for her prank, she became a pariah for bullying a disabled girl.
- What happened to my boss who treated me like an obstacle because I'm in a wheelchair: Tsuda bullies and transfers Yuka to the warehouse for being a full-time wheelchair user. When Saito finds out about Tsuda's unfair treatment of Yuka, he later gets demoted and his co-workers start calling him "scum" and "bully of the disabled" which causes him to quit the company a few months later. It is revealed out that some of Tsuda's relatives were disabled and his wife also divorced him for what he did to Yuka.
- I was pushed down by the president's son who looked down on the disabled...: Yuya starts bullying Keita for having a prosthetic leg after he found out that his crush has a crush on Keita. He eventually crosses the line by pushing Keita down the stairs, in addition, he doesn't even apologize for what he did. When he and his father failed to bribe Keita when he attempts to sue them for damages, the old man calls him a cripple and forces him to apologize. Unfortunately for the father and son, Keita immediately calls for help, attracting everybody in the company, including the manager of a major client. Because of the incident, the police started to investigate Yuya and his father and they eventually get fined for it.
- I saved Nezuko, but then an angry Shinobu Kocho appeared, and...
- Mani Mani People: Gin bullied Minato because the latter had a prosthetic arm.
- MoniRobo:
- "My family abandon me on a trip abroad because I am disabled": Noa lost one of her legs after a car accident. Her family especially her mother and sister bullied her mercilessly for it. They even ditched her on a family trip, but a man recorded the events of their horrible behavior during the trip and they became pariahs.
- "My new wife was abusing my daughter behind my back": Kayoko abused and neglected her 11-year-old autistic stepdaughter Minori behind both her husband Tatsuya's and the housekeeper Mrs. Takeda's backs, with one incident leading to Minori leaving the house on her mother's orders. When Tatsuya confronted Kayoko for her abusive behavior, she showed her true colors by badmouthing Minori. Moreover, she demanded Tatsuya divide his estate when he asks for a divorce; it turns out she stole the money Tatsuya saved for Minori to spend on frivolities since she married him for his money.
- "My sister's fiancé doesn't want me at their wedding because I'm disabled": Koji became paraplegic after surviving a construction accident. When his sister Tomomi brought her fiancé Daisuke Nishio, he acted cold and dismissive towards Koji whenever she wasn't around.
- "I was being bullied for having a stammer": Ena was bullied since kindergarten for stammering (which was a result of partial brain damage). Even her mother lashed out at her for it until she was diagnosed. When she attended high school, she got ruthlessly bullied by a classmate named Mikio.
- "Husband abandoned our autistic daughter and ran off with the younger brother": Sorao not only ignored his autistic daughter Sakura, but even mistreated her since his son Yuki was born. To make matters worse, he abandoned her with Nano and left with Yuki.
- "Bully pushes a girl on wheelchair into the pool" [sic]: Akane Saito bullied wheelchair-user Mai Miyanohara for using prosthetic legs. Even when Mai tried to reach out to her, Akane didn't stop and even snuck behind her at the pool area while she watched the competitions and shoved her into the pool, laughing at her as she drowned.
- "I introduced my boyfriend to my toxic parents… Then…": Sakura's whole family bullied her boyfriend Masayoshi for being blind despite him being a hardworking man and her explaining how he lost his sight. Enraged with their bullying, she decides to cut ties with them and move with him.
- "Mother-in-law says that a disability is a disgrace to the family!": Charako's mother-in-law treated her like a slave for losing one arm in a car accident the MIL provoked for being distracted at the wheel. When she forgot to wear her gloves while buying the orange juice her MIL wanted, the other villagers found out and asked the MIL about it, causing the hag to bully her for anything and everything as she found it shameful that she had a prosthetic arm.
- "My family made fun of my disability, until I became a CEO…": Ever since elementary school, Misaki Shoji was bullied by her parents and older sister Sakiho for becoming paraplegic from jumping off a mountain, which was a lie Sakiho said to cover up she shoved Misaki off the mountain. When both sisters were in high school, they sent Misaki to live with her grandparents, who were the only relatives who cared about her.
- "Family kicked me out of the house… Then…": Yuki was ignored by his parents and sister after he became paraplegic from a car accident, for which they deemed him too useless to become the next CEO, on top of disowning him right after his graduation from high school to get rid of him.
- "My husband went missing but I found him at my best friend's wedding as the groom": Toru became cold towards his wife Yoshiko after she announced having lost the use of her legs from a car accident at the hands of a sleepy driver, one week after they married. Therefore, he sent divorce papers for her to sign in response. Moreover, he married her best friend Kozue as part of the latter's revenge plot and the new couple started to bully her in front of the guests until her boss Mr. Akira showed up and revealed she was an affiliate for a famous blog and earning more than Toru.
- "My family abandon me on a trip abroad because I am disabled
- My Pride: Most of the Sisters Steppe (minus Feather) bully Nothing, who has a limp due to an incident as a cub.
- Revenge Films:
- "Bride kicks out my brother saying that he is a cripple": Kendra bullied and kicked Rhea's brother Stephen out of her wedding for having to use a cane to walk. She ends up paying for it dearly when her husband Maxwell threatened to divorce her and she was about to be fired since it's revealed Stephen was Maxwell's best friend and the famous CEO of a huge company.
- "During a live broadcast of the Happy Family Project, I sent out an SOS signal": Connor bullied his paraplegic wife Ashley alongside his mother and forced her to do the chores even when heavily pregnant and disabled. The bullying worsened when she gave birth to her son William. While he was kind to her whenever his mom wasn't around, even this aspect of his completely vanished when his island company became popular.
- "I went to my fiancé's house to see his parents, but what they made me do was unbelievable": Charles accused the OP of this after she found out they wanted her to relieve his disabled brother Denny and got chased down by him while running back home. However, it falls flat on its face when he also allows his father to hit Denny for his tantrums.
- "Passed out after falling while pregnant, waking up in hospital…": Melanie's mother-in-law bullied and shamed her for having a prosthetic leg. When she told her husband Skyler about this, he got livid and held his mom to task for it. When she became pregnant, the MIL became much nicer to her until she was in her last month of pregnancy, where Melanie fell off a chair while her MIL had her changing a lightbulb.
- "Bride kicks out my brother saying that he is a cripple
- Snowdrop (2013): The titular protagonist, Snowdrop, is a blind Pegasus filly who is bullied due to her blindness.
- Trouble Busters: Aiden who is Lucy's boss bullied her for using a wheelchair. He poured wine on her in a restaurant, but it later turned out that she is the owner of the restaurant and she had reported him to HR, resulting in his dismissal.
Webcomics
- Appetite: One of the bullies trips Dohoon while he's walking by with his crutch.
- Blind Girl: The premise is entirely set up around this. It's a Black Comedy around a blind Nice Girl trying to get by in a World of Jerkass. Everyone picks on Blind Girl from verbal abuse to shoving her down the stairs.
- The Friendly Winter: Da-Jeong's mother walked out ten years ago due to her daughter having a disorder that meant she'd permanently resemble a child.
- Homestuck has a few characters with disabilities. Because they have many ways to compensate, they are usually only acknowledged with silly Disability Gags. But the tone turns serious when they face genuine abuse.
- Averted with gallowsCalibrator/Terezi. Friends tease her about being blind, but she jokes about it herself even more. She is also a Handicapped Badass and decides not to change her blindness.
- Vriska (who loses An Arm and a Leg herself) bullies Tavros, who uses a wheelchair. It is later revealed that Vriska is responsible for Tavros getting paralyzed in the first place. One of her nastier acts is as Tavros' co-player in SGRUB when Tavros needs to reach a gateway above his house. Vriska builds a path entirely of stairs and then demands he apologize to her for being crippled. Such physical and emotional abuse of Tavros earns Vriska her place as the Token Evil Teammate of the Troll players.
- Mituna Captor, in an alleged Offscreen Moment of Awesome, heroically prevailed in a psychic battle but sustained brain damage that left him mentally disabled. Enter the total sleazebag Cronus Ampora, who casually disrespects, blatantly insults and sexually harasses him, apparently (and wrongly) thinking Mituna is too stupid to get his feelings hurt. The Author Avatar makes no secret about how you're supposed to feel about Cronus:
Andrew Hussie: Cronus Ampora is the worst character in Homestuck by a nautical mile. Any questions?
- I Hope So: Both of Hope's parents abuse her due to her disability, even going as far as to give her an insulting name (Hopeless) because of it. They're shown not to be any nicer to their able-bodied relatives either.
- Nixvir: In the lore, we learn that the Saucepan Man did this to a Kekshan girl because he perceived the fact that both her arms were on her face a handicap. Unlike Shoya, he was never found out; soon after the Kekshan girl was withdrawn from the school he studied at, a rich student offered to pay everyone else to keep quiet about the bullying, to which he accepted.
- See You in My 19th Life: Seo-ha's family is full of people who mistreat him for his hearing, especially his cousin Jun-ha, who locked him in a wardrobe when Seo-ha was little.
Web Original
- TREY the Explainer discusses this and Bury Your Disabled in a video about how prehistoric humans treated their disabled. More specifically, he says it's actually more inaccurate to believe that prehistoric humans all ostracized their disabled than it is to portray "savage cavemen" as taking care of their ill. Not that being disabled during what was already a dangerous and violent era was in any way easy, it just wasn't an automatic death sentence as is usually portrayed.
- Visual Venture: In "Dumbest Ways YouTubers Destroyed Their Careers", when Gerard discusses LeafyIsHere, he brings up the incident in which Leafy roasted TommyNC2010 for being autistic, which became the first nail in the coffin for his career as the former's fans began harassing the latter. This sparked a storm of criticism from other YouTubers for this and other previous instances in which Leafy targeted smaller channels for roasting.
Western Animation
- Beavis and Butt-Head: In "Breakdown", when Principal McVicker becomes immobilized due to the duo's antics, Van Driessen sends them to his facility to apologize. Predictably, they show no remorse and continue to harass him — Beavis even jokes about kicking him in the nads and using a straitjacket, which prompts McVicker to strangle him. As the staff wheels McVicker in for electroshock therapy, the duo persists in their torment. Witnessing their utter callousness, Van Driessen is left appalled and ultimately has a nervous breakdown himself.
- Family Guy:
- In "Papa Has a Rollin' Son", Joe reveals he never told his father he's disabled because he always used to make fun of wheelchair users, calling them "spaghetti legs" and "angel-hair legs" note , towards the end of the episode Joe's father changes his attitude towards people with disablities after Joe reveals his disability to him.
- In "The Tan Aquatic With Steve Zissou", Peter decides to become a bully after encouragement from Kyle, a teenager who'd been tormenting Chris until Peter beat him up, and begins terrorizing his friends and family, including Joe, who he forces to act as a string puppet by holding him up with ropes tied to his arms. He later tries to get back at his own childhood bully Randy, only to discover that Randy has MS and can't move without his crutches. This doesn't stop Peter, however, and he only stops bullying when Chris stands up to him, though in the latter case it's because Peter doesn't realize what MS actually is, thinking it stands for "monkey scrotum".
- Joe's wife Bonnie is like this as she went from loving and supportive to seeing him as an inconvenience and someone who she could bully, cheat on, and harm.
- Miraculous Ladybug:
- A flashback in "Derision" shows that Chloé Bourgeois used to make fun of Juleka's stuttering. In "Confrontation", she also takes away Sabrina's anxiety whistle in order to bully her into sabotaging her classmates' school forms (as an added kick, Chloe has Juleka's form re-written so that she'll have to repeat the grade.)
- In "Grendiaper", Ray and his minions block Sublime (who happens to be using a wheelchair that day) from taking the elevator to class. The same episode also features a bus driver who refuses to stop for a cancer patient using a wheelchair and cruelly strands Max (who is autistic and has difficulty navigating unfamiliar places) somewhere far from his usual stop.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Flight to the Finish", When Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's "blank flank" teasing fails to break the Cutie Mark Crusaders' spirits at being chosen to carry the flag at the upcoming Equestria Games, they decide to mock Scootaloo's inability to fly, with the intent of crushing her self-esteem and ultimately dividing the Crusaders. The show is intentionally vague on whether or not Scootaloo actually has a flying disability, but the point remains clear.
- Janice, the little girl Linus befriends in the Peanuts special "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" has leukemia. And her chemotherapy makes her bald. When a bully makes fun of her for it, Linus gives the bully an epic Shut Up, Hannibal! speech and comes very close to throttling the jerk.
- Pelswick: The school bully, Boyd, is a recurring antagonist. He notes at one point that he can't physically harm Pelswick, and is pleased by the challenge of devising new ways to mess with him instead. Like stealing his bag lunch and leaving it at the top of the stairs.
- Rick and Morty: In "The Whirly-Dirly Conspiracy", Rick is given a synaptic dampener to temporarily prevent him from using his cybernetic implants. With Rick now reduced to having the mental capacity of a child, Jerry takes advantage of the situation to bully him, knowing that he can't fight back.
- Robot Chicken: The "Jasper the Douchebag Ghost" sketch, which concerns Casper the Friendly Ghost having a Jerkass twin brother, shows Jasper picking on a special needs child using a wheelchair as one of the demonstrations of what a complete asshole he is.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
- In "The Coronation", Catra rips off the source of power of Hordak's armor, making him collapse. She uses that knowledge to keep him under her thumb and forces him to accept her as Horde's co-leader. Although Hordak was a total Jerkass to her, it's disturbing to see her taking advantage of his disabilities. More disturbing yet, many fans approve of it.
- Entrapta is canonically autistic, which frequently makes her communicating with other people difficult. The others' reactions vary, from screaming at her (Catra), pulling her with vines (Perfuma), or being nice to her but condescending, like Bow and Scorpia.
- The Simpsons: Inverted in one episode, where a new student bumps into Nelson, who prepares to beat him up only to discover that the kid is blind. Nelson promises he'll take care of anyone who tries picking on the kid, only for the kid to say that everyone has been really nice so far because even in Springfield, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone that big a dick. Nelson insists on being his bodyguard anyway.
- South Park: Mentioned in episode "Krazy Kripples" — Jimmy Valmer's parents had mocked students with disabilities back when they were teenagers, which had apparently resulted in Jimmy being born disabled. It is unknown if that's true, though considering the universe in South Park, it may be a possibility. However, it's been made clear that Jimmy's parents learned their lesson about treating people with disabilities with kindness and are ashamed of their former behavior.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In the episode "Demolition Doofus", Mrs. Puff gets her inflation sac popped after SpongeBob fails another boating exam. As Mrs. Puff is in the hospital, SpongeBob, oblivious about her situation, makes a joke about how Mrs. Puff should now be called "Mrs. Pop", which causes her to lash out at him until the doctor injects a needle to calm her down. SpongeBob then proceeds to tell the doctor Mrs. Puff looks better this way, causing him to be injected as well.
- Total Drama: Mike has dissociative identity disorder. Once his secret is out, Scott proceeds to rub his disability in and uses it to blackmail him by threatening to tell his crush.
- Transformers: Prime:
- Airachnid taunts Breakdown during a mission about his missing eye (making obvious puns about it). Made worse when you remember that he lost said eye when humans tried to dissect him...while he was still conscious. It's no surprise that he attacked her.
- In the two-parter "Operation: Bumblebee", Bumblebee loses his T-cog (a Cybertronian organ/device that allows them to scan vehicles and transform) to MECH. Starscream (who allied himself with MECH) taunts him for not having the ability to transform (even though he ends up without his T-cog by the end of the episode).