http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawVegetarian

Blond: ... He's, uh... he's still trying to leave the smallest footprint on the planet that he can.

Silver: All food production is exploitative. Okja ... He's, uh... he's still trying to leave the smallest footprint on the planet that he can.All food production is exploitative.

Whiny, pale, and possibly even intent on eliminating the entire human race to make way for fluffy bunnies, the Straw Vegetarian is a thinly-veiled Strawman who is desperate for a bacon sandwich or would really like meat "if they just tried it". In some works, vegetarians or vegans are also shown arrogantly forcing their meat eating family and friends to stop eating meat, often referring to them as murderers. More often than not, no-one likes folks like this, often saying under their breaths, "Can't I have just one meal in peace?"

Advertisement:

The vast majority of vegetarians, however, are not like this. Most have eaten meat before and choose not to continue doing so for multiple reasons. The more well-rounded ones are also respectful of what others eat, though it helps if that respect is returned. Also, the distinction between vegan and vegetarian is fairly simple: vegans don't eat anything that comes from an animal full stop, whereas vegetarians will eat animal products as long as killing the animal is not a requirement to obtaining them.

Advertisement:

Common Stereotypes:

This section is a pick 'n' mix of stereotypical traits — any number of them can apply.

Compare and contrast Evil Vegetarian, where an evil villain abstains from meat (out of conviction, squeamishness, personal taste, or whatever) but is nonetheless prepared to do things most people would consider far worse than meat-eating to attain his ends. The Evil Vegetarian is always a straight-up villain, and also differs from the Straw Vegetarian in that his villainy is not necessarily directly connected to his vegetarianism; for him, the latter might simply be a lifestyle choice of little immediate importance to his other activities. The tropes are not mutually exclusive, however, and a character can easily be both. See also Meat Versus Veggies, and further Real Men Eat Meat.

People who exhibit some or many of the typical traits of the Straw Vegetarian as described here certainly exist in real life; probably the most (in)famous was Adolf Hitler, who promoted vegetarianism and animal rights and sometimes filibustered against meat-eating at the dinner table, regaling his guests with horror stories about the abuses of the meat industry. However, like all "Strawman" tropes, this one refers specifically to fictional characters deliberately crafted by an author to exhibit particular traits, and/or make a point: a living person by definition cannot be a strawman. Therefore, No Real Life Examples, Please!

Examples

open/close all folders

Advertising

In an advert for Quorn (a type of meat-replacement protein) the vegetarian is portrayed as the classic whiner "it's-a-phase" stereotype. Which is really weird when you consider that the stuff is aimed at primarily at vegetarians.

Comic Books

Lance Blastoff encounters one in Frank Miller's Tales to Offend. She is immediately converted when she smells the delicous aroma of roast dinosaur Lance is cooking.

In a recent issue of Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew discovered that an Evil Chef in a Canadian ski lodge was serving human flesh to his diners, and played Straw Vegetarian to stop people from eating; knocking bits of food out of their mouths and shouting things like "MEAT IS MURDER!" Her actions in this case were justified (well, more so than for the obvious reason that the villain was a murderer) in that, in the Marvel Universe, anyone who eats human flesh in the Canadian Woods turns into a Wendigo, and the chef was intentionally attempting to turn all of his unknowing patrons into Wendigos.

Tharg's Future Shocks: Parodied by the "Vegetable Liberation Front", who raid grocery stores to free 'enslaved vegetables'. They only eat edible rocks, because eating fruit or vegetables is wrong. One guy notes that they might get a bad rep with the "Mineral Liberation Front", but his partner says that doesn't matter because most of them have already died of starvation.

Swedish cartoonist Johan Wanloo likes this trope, to the point that he has a pair of recurring characters where this is the entire joke, a married couple of hipsters who have based their entire lives around the vegan lifestyle. In one strip, the woman goes on a long tangent about the evils of meat-eating, while the man just sits there looking zoned out. Man: Sorry honey, I didn't hear a word you said, I'm so weak from lack of proteins that it takes all my energy just to focus on breathing. Woman: Oh, sorry. Man: Shh, don't distract me or I'll die.

Comic Strips

Hector's ex-girlfriend Autumn from Zits. The first time she saw Jeremy eating a burger, she got a hysterical fit as if she truly had never seen anything so terrible before.

Victor the Vegan from Pearls Before Swine, possibly the only person on earth more arrogant than Jeff the Cyclist.

Fan Works

Tales of the Undiscovered Swords: During his introduction, Konotegashiwa berates Shokudaikiri for serving "senseless death" and flips the food he cooks to the floor for containing fish and cream. Of course, seeing as he is a sword, this also makes him hypocritical on top of already massively jerkish – though to be fair, he acknowledges this. Konotegashiwa: Isn't it enough that you and I are both weapons? Now you have to commit this shit too?

A Diplomatic Visit: There are those in the Equestrian Border Guard who are selective about how they interpret and enforce the laws, and some of them can come off as this. Among other things, they try to arrest any prospective newcomers who work with meat, claiming their profession isn't recognized in Equestria. (They conveniently ignore that there are ponies who work with meat, to supply food to the domestic cat and dog population.) Members of the PVE (Pony Vegan Environmentalists) can also come off as this with their pony-first propaganda and especially their prejudice against meat-eating races.



Films — Live-Action

In Hallmark's For Better or For Worse, the female lead's son Collin is engaged to her rival's daughter, Sophia. They have decided they are "vegan", despite having no clue what it means. Collin later thanks his mom for her muffins, being apparently oblivious to the fact that neither he nor Sophia could eat not only the veal parmesan, but probably most of the salad, nor the muffins, nor most everything on the table. In other words, they're idiots, along with the mother, who could easily have served eggplant and held the parmesan. They also visit a farm where livestock is used and nobody objects to cattle being milked, and decide the best example of a vegan cake is carrot cake.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World plays with this, portraying vegans as Large Ham superhumans who have super powers and taking Brandon Routh on a role, who at that time was the last performer of the role of Superman and was explicitly used as Actor Allusion. Of course, this was done to ridicule the "narcissism" of the vegans, but as a result it looks like Stealth Parody. Todd turns out is not even faithful to his own diet

Specific diets and anyone who follow them are poked fun at in Two 4 One as though they're this. It's especially played for laughs when the protagonist starts coming out to his co-workers as transgender, and one assumes the important thing he has to tell them is that he's a vegan.

Literature

Madeline Bassett, a recurring character in Jeeves and Wooster books is an unbearably mushy and sentimental girl. In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves she's becomes a vegetarian and she's incredibly self-righteous about it. She forces her fiancé to follow her diet. As a result, he leaves her for a cook, who won his heart with her steak-and-kidney pie.

Magrat Garlick, in her first appearance in Wyrd Sisters, is the kind of vegetarian who is prone to informing non-veggies how much undigested meat they probably have in their colons. Lords and Ladies balances it out by contrasting her with an absurdly old-fashioned cook who doesn't believe vitamins exist. Interestingly, the book between those two, Witches Abroad, doesn't really mention her vegetarianism at all, making her surprisingly unquestioning about the ingredients of all the foreign food she's trying.

Eustace and his parents in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are vegetarian; they also follow other restrictions like avoiding alcohol and tobacco. All these lifestyle choices tie into their characterization as bland, effete snobs and trend-followers who subscribe to secular intellectualism instead of the Good Old Ways. He says they're also Quakers though, and there is a dose of Straw Pacifist too.

Dawn from The Babysitters Club. Especially bad since she didn't start out like this (possibly a case of Flanderization). She went from being a normal girl who just happened to be a vegetarian to one who would self-righteously lecture the other girls every time they ate meat, going on and on about how she was going to outlive all of them because of her healthier lifestyle.

An Exaggerated Trope: In The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes, Abby's mother's friend from college, Laurie, isn't a vegetarian, but follows an insanely restrictive diet where she doesn't eat wheat, sugar, dairy, non-organic meat/fruit/vegetables, any food made with preservatives/chemicals/pesticides, or anything else she considers to be "too artificial", which basically means that she lives off of nuts, seeds, soy products, and vegan alternatives like oat milk and almond butter. The Hayes family tries to accommodate her diet when she comes to stay at their house for a few weeks, but she quickly starts trying to force it on them at every opportunity, constantly lecturing them about their diets being full of chemicals, pesticides, plastics, toxins, etc. She also forces her own daughter Wynter to follow the same diet; predictably, Wynter hates it and takes every chance she gets to eat junk foods like chocolate, ice cream and hot dogs.

Live-Action TV

Web Animation

Averted by Karen in Sims Big Brother 8. While her interview makes her sound like one, where she states her goal is to introduce one houseguest to veganism or at least vegetarianism, but she doesn't outright say it.

Web Original

The Best Page in the Universe portrays all vegetarians everywhere like this, and urges carnivores to eat more meat than usual to compensate for the animals that aren't dying.

Western Animation