Like what it says in the title, as encouraged by Zeldar.
What are your favorite slurs against homo sapiens as a whole, from the realms of fiction?
I’m a little under the weather, so I can only think of “Meatbag” at the moment; most notably used in Futurama, and EU Star Wars; typically used by robots.
Anyone else?
When Fry thought he was a robot, he responded to a command with “negative, bossy meat-creature.” I like that, but, sadly, “bossy meat-creature” is hard to work into a conversation.
And there’s always good-old “monkeyboy” from Buckaroo Banzai.
Not anti-human, but anti-Earth: Heinlein’s Asteroid Belt inhabitants and lunar inhabitants call earth people “groundhogs”.
They came up with a few during MST3K’s run (and afterwards, in their various guises), such as the MST3K-The Movie pseudo-Metalunan slur “smallhead”
I was gonna mention the one from Red Dwarf.
Oh Smeg. I can’t remember it.
I always liked the sneering way the Ferengi said “hu-mons.”
“Ugly bags of mostly water” from some episode of ST-TNG
“ape-man” and other simian slurs from Hitchhiker’s Guide
I also like “monkey boy”; it was a slur often used by the computer opposent in an old video game I liked. “Let’s try this again, Monkey Boy”; lines like that.
“Crunchies”, from the slimy aliens in The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You !
“Lop tail” from the Centrans in Pandora’s Planet
First one that came to mind for me.
Damn, you stole mine!
Always been partial to “flatscan” from the X-Men comics.
“Mundanes”
Also “Earthworm”, in the same context. And in Niven’s stories, a person who not only lived on Earth, but who had never left it, was a Flatlander.
My favorite is from D&D, where there exist half-breeds of almost every species, the other half almost invariably being human:
Klingons referred to humans sneeringly as “Earthers” in a couple of episodes of ST:TOS. “Terrans,” too, I think, but it’s more the tone of voice than the word that seems insulting. We’re called “cattle” by carnivorous sentient lizardlike bipeds in William Forstchen’s The Lost Regiment series. Legolas refers to Aragorn and Boromir as “children” in LOTR, but in a kindly if somewhat patronizing way, in context, given his long Elven lifespan.
In the Harry Dresden books, supernatural nasties like vampires call humans prey animal names like “kine”, “bucks”, and “does”. It’s actually kind of amusing when you keep in mind that they keep a low profile because if humanity in-universe was ever pushed into admitting they existed they’d collectively get stomped into a greasy spot.
Molly : “But he’s not supernatural ? He’s just a guy, right ?”
Harry : "Keep in mind that most of the planetary surface is dominated by ‘just guys’. "
"Slay the dragon, you fool ! I said SLAY the dragon ! With an ‘S’ ! "
Yeah; this is my favorite generic excuse:
"It’s not my goddamned planet, monkeyboy!" - John Bigboote
Of course “muggles” from the Harry Potter universe.
And for some reason, my first thought was “slimies” from Ender’s Game, though the aliens don’t actually use the term – it’s just what Ender thinks they might use. I haven’t read it in a while: it was “slimies” wasn’t it?
Ptavvs. From Larry Niven’s World of Ptavvs, or non-telepaths.
Did Walken as Gabriel in THE PROPHECY refer to us as “hairless monkeys” or “apes”?
Howard the Duck often commented on the local “Hairless Apes.”
Nice thread!
I always considered horses and mules to be Road Apple Generators, but am having trouble with just the right human counterpart.
Maybe Steaming Pile Generator?
Improvements on the concept welcomed.
GIGO-Monster?