This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Took out Dark And Gritty in place of Darker and Edgier Used Future. There's definetly something to it as a setting, but for the time being both of the above cover it.
Ununnilium: That works. Also, taking out:
- Commander Chakotay on Star Trek Voyager was the sole Native American on the cast.
- Mildly subverted with the advent of Tuvok, a dark skinned Vulcan.
...because Voyager had Chakotay, Tuvok, B'elanna, Kim... It didn't really count here.
Kilyle: Should Voyager be then noted as a subversion, avoidance, or what have you? Actually, perhaps a greater note for Star Trek in general. You have the ground-breaking multinational crew in the original series, of course, and then a couple dark skintones on TNG, and on DS 9 there's a black captain and Worf again. But that's just the main crews, and doesn't say much for all the Rubber-Forehead Aliens they meet out there. They did meet with occasional Anvilicious skintone episodes, such as, what's the name, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?
Eric DVH: Oh come on, while TOS might not have had many blacks in it, all of the later series had tons of them. I mean, the klingons were pretty much ALL black.
Kilyle: If that's the case, make the note that Star Trek subverted the lot of it, both in-crew and out-of-crew. (Me, I never paid much attention to the Klingons... I liked the Rihannsu (Romulans). And I'm still mad that out of five series that covered the gamut of potential captains, there was never an alien captain (for the main ship).)
That quote at the top of the page still makes me laugh. I admit, I haven't the context and don't know much about Green Lantern, but... superheroes in general are out saving the entire planet day in and day out, and the Token Minority shows up to berate them for not spending a little more time, what, attending speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr.? ("I know ya saved my entire race forty times in the past year, but what have you done for me lately?")
Randallw: Does it matter much that one of the guards on Cloud City in ESB was also black. I can't be sure though, but I know they had 2 different Cloud Guard figures, one white and the other black. As a child I was unable to realise why. I mean why have two only superficially different guards? It never occurred to me till I grew up why they made a black one as well.
Green lantern's colour blindness
Personally I have trouble with that. They're aliens that's why they have different coloured skin. He saves their entire race. I think bringing colour into it is the rascist bit. Clearly he never saw John Stewart either.
Mister Six: John Stewart wasn't around at that time, was he?
arromdee: He wasn't, and that storyline led to the introduction of John Stewart, but at the time, Stewart was very much an Angry Black Man (why we don't have a trope page for that I don't know) and didn't become a reasonable character until long afterwards.
The whole storyline was considered very progressive and edgy at the time just for addressing racism in a comic; addressing it well would come later.
Jefepato: Fair enough. Unfortunately, from a modern perspective, complaining that the guy who's out saving entire planets hasn't done anything for civil rights is a bit of a Wall Banger.
Ophicius: Conversation In The Main Page.
- Hopefully this isn't just 'cause the producer has a thing for interracial relationships.
- Um, actually modern British TV has a "thing" for interracial relationships, they're just more common in the UK.
moo: I'm absolutely fascinated by the fact that half of the examples on the page are a "subversion" or an "avoidance." I think there's about enough of people claiming their favorite piece of pop culture isn't racist. I would do some culling, but I don't hang out here.
- Also, having a character who is from a country/region of Europe that is not usually represented doesn't count as a subversion.
Z: Pulled...
- Notably, though, the Salamander Space Marines and the people on the homeworld they recruit from are noted to have very dark skin. And the Tallarn are very Arabesque, coming as they do from a desert planet.
This may be out of place, (thus why here first) but is it worth noting in the introduction the reasoning behind this trope is fear of getting it wrong and insulting the said minority. I seem to remember the guys from the webcomicPenny-Arcade
saying something to this effect, a couple years ago I think, though I think they have since added a few minority characters.
