Repulsive 'Roids - TV Tropes
- ️Wed Mar 19 2025
Anabolic steroids are a wide class of drugs, some manufactured, some found in nature, that share the effect of stimulating organs in the body by piggybacking off its existing hormones. Because they can increase muscle growth and energy, their main use is in medicine, but their more infamous use is in sports. Most steroids have long-term negative side effects, which has led to them being banned from use in most organized competitions.
However, in the realm of professional athletes, where even a minor advantage can mean the difference between victory and defeat, steroids are a Forbidden Fruit. Many an athlete have had their career torpedoed by a bad drug test, as most organized sports leagues come down hard on anyone caught using them. Because of this, use of steroids (and performance-enhancing drugs in general) is almost never treated positively in fiction. At best, it's a character flaw. At worst, it's a confirmation of dog-kicking villainy.
Broadly speaking, portrayals of steroids can be divided into two categories (though one can overlap with or evolve into the other), depending largely on the user.
- Steroids Are For Bad Guys: When used by an antagonist or a particularly seedy Anti-Hero, steroids have a lot of helpfully negative connotations. Not only do they mean their user is breaking the rules of competition by definition, but they also provide an immediate contrast to the plucky, hardworking good guys, who get their skills from the old-fashioned Training Montage and don't need to use artificial means to compete. It also gives their user a concrete advantage, turning their opponent into a natural underdog, and are a good way to make a character "the bad guy" without them doing anything other than playing against the protagonist. The concept of "roid rage", where steroids provoke violent mood swings, means that they can justify a character being a Jerkass. Another major aid to this trope is its historical background: Russia is a major rival to the Anglosphere, and its athletes in international competitions are infamous for doping, with the 1980 Moscow Olympics solidifying this reputation.
- Steroids Never Work: When steroids are in the hands of an otherwise more moral person, they can serve as a source of struggle for the user: a temptation for them to overcome, or a habit they need to kick. A character who takes steroids out of desperation after conventional exercise fails them is likely to be framed as sympathetic, if wrong, with it helping their case that steroid abuse is ultimately more harmful to oneself than anyone else. Once they start juicing, they will get the benefits quickly in the short term, but then have to face negative side effects, such as health issues, roid rage (which can lead to them receiving the Jerkass Ball), or being found out as a fraud. After this point, they can either learn their lesson and swear off steroids (which is usually the case for a one-off story), or end up dealing with more permanent consequences. This can dovetail into a Sportsmanship Aesop.
Though this is usually found in sports stories, it can make its way into other media. The Psycho Serum can provide a counterpart in a more fantastical setting, and even in mundane settings where sports aren't a focus, the big buff man who turns out to be juicing is likely to be a big jerk. Due to some of the more common side effects of steroids being shrinking the testicles and causing issues with fertility, one occasionally sees jokes about them Compensating for Something. Media aimed towards kids will usually use a Fantastic Drug that doesn't map to any real steroid but nonetheless clearly invokes them.
A Sub-Trope of Drugs Are Bad — steroids don't carry quite the same stigma as the more illicit drugs, and they have a very different set of stereotypes, but they nonetheless bear a negative association. Compare Super Serum, which is also about something that makes the user stronger, but is fantastical in nature and can be framed neutrally or positively. A common pick for the Jerk Jock or The Brute, and may play a role in Elite Athlete's Aging Angst.
No Real Life Examples, Please! Let's just say that a lot of athletes have ended up using steroids over the years.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- One Partnership to End Addiction PSA uses deflating sports balls as a way to show how steroids can negatively affect a man's testicles. The PSA also talks about how steroids can degrade other parts of the body.
Anime & Manga
- Kengan Ashura: The brutish Julius Reinhold is described as "the acme of German medicine", with it being noted repeatedly that a large chunk of his insane strength comes from steroids. This sets him up as a contrast to Wakatsuki, who was born with his strength due to a genetic disorder, and helps to further establish him as a Heel, especially when he works for the Arc Villain. Later on, he starts being portrayed more positively, when the series focuses on the fact that even if he took enough steroids to kill most men, he still had to build his muscle after that.
- One Piece: The genocidal New Fishman Pirates make use of "energy steroids", which double their strength for a brief period but also shorten their lifespan. By the end of the arc, their bodies have been completely ruined by Rapid Aging.
- SPY×FAMILY: In the Campbelldon arc, one of the many sets of cheating opponents that Twilight and Nightfall have to face off against are the Bolic Brothers, who are shown to use an experimental steroid that turns them from scrawny to hulking after a single injection. It doesn't do them much good in the face of Charles Atlas Superpower.
Comic Books
- Batman: Venom is a clear analogue for steroid use, being a drug that vastly increases physical strength but can cause major side effects and addiction. It's exclusively used by villains, and when Batman himself used it in the Batman: Venom storyline, he had to kick the habit.
- Marshal Law:
- The Public Spirit, the local corrupted Superman Substitute, uses steroids to give himself the Heroic Build look. This is because while he does possess Super-Strength, none of it actually comes from muscle power, being based on channeling ions — if he wants to have the bodybuilder physique, he needs to use bodybuilder methods.
- Hyperman, a parody of Hourman, is depicted as a shriveled-up junkie who becomes temporarily musclebound after an injection of "miracle formula".
- X-Men: Mutant Growth Hormone is a Fantastic Drug that gives non-mutant people temporary superpowers when they take it. However, as the name suggests it's harvested from the bodies of mutants and prolonged use of it causes insanity, cellular decay, and eventually death. It unsurprisingly showed up in the late '90s and early '00s as an analog to the Human Growth Hormone abuse scandal that was rocking the sports world at the time.
Fan Fiction
- So you time travel to the future and your classmate gets punched...
has a variant in which the athlete is deliberately drugged by an antagonist without their knowledge. Kim had been accepting protein drinks from Lila for a while now, which unknown to him were laced with steroids in order to make him more aggressive towards Marinette; as a result, his girlfriend breaks up with him and he gets banned from competitive sports when a routine drug test catches them in his system.
Films — Live-Action
- Played for Laughs in 50 First Dates; Lucy's younger brother Doug is a regular steroid user and is shown to be a loser with wild (but harmless) mood swings, impotency, a small manhood, thinning hair, and an annoying lisp.
- Love Lies Bleeding: When Butch Lesbian Lou falls for female bodybuilder Jackie, she starts helping her with a heavy steroid regimen to prepare for an upcoming contest. While Jackie builds some impressive muscle, the steroids start seriously affecting her emotions, causing her to become unstable and violent. It eventually leads to her beating Lou's abusive brother-in-law JJ to death, and losing the contest due to having bizarre hallucinations and vomiting onstage.
- Pain & Gain (2013): Stupid Crooks Daniel, Paul, and Adrian are meathead bodybuilders who come up with a cockamamie plan that escalates from kidnapping to Accidental Murder and a Revealing Cover-Up. The piling-up stupidity is partially attributable to the trio's use of cocaine, but also steroids, and Adrian suffers from another famous side effect of steroid abuse.
- Rocky IV: Ivan Drago, the main antagonist, is clearly playing on the reputation of Russian athletes being dopers. When a reporter asks his wife about it, she simply says that Drago eats his spinach every day, which provokes a smirk from him. Rocky's Training Montage in the Russian wilderness contrasts with Drago's more sterile and scientific method and the injections he receives, pushing this idea of natural-versus-artificial to the forefront.
- Shaolin Soccer: The aptly named Team Evil uses special American drugs provided to them by Hung to enhance their physical performances. After they lose the climactic game, Hung ends up in jail and the entire team gets banned from playing due to this being revealed.
- The Wrestler: Randy starts using steroids to keep up his training. This contributes to him developing medical issues, and the film's main ray of hope comes after he suffers a heart attack, causing his doctor to demand he stop taking juice.
Literature
- Hannibal: Margot Verger is a massive female bodybuilder and sports several common side effects of heavy steroid use, including a receding hairline and clitoral enlargement. It comes back to bite her when she needs to produce an heir to take control of the Verger family fortune if and when her brother Mason dies, but she can't get pregnant herself because the steroids "fried my insides".
- The Player of Games. Like everyone else in The Culture, Gurgeh has genetically engineered glands that can manufacture and secrete whatever mood changer he wants, or sober him up afterwards. While most use these for fun, Gurgeh also uses drugs to enhance his game playing, a fact that the local media holds up as a sign of decadence and unfair advantage when he comes to the Empire of Azad to compete against their players. Halfway through the novel, Gurgeh is informed that despite this attitude the players he's been facing recently (when the government starts worrying that he's going to win) are also secretly taking performance enhancing drugs.
Live-Action TV
- Alien Nation: Played with in one episode where a bodybuilder takes a performance-enhancing drug derived from Newcomer adrenaline (Newcomers are physically superior to humans).
- Bones: "Player Under Pressure" revolves around the murder of a high school basketball player and the story briefly touches on steroid use as a possible reason for why he was murdered. The victim's coach has zero tolerance for it on the team, having used them himself when he was young and knowing how bad they are.
- Dinosaurs: In "Steroids to Heaven", Robbie takes a Fantastic Drug called "thornoids" which makes him muscular (and gives him a deeper voice). A negative side effect, however, is that he's much more aggressive toward his friends and family, and he ends up driving away his crush Caroline. His deterioration throughout the episode is represented by him growing literal thorns. By the end of the episode, Robbie realizes how awful he's been and opts to never take thornoids again.
- The Flash (2014): Villainous characters like Zoom and Trajectory make use of Velocity serums, which are steroids injected into the body to make the user faster. However, they also turn out to have a side effect of poisoning the user and causing cellular degeneration, hence Zoom coming up with a plan to take Barry's natural Speed Force connection.
- The George Lopez Show: Jason is initially introduced as The Ace to almost comical levels, being a good-looking Academic Athlete who charms his way to becoming Carmen's caring boyfriend, but one of the bigger flaws that crack through the surface and jeopardize their relationship is his sudden anger issues by the time of "George Stare-oids Down Jason". Following an uncharacteristically loud, nearly violent argument, George discovers that Jason has been secretly taking steroids (even paying Max, Carmen's little brother, for urine samples in order to pass the drug tests for his sports teams). It's downplayed because Jason is only taking steroids at the pressure of his abusive, emotionally distant father and desperately vying for his approval — when George finds this out, he does give Jason another chance to clean up his act, but warns him for being on thin ice.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "Hundred Dollar Baby" shows Dee taking steroids to help win a fight against a trained boxer, and Charlie doing the same when he starts stealing her medication. The side effects of steroid abuse are heavily shown (Dee has to start shaving her face at one point), and they ultimately end up getting arrested for assault after they beat up a pedestrian in roid rage.
- The NCIS episode "Corporal Punishment" features a marine who is to be awarded a Silver Star for breaking out of captivity, killing his captors, and saving his squadmates. Unfortunately, he's also dangerously unstable and violent, revealed to be the result of steroid abuse. He loses the Silver Star, and his next appearance reveals that he gets dishonorably discharged.
- Power Rangers Beast Morphers: In "Seeing Red", Devon starts using Fury Cells, which are essentially steroids in all but name; they make him stronger, but make him much more aggressive and arrogant and are addictive. It's eventually discovered that prolonged usage of the Fury Cells will cause Devon to permanently turn evil, though thankfully the other rangers are able to prevent that by destroying the last Fury Cell.
- In the second episode of The White Lotus (Season Three), Saxon smugly claims that he doesn't do drugs. His younger sister Piper quickly points out that he uses Adderall and steroids, which is in line with his characterization thus far as a toxically masculine finance douchebro.
Video Games
- Duke Nukem 3D: Playing into the seedy atmosphere and Affectionate Parody of 1980s action stars, steroids are a powerup, giving Duke a temporary buff in speed and melee damage.
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- In the Pugilist quests, Weggfarr doses himself on Pluto, an illicit drug that bolsters one's strength and makes the user's skin tough enough to repel swords, for his rematch with Hamon, who has only recently shaken off the rust of Feeling Their Age through a Training Montage. But Weggfarr and his men are ultimately defeated by the Pugilists' Guild's hard-won strength in a fierce battle, reasserting Hamon's legendary reputation as the Holyfist in the process.
- Brute Bomber drinks an illegal performance-enhancing energy drink partway through his Arcadion boss fight and is booed by the crowd for it. The referee robot tries to disqualify him for this, but Brute Bomber punches the robot out of the ring, emphasizing his Heel credentials. Despite this, he's still defeated by the Warrior of Light, who doesn't have the benefit of a regulator, a feral soul, or performance-enhancing drugs.
- Brucie Kibbutz from Grand Theft Auto IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony is among the cast of anti-villains who populate Liberty City, as he is technically a legitimate businessman not truly involved in anything illegal, but gets mixed up in criminal activity out of impulsiveness and Hair-Trigger Temper from his prolonged use of Bull Shark Testosterone. It is also heavily implied that his steroid use and aggressive personality are a way to cover up for his conflicted sexuality.
- StarCraft:
- Terran Marines and Firebats/Marauders can use Stimpacks, chemicals that greatly increase their movement and attack speed. In-game, the main negative effect is to damage the unit for 10 HP (note that a Marine only has around 45 HP, and in the first game, Terrans have no way of healing their soldiers); in the background, the effects are explicitly addictive and have long-term effects. Their use is eventually better regulated with the major conflicts (and subsequent need for constantly-stimmed soldiers) dying down, and Nova's campaign even features stims that heal the user (though whether it has similar side effects is unknown).
[...] long-term side effects including and not limited to insomnia, weight loss, mania/hypomania, seizures, paranoiac hallucinations, internal hemorrhaging, and cerebral deterioration.
- The gas called Terrazine (nicknamed the "Breath of Creation") is used as a performance enhancement amongst both Terrans and Protoss. Though the gas can affect brain chemistry, like restoring memories and even increase a Terran's psionic potential, overexposure to Terrazine leads to far more harmful effects besides addiction. Aside from being driven mad, the gas can lead to violent outbursts to even negatively affecting a whole world's natural environment, as Terrazine overexposure wiped out the jungles on the planet Slayn. Possibly most dangerously, the gas can lead an individual to develop a connection to the Void and become susceptible to Amon's will.
- Terran Marines and Firebats/Marauders can use Stimpacks, chemicals that greatly increase their movement and attack speed. In-game, the main negative effect is to damage the unit for 10 HP (note that a Marine only has around 45 HP, and in the first game, Terrans have no way of healing their soldiers); in the background, the effects are explicitly addictive and have long-term effects. Their use is eventually better regulated with the major conflicts (and subsequent need for constantly-stimmed soldiers) dying down, and Nova's campaign even features stims that heal the user (though whether it has similar side effects is unknown).
- Undertale Yellow: In the finale of the Genocide route, Martlet injects herself with concentrated determination to stop Clover's crusade against monsterkind once and for all, transforming into "the Zenith of Monsterkind". However, upon breaking this character's armor, the determination causes her body to start melting beyond recognition much like the Amalgamates, which can be seen as a metaphor for the negative effects of steroid overuse.
Web Videos
- Dream SMP: Aside from his alcoholism, one of the other substances that Schlatt is addicted to using is anabolic steroids. It underscores his rather literal Testosterone Poisoning mindset on top of being a President Evil who mistreats just about everyone around him.
Schlatt: I don't even know [...] how much testosterone is running through my blood — veins right now. You don't even wanna know.
- Epic Rap Battles of History: "Babe Ruth vs. Lance Armstrong" depicts the latter as an aggressive, elitist Jerk Jock, contrasting the loveable Big Fun of the former. About half of Ruth's second verse is dedicated to calling out Armstrong for his steroid use, declaring that "you got lost, and forgot what real sportsmanship was!"
Western Animation
- Action Man (1995): In the episode "X Factor", Knuck enlists Action Man to investigate why his nephew Tom dropped out of school and finds him bulked up in a gym. Immediately suspicious, they have the X-Vitamin he's been taking examined and find out it's actually a powerful highly addictive steroid and adrenalin substitute, created by Professor Gangren, for a trial run on the public. Soon, Tom begins suffering withdrawal and runs back to Gangrene for more, however while the drug does increase muscle mass it also causes Doctor X's soldiers to eventually burn out and go to sleep. After the Action Force prevents X from dropping a vial of the drug in the water supply out of spite, Tom vows to get clean, no matter how sick he gets.
- Batman Beyond: In "The Winning Edge," the Hill High hockey players use "slappers," medicine patches that increase speed and strength. Slappers also cause the user pain as their muscles bulge out and expand, become more aggressive, and are also highly addictive, as users need larger and larger doses to operate. When Bruce uncovers that slappers use Venom, the anabolic steroid that gave Bane his strength and durability, Terry tracks down Bane and sees him on life support, brain dead, and sustained by small periodic doses of Venom. At the end, it's discovered that Bane's orderly stole the Venom formula to get rich by dealing it as slappers, and when the orderly falls on a pile of slappers, his muscles bulge uncontrollably, and he becomes immobile as the slappers gave him brain damage.
- Drawn Together: Captain Hero takes steroids in "The Lemon-AIDS Walk". However, as further proof of his Dumb Muscle status, the event he's taking these steroids for is a charity walk, where winning isn't even the point. Foxxy even tries to tell him that the AIDS walk is a charity event, not a competition, but Hero won't hear of it.
- Family Guy: In "Stew-Roids", after Stewie is beaten up by the Swansons' baby daughter Suzie, Peter takes him to the gym where a seedy person recommends that he starts using steroids. It doesn’t take long for him to take to the drug and weightlifting to become a jerk to everyone around him, believing his newfound physique can let him do whatever he wants. Once the steroids wear off and Peter can't get any more, all that muscle fades away and his skin becomes incredibly saggy.
- The Simpsons:
- In "The Strong Arms of the Ma", Marge takes up weightlifting to deal with her PTSD after being mugged. Although it's shown to have positive effects at first (she gets into great athletic shape and even gives her mugger a beating), once Marge gets into competitive bodybuilding, she starts abusing steroids and experiences violent mood swings and becomes overly aggressive, even forcing Homer into sex when he doesn't want it. It culminates with her beating up almost everyone in Moe's Tavern in a rage after getting only second place in a bodybuilding contest and realizing she needs to stop using.
- "I Don't Wanna Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" features an episode of Itchy & Scratchy where Itchy convinces Scratchy to take steroids in order to become better at baseball, only for the cat to end up being shamed by Congress about it and for his muscles to start growing uncontrollably bigger, making him a easier target to be attacked and killed.
- South Park: "Up the Down Steroid" uses this as its A-plot, as Jimmy gets hooked on steroids to help him compete in the Special Olympics. He gets them from a shady dealer, quickly starts suffering from mood swings, and at one point beats his girlfriend and mom in a fit of anger. At the end of the episode, upon learning that Cartman cheated to enter, he realizes he was no better, confesses to doping, and says that anyone who uses steroids to compete is "a big fat pussy"... while the camera zooms in on Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Jason Giambi.
- The Spectacular Spider Man:
- Harry Osborn is a downplayed example. He starts abusing Globulin Green as a performance enhancer and joins the football team, getting a fair bit of Acquired Situational Narcissism. Once he realizes just how destructive the Green is, he cleans up his act and weans himself off of it.
- Played straight with Norman Osborn, who has a smaller amount of the Green converted into gas and inhales it to become a supervillain capable of fighting at Spider-Man's level.
- Transformers: Prime: "Stronger, Faster" has Ratchet create a synthetic Energon, also known as Synth En. The synthetic Energon is very obviously meant to represent steroids, as Ratchet gains more energy from the drug, but he also becomes more aggressive and dangerously overconfident.