Drama Queen

File:Rarity drama 513.jpg

Oh, why did you have to chose such horrid pictures of me? Everyone will just laugh at me now! My life is RUINED!!!

I would just die of a shattered heart if you didn't Describe Drama Queen Here!

Characters who act dramatically a lot of the time, or at least when they have little reason to.

Whether it's Fainting, hysterics, acting like they are in a second rate drama, or hyperbole to the point of bursting from it, the characters just live to be over-dramatic, even to the point of Chewing the Scenery.

Even if not everything is a crisis, when it is a crisis, it is more important than anything else could possible be. They could be in the hospital, but who cares about the guy with the broken leg? Their hangnail is bleeding!

Although this is usually Played for Laughs, the term actually started as a nickname for Histrionic personality disorder. Yet over time, people would use the term, even about themselves, to describe people who were just being dramatic all the time.

Teens, particularly teenage girls, are sometimes portrayed this way, often overlapping with Bratty Teenage Daughter. But this trope isn't exclusive to women. Guys can do this a lot as well, but this term is still used to describe them.

A Sub-Trope of Melodrama.

A Sister Trope to Attention Whore, Large Ham.

Compare It's All About Me, Sickly Neurotic Geek (who over-dramatizes things in other ways), Hair-Trigger Temper (who oozes anger instead of drama), Jewish Mother (who oozes guilt trips), Wangst.

Contrast The Stoic (who genuinely avoids drama), Stepford Smiler (who has plenty of reason to be dramatic but isn't).

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Examples

Film

• Sharpay Evans from High School Musical.

Literature

• In Gone with the Wind, Scarlet's Aunt "Pittypat" was prone to overreaction and fainting, to the point where people even snap at her to stop fainting.
• The eponymous Anne of Green Gables.
• Bertie Wooster, frequently. On being forced to sing at a "clean, bright entertainment":

"I have been subjected to a nervous strain unparalleled since the days of the early Martyrs. I have lost pounds in weight and permanently injured my entire system. I have gone through an ordeal, the recollection of which will make me wake up screaming in the night for months to come ..."

• In Death series: Divided In Death has young Chloe McCoy, who is this trope, due to her lover Blair Bissel's death. She gets murdered by Blair Bissel later, and he staged it to look like suicide.

Live Action Television

• Howard's mother in The Big Bang Theory is both this and a Jewish Mother, almost always doing both at the same time.
• In Frasier, both Frasier and Niles often act like this Every situation that could make them look bad to Society is a reason to act like it's the end of the world.
• Elliot is a self-confessed drama queen on Scrubs. There's also an episode titled "My Drama Queen" dedicated to J.D.'s new girlfriend.

Elliot: She's a drama queen, J.D.! When her husband was in a coma, it was all, like, taboo and exciting; but now that it's okay for the two of you to be together, the relationship's got no snap... it's got no crackle. J.D... It's got no pop. I know! Because I'm a drama queen, too!

• Noah's Arc: This is a defining aspect of Alex's personality, generally Played for Laughs. Noah has shades of this at times too though.

Manga And Anime

• Team Rocket from Pokémon. Jessie is the most prominent one, but they all can be ridiculously dramatic at times. It's mostly the reason why they're so loved despite being so ineffective.
• Tamaki of Ouran High School Host Club will act extremely emotional if anything sets him off enough. This includes having to lie down on a comfy bed, when being told about how the Lobelia academy works.

Theater

• The acting script for Little Shop of Horrors notes that Audrey should be played in a melodramatic way--not because she's being subversive or trying to parody the genre, but because she sincerely feels the emotions she expresses and "sees the world as her personal B-Movie".

Video Games

• Demon Lord Ghirahim from The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is ridiculously dramatic, but this also highlights his Ax Crazy persona as well.
• Make that "Drama Prince"! Alexander sure acts like one in King's Quest VI Heir Today Gone Tomorrow while he is feigning suicide in front of Shamir Shamazel and the Pawn Shop Owner.

Western Animation

• Bender from Futurama actually admits to being a drama queen a lot of the time. When he thought he had a backup system, he therefore thought he was never in any real danger when the cast was in trouble. But he acted all terrified anyway.
• Rarity from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (The Trope Images) loves to be dramatic, and even has her own couch just for fainting on One time Twilight Sparkle was overreacting due to Sanity Slippage, and when Rarity called her a drama queen, the other ponies glared at her. Rarity quickly corrected with "Relatively speaking".
  • At one point, she even manages to be a drama queen while writing a letter.
• Total Drama has three such characters.
  • Courtney acts as one from the second half of Action on. An particularly egregious example of this behavior is when she breaks up with Duncan for the last time in "The EX-Files", dumping a bowl of spaghetti on his head and throwing an outright tantrum in the Total Drama Plane's cafeteria.
  • Blaineley tries to act like one; however, it comes off more as Large Ham.
  • Because of her fame mongering, Dakota can act as one occasionally.

• Slav is one on Voltron: Legendary Defender thanks to his Super OCD obsession with alternate realities. He freaks out about the most minor of inconveniences, right down to stepping on a crack in the floor!

Other

• This is the basic premise of the Memetic Mutation videos from Downfall, by having Hitler fly off the handle over just about anything.