History Main / ButNotTooBlack

* Commercials would have you believe that all little black girls and not a few of the boys have long, curly, free-flowing hair when not only is the hair type fairly uncommon but braids and otherwise restrained hairstyles are much more usual and practical for small black children.
* Hilariously U by Kotex overtly {{lampshade|Hanging}} this trope [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIzaM1VdVP0 in this commercial.]]

** The same kinds of creams appeared in African-American periodicals right up until the late 70s. While the language became more subtle throughout the years (referring to skin as "glowing" rather than "light"), the before and after pictures always gave away the underlying message: you're not pretty if you're dark.
** It has been noted that skin creams that lighten your skin, that are sharply targeted towards blacks and Asians, are considered to be dangerous (physically, not just socially!). Decades ago there was a much worse product aimed at black people in the US to 'lighten' their skin. It involved giving them a hefty dose of X-rays. It lightened their skin, all right, and killed a good many of them rather quickly as well. In primarily Indian or Pakistani neighborhoods in Dubai, there are billboards advertising skin-lightening cream. The model on the billboard is usually a very light-skinned Indian in a business suit. Obviously, this is meant to imply that having lighter skin will increase your chances of being successful. Skin-lightening creams are also popular in India. Most Bollywood actresses are very light, because it's very difficult for dark-skinned women to get acting jobs in India. Even in South Indian regional films, directors often prefer to cast North Indian actresses, as they tend to be fairer. And like Music/{{Beyonce}}, they can be made to look even lighter on camera. There are a few actresses with tan or wheatish skin, who are often touted as [[InformedAttribute "dark beauties"]], but rarely do you find truly dark actresses. Parminder Nagra (E.R. and Alcatraz), considered by some to be one of the most beautiful women in the world does have skin color about middle or average for Indian, but you wouldn't know it from her Website/IMDb cover photo however...
** There's a market in Kenya and Uganda where women buy skin-bleaching products even though these products are outlawed in Kenya. The creams are associated to a risk for cancer and chronic skin poisoning. Women use these despite the risks because they want to look prettier. What's worse is that they are all encouraged by the culture assuming that women with lighter skin have more advantages than women with the average black skin.
** In some places it's assumed that women with lighter skin have more advantages than a woman with the average black skin, a huge medical concern in the Caribbean, where darker women are literally rubbing laundry bleach on their and their children's skin.
* The 2012 Acura commercial (starring Creator/JerrySeinfeld and [[Series/TheTonightShow Jay Leno]]) casting call asked for a [[http://www.tmz.com/2012/04/18/acura-nsx-super-bowl-commercial-seinfeld-light-skinned-black-casting/#comments-anchor "nice looking, friendly, not too dark"]] African-American car dealer.
* [[http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/03/syfys-eureka-starts-production-scores-bsg-star/ This]] promotional picture for Creator/SyFy series ''{{Series/Eureka}}'' shows Alison Blake (played by the half-black Creator/SalliRichardsonWhitfield) with a complexion that is lighter than her actual coloring.

* Particularly jarring contrasts abound in some East Asian countries where ads with white models are fairly common; the native Asian models are often so heavily whitened they look ''paler than the actual white models''. All you need to do is look at the people walking next to the ads to see the Asian models are often several shades lighter than normal.

* The AmbiguouslyBrown Setsuna of ''Manga/SailorMoon'' was originally drawn ''significantly'' darker than the rest of the cast. When the [[Anime/SailorMoon anime]] rolled around, it depended on the artist but she was often as light as the others. In the ''Theatre/SeraMyu'' musicals, she almost always, if not always, has the same skin tone as everyone else.
* An aversion: In the manga version of ''Manga/GetBackers'', Kudou Himiko was originally shown to have slightly darker skin than the rest of the cast. As the series progressed and gained a serious ArtEvolution, her skin got darker and darker until, by the time the manga ended, she was closer in skin tone to black characters than the rest of the white cast. (Her race or ethnic background is never addressed, and her brother was drawn with a similar skin color.) The anime kept her at "slightly darker than the main cast", looking more like she just had a tan than she was of a different ethnicity than the main cast.
* A case of this appears in the adaptation of ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers''' from manga to anime. The manga gave the characters a variety of skin tones, but in the anime everyone except for Cuba was the same color, with Seychelles and Egypt being particularly noticeable examples. This was eventually fixed in season five when Creator/StudioDeen brought in a new animation team.
* EvilChancellor Agrippa from ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' in contrast to the typical AmbiguouslyBrown anime character look, he has fairly prominent African features, but passes the paper bag test with flying [[{{Pun}} colours]]. This is probably to make him a visual contrast to his opposite number from the Earth faction, the similarly scheming Guin Rhineford, who looks like a classic PhenotypeStereotype who's been trying to give himself melanoma at the tanning salon.
* Nadia from ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'', was going to have curly hair, according to early drafts. She ended up having smooth hair and less dark skin, and the official explanation is that her character design was made simpler by the fear of the outsourced animation company quality of work.
* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' Ultimate.
** Integra's skin looks darker compared to the manga.
** Also inverted big time with Jan Valentine. In the Manga, he is portrayed as being light skinned like the rest of the cast, whereas in both of the anime series, his skin is even darker than Integra's.
* Inverted with Kei in ''Manga/{{Pretear}}'': he had light skin in the manga, but the anime used a completely different character design with brown skin tone.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** When Nico Robin returned after the TimeSkip in the anime, her formerly [[AmbiguouslyBrown dark skin]] was all but gone, leaving her looking about 3 shades whiter. Which caused much bitterness among fans especially since Robin had been also depicted as tan in all ''Franchise/OnePiece'' movies (until ''Anime/OnePieceFilmStrongWorld'') and games up to that point[[labelnote:*]] a lot of the bitterness comes from the fact Robin’s anime skin tone made her unique among the [[OnlyOneFemaleMold notoriously similar looking female characters]] in the franchise and with white skin Robin is a [[OnlySixFaces dead ringer]] for Boa Hancock[[/labelnote]]. Though to be fair [[WordOfGod Oda did state]] Robin would be Russian RealLife therefore more likely to be white. Also, she was always light-skinned in the manga. It's the anime that darkened her for whatever reason and then after the timeskip lightened her to better match the manga.
** [[https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIjw5AAGmCKOhHJol7_L1IX8sAKsxhBPdGVCZr73Y87RNzKS3qRQ Zoro]] and [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSh3yGpT3YCvHfkmW6vIOnZ9UENqzbYWYbVmMzMFPmFgFYzHz_PuA2GDxSs Usopp]] had visible tan-skin prior to timeskip in contrast to the far whiter crewmates (Luffy, Nami and Sanji). But in New World, they've got a far lighter skin tone, somewhat making sense in Zoro's case since [[WordOfGod according]] to Creator/EiichiroOda, he would be Japanese in real life, but for Usopp, who would be African... it's ridiculous. [[note]]Usopp technically counts as having mixed ancestry, since his father Yasopp has darker skin and dreadlocks, in contrast to his pale-skinned mother Banchina.[[/note]]
* ''Anime/MichikoAndHatchin'' has Atsuko Jackson, a mixed Afro-Japanese cop with blonde hair and blue eyes. It's possible she wears contact lenses, but she's shown with the blonde hair even as a child.
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': Dark-skinned and AmbiguouslyBrown Casca is portrayed with significantly lighter skin and hair in the later animated adaptations. The film trilogy makes her more of a light tan compared to the medium brown she was in the manga and the '97 show, which some of fans who appreciated the unique appearance Miura originally gave her were ''very'' unhappy about. At first it seemed like ''Anime/Berserk2016'' made her skin almost as white as the European-looking main character Guts, which created a similar uproar, but this turned out to be ''mostly'' caused by the high contrast visual effects applied to the flashbacks. In normal lighting (CGI) she looks about the same shade as in the ''Golden Age'' movies, albeit with more reddish-brown hair as opposed to dark brown hair in the movies and black hair in the manga and '97 anime.
** Corkus had a definite tan in the Manga and 97 [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTVcFpGi2DIuajR1G2-631-e_I7khKlSPdBke2LAVsWmyQrnbO0gLCOzCWXg Anime]] but in the Golden Age Movies [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcS_UsW1JSfad81b81XA0FEIOjC7xFFHFFH9Zw&usqp=CAU he's whiter than Casca.]]
* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'':
** Some of the official art lightens Paninya's skin, despite the fact that she's dark-skinned.
** Inverted in ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'', which darkened Rosé Thomas, though the manga portrayed her as having the same skin tone as the Elrics. ''[[Manga/FullmetalAlchemist Brotherhood]]'' reverted her [[https://aminoapps.com/c/fullmetal-alchemist/page/item/rose-thomas/nz34_vmIKI4EJxoBbj24ZDLzMod0aPYbMCe to the lighter version,]] although a lot of fans seem to prefer her darker.
* Anthy Himemiya was a racially ambiguous (though likely Indian) love interest in ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' with noticeably dark skin and kinky, wavy hair that made her stand out against the rest of cast; the video game supplement to the series even made her skin ''darker'' than it was in-series. However, when TheMovie rolled out, Anthy's design was completely overhauled, and her previously dark skin was lightened to the point of looking barely tanned, and due to the FauxSymbolism of the series seemingly swaps hair type with Utena and now has very long, straight hair while Utena's is shown to be very wavy when not pinned down by braids.
* Some controversy has arisen over the fact that the international Cures from ''Anime/HappinessChargePrettyCure''....don't look very international, aside from their costumes. Even the Cures from India and Egypt are suspiciously pale.
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
** Iris in ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesBlackAndWhite'' is noticeably lighter than her game's official art. She instead matches her ''sprite'' design, which possibly means that the anime based her design on her sprite's skin tone rather than her actual colour.
** Skyla from the same arc in comparison is {{inverted|trope}}. In the games she's light-skinned but in the anime she's slightly darker.
** In a non-black but still skin tone example, the tan-skinned and EyesAlwaysShut Brock was temporarily replaced with light-skinned Tracey during the Orange Islands arc of ''Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries'' because it was thought Brock was "too Asian" looking for international audiences. He was brought back by the end of the arc and Tracey was regulated to cameos.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'': In Viz's colorings for the ''XY'' mini-volume covers, both Shauna and Emma are considerably lightened. In Emma's case, it's extra egregious considering an earlier, original colored image of her had her even darker than her game counterpart.
** Similar to the anime, Iris in the TruerToTheText ''WebAnimation/PokemonGenerations'' is still OffModel compared to her game artwork. She's darker than in the main anime but still not as dark as her official artwork.
* In the original ''Manga/{{Appleseed}}'' manga, Deunan Knute is drawn with bronze skin as a clue to her mixed ethnic background (European father, Sudanese mother). In the various {{Animated Adaptation}}s she's invariably depicted with pale skin.

[[folder:Comedy]]
* Comedian Paul Mooney joked about these people being "Double Agents", and only choosing to be Black when it's convenient for them.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/XMen'':
** Though [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]] is quite dark, she has white hair and blue eyes (when they're not completely whited out when she uses her powers), said to be marks of her bloodline, and for years was drawn with semi-European features. This comes from an early idea to give her features from different races -- dark skin, light hair and Asian-featured eyes -- to make her resemble Gaia. Later works, particularly during the lead-up to her marriage to ComicBook/BlackPanther, actually drew mild fan criticism for the change of her facial structure.
** X-Men colorists must be fond of this trope, because [[Characters/MarvelComicsMonetStCroix M]]'s skin tone is in a constant state of flux. The official Marvel site had an [[https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/trace-the-lineage-of-marvel-s-black-super-heroes article]] celebrating their black heroes, and Monet is included as one of the examples. When she first appeared in ''ComicBook/GenerationX'' she had caramel skin. Towards the end of the book it was chocolate. When she was floating between titles it went back to caramel. During her stint in ''[[ComicBook/XFactor2006 X-Factor]]'', she could be, and was, mistaken for white by readers. She had very pale skin, along with turquoise eyes. [[WordOfGod PAD]] mentioned getting complaints from fans, who wondered why Monet was suddenly white. In response, they mentioned gradually making her darker again. So by the run's end, her skin was more caramel-looking, but still very light. In ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen2016'', she has a more brown complexion, though not as dark as her chocolate self in latter Generation X chapters. Currently, she's in ''ComicBook/GenerationX2017'' upon ''ComicBook/ResurrXion'', and her complexion has become more light caramel again.
** [[Characters/MarvelComicsSunspot Sunspot]]'s skin has been lightened over the years, along with a possible RaceLift. Sunspot is Brazilian, specifically of mixed-race Afro-Brazilian and White Brazilian descent and was drawn with dark skin with wavy hair and black features. As the decades passed, Sunspot's skin has gotten lighter and lighter and now in his appearances in ComicBook/NewAvengers and ComicBook/USAvengers make him look like what [[LatinoIsBrown most Americans think Latino people look like]]. ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' has Adan Canto (a Mexican actor of mixed Amerindian/White descent) as Sunspot, further complicating the issue. Fox finally cast a Brazilian actor, Henry Zaga, as Sunspot for ''Film/TheNewMutants'' but he is very light-skinned.
* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' issues have drawn criticism for portraying ComicBook/{{Vixen}} with European features and fluctuating skin tones.
* Depending on who is drawing him, ComicBook/KarateKid from the ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' often looks ''extremely'' white despite being half-Japanese. In at least some cases, this is due to the fact that his Japanese heritage itself was a {{Retcon}}; the character was clearly white when he was first introduced.
* Ellie Preston, the daughter of Characters/{{Deadpool|WadeWilson}} suffered this big time in Gerry Duggan's volume 3 of the series. She's almost as bad as Monet. When she first appeared in-person during the Original Sin tie-ins, she was chocolate, with black hair. No denying her as (mixed) black. At the end of the tie-in, her skin is Caramel. After the tie-ins are finished her skin is white, her hair is a light brown and and her facial features have changed. This happened frequently throughout volume 3, where Ellie could be black one chapter and white the next. Finally, once volume 4 started in 2016, she has consistently been depicted as more black -- with a brown complexion and black hair, a bit closer to what she originally was.
* Similarly, the ''ComicBook/IronFist'' series has occasional "lapses" where [[Characters/DaughtersOfTheDragon Misty Knight]] is drawn with a shag haircut and European features.
* There was a bit of a mini-controversy for the second volume of ''ComicBook/MightyAvengers''. Spectrum (a.k.a. [[Characters/MarvelComicsMarvels Monica Rambeau]] a.k.a. ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}} a.k.a. [[IHaveManyNames Photon a.k.a. Pulsar]]) debuts a new, short hairstyle with her hair straightened, whereas in previous appearances Monica always wore her hair naturally with her dreadlocked look being the most remembered one. This was later addressed in an issue where Monica was shown to be horrified when a little black girl said she wanted to straighten her hair to look like Monica's, and she's since gone back to her dreadlocked look.
* The people behind the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' continuation series has been criticized for lightening Katara and Sokka's brown skin tone by a couple of shades. Even Aang is pointed out as having his skin lightened.
* In the tie-in comics for the ''WesternAnimation/{{Young Justice|2010}}'' cartoon, this occurred to the half-Vietnamese and half-white Artemis. Her skin is darker than Wally's in the cartoon, but in the comics she is presented as lighter skinned than in the source. She is also blue eyed when WordOfGod is her eyes aren't supposed to be blue (and in the cartoons they look black). She more looks like her DC Comics design (who is completely white) rather than the ''Young Justice'' one.
* The ''Girl'' series by Kevin J. Taylor for ''years'' had the titular character be AmbiguouslyBrown and OnlyKnownByTheirNickname until ''Girl: Rule of Darkness'' revealed Jaliera Dane is this trope via time travel to the original Dane being a Black slave with a (common low) white wife in the 1600s and presumably their descendants remained this trope for generations given the contemporary Dane family right down to Jaliera's little brother being a dead-ringer for Music/{{Prince}}. This also subverts the TokenBlackFriend trope with [[SecretKeeper Jesse James]], who (usually) averts this trope.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* A variant has happened over time to Cayla from ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean''. While her skin tone hasn't changed, her features have turned more caucasian over time; first her hair straightened out, then her nose and lips diminished to the point where she's gone from being [[https://joshreads.com/images/09/06/i090626fw.jpg unambiguously black]] to looking more like a [[https://joshreads.com/images/15/08/i150819fw.jpg dark-haired white woman with a tan.]] Suspiciously, this happened right when she and Les got married...though oddly, she still has her old appearance in [[https://joshreads.com/images/19/05/i190520fw.jpg flashbacks.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* Carter Kane, of ''Literature/TheKaneChronicles'', is a biracial adolescent, but he has very dark skin and appears black. Nevertheless, several pieces of [[https://www.deviantart.com/bibbidy-boo/art/Carter-and-Zia-298548035 fanart depict him]] [[https://www.deviantart.com/coffee-way/art/KANE-404971946 with much lighter skin]] and Caucasian facial features. His sister Sadie is also biracial but with lighter skin, and is usually represented as 100% white.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] in one of the special DVD features for ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles''. Frozone and Mr. Incredible watch a [[StylisticSuck really, really awful]] [[WesternAnimation/MrIncredibleAndPals licensed cartoon]]. Frozone is offended that the version of him in cartoon was a soft brown -- combined with the faded print, he comes out as lightly tanned at best -- not to mention [[TotallyRadical talking like a beatnik]]. The canonical movie had him looking very similar to his voice actor, Creator/SamuelLJackson.
-->'''Frozone:''' Oh, oh, ''I'' get caught! [[BlackDudeDiesFirst The black superhero gets caught!]]\\
'''Mr. Incredible:''' Well, just a minute ago you were complaining that they made you white.\\
'''Frozone:''' Oh that's right! The ''tanned'' superhero gets caught!
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'': Intentionally averted with Disney's first black protagonist, Tiana. She has a wide nose, full lips (though not [[FacialProfiling racist caricature]] full), strong cheekbones, a slightly protruding jaw, wide-set brown eyes, and a skin-tone as dark as Michelle Obama. Basically, she's her voice actress [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0741242/ Anika Noni Rose]] with big huge Disney eyes, though she's actually based off Danielle Mone Truitt, who served as her reference model, though the aversion still applies.
** ''Princess and the Frog'' was also later criticized as being the first in a number of animated features focused on black protagonists undergoing ForcedTransformation that immediately removes everything that could identify the main character as black, save for their voice alongside the later ''WesternAnimation/SpiesInDisguise'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Soul}}'' (though in ''Soul'''s case, [[NeverTrustATrailer it's doesn't take up as much of the film as the trailers would have you believe]]).
* In the early trailers for ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'', Tiana seemed to be suffering from this in the group Disney Princess scenes. After enough fans complained about this trope, [[DefiedTrope the crew went through the trouble of re-rendering Tiana's model to be closer to her original movie counterpart.]]
[[/folder]]

* Most light-skinned African-American actors benefit from this trope. Creator/HalleBerry is the most frequent example, being mixed race (White mother and Black father). Furthermore, Berry has also had plastic surgery on her nose, which had the effect of making her look more European.
* Mixed-race actress Creator/RaeDawnChong is probably one of the earliest examples of a light-skinned actress constantly being paired up with white males.
* Creator/AnnaMayWong - the first Chinese-American movie star in the Golden Age of Hollywood - was a victim to this. Despite her star power, producers were reluctant to cast her in lead roles. She usually ended up as the DragonLady or BeautifulSlaveGirl supporting parts - while white actresses in {{Yellowface}} got cast as leads. She ultimately had to take her career overseas to play non-stereotypical characters.
* Mixed-race actresses such as Creator/ThandiweNewton, Creator/PaulaPatton, and Creator/KandyseMcClure (all of mixed white/black descent) are often paired with a white male co-star.
* In the ''Film/{{Hairspray}}'' remake, it is kind of hard to listen to the light-skinned Queen Latifah sing the line "...with a darkness/as black as my skin" without thinking of this trope. Both the film and the musical have the song "Run and Tell That" with a chorus of: ''"The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice, I can say it ain't so, but darling, what's the use? The darker the chocolate, the richer the taste, and that's where it's at, so run and tell that!"''
* A major plot point in both the [[Film/ImitationOfLife1934 1934 version]] and [[Film/ImitationOfLife1959 1959 version]] of ''Imitation of Life'', in which a light-skinned biracial child really really wants to pass as white, causing much heartache and tragedy.

* Laura Gemser from the ''Black Emanuelle'' Sexploitation/Grindhouse franchise counts. The lead isn't even black but Indonesian.
* [[Film/JosieAndThePussyCats Josie and the Pussycats]]: In the original [[ComicBook/JosieAndThePussyCats comic book]] and [[WesternAnimation/JosieAndThePussyCats animated cartoon]], Valerie is a dark-skinned black girl. In the live-action film adaptation, she is portrayed by the light skinned Afro-Latina actress Rosario Dawson.
* Mixed race Lisa Bonet (half-Ashkenazi, and half-Black) claims to have turned down roles because of this trope.
* Creator/WillSmith [[https://www.today.com/popculture/was-race-issue-hitch-casting-wbna7019342 said]] that Creator/EvaMendes was cast opposite him in ''Film/{{Hitch}}'' because casting a black actress would have made it a "black movie" that would turn off white audiences. [[WhereDaWhiteWomenAt And apparently so would have a white actress.]] Likely why the kiss between Smith and Creator/CharlizeTheron was cut in ''Film/{{Hancock}}''. So not even Will Smith at the height of his popularity, when he was considered a bigger box office draw than any white actor, was immune to this trope.
* In many "{{Race Film}}s" (films made in the US by blacks for black audiences prior to the 60s), the female lead was typically played by a light-skinned black, sometimes so light she could be mistaken for white. Meanwhile, dark-skinned females were cast as the heroine's maid, or other servants. This also applied to the men less so, though it was still rare to see light-skinned blacks cast as porters and waiters. This still exists to a certain degree in current black media. See the silent film ''Happiness'', the cowboy serial ''The Creole Kid'', and 1939s ''Moon Over Harlem''.
* ''The Human Stain'' covers this, as the protagonist's from a family of mixed Caucasian and African-American descent who's light enough to pass for white (to his brother's resentment-none of the rest can). Ironically it works ''too well'', since everyone else believes this (he's made himself out to be Jewish as the explanation of his slightly swarthy skin and curly hair), thus he's accused of racism due to a misinterpreted remark about a couple absent students from his university class (both black). This was BasedOnATrueStory.
* Parodied in Robert Townsend's ''Film/HollywoodShuffle''. In the sketch about "Black Acting School," the host of the commercial asserts that Hollywood prefers dark-skinned black actors to play thugs and low-lifes, and implies that these are the only roles available to black men.
* Used in the French movie ''99 Francs'': the CEO of a dairy company refuses to cast a black woman in a yogurt commercial (claiming it's "too much Africanity for our audience" and that [[{{Jerkass}} a Black girl will scare people]]); the main character chooses to cast a fair-skinned girl from Maghreb (thus African as well) and nobody complains, the CEO even says [[{{Jerkass}} she looks less vulgar than any black girl would]], even though the audience knows she is a prostitute (Octave smiles to himself, and Charlie smiles at him, [[ImagineSpot while remembering it]]). Considering the movie is the adaptation of a TakeThat against the advertising business, the whole point (rich, upper-class people can also be stupid, racist [[JerkAss assholes]], even when they are worth tens of billions) is rather {{Anvilicious}}, but then again....
* ''Film/HaroldAndKumarEscapeFromGuantanamoBay'': Lampshaded with a light-skinned black security guard. Kumar accuses him of racism when is "randomly selected" to be searched. The security guards says he can't be racist because he's black, to which Kumar calls him barely black. Note that the guard could easily pass for white.
* Creator/RosarioDawson's mixed racial features allow her to play a variety of races and open up her opportunities for pairings. Similar to Eva Mendes, she can pair up with a white male, black male (''Film/SevenPounds''), and has even passed herself off as Middle Eastern (''Film/{{Alexander}}'').
* Creator/VinDiesel's semi-autobiographical film ''Multi-Facial'' details the difficulties of a multiracial actor, who can't get parts because he's too black to play white but too white to play black. Diesel's star power has apparently allowed him to jumped the hurdle. He's even played a real-life Italian-American mafioso in Sidney Lumet's ''Film/FindMeGuilty.''
* Wentworth Miller also overcame this. But most probably don't know his actual ethnic background, which is [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot African-American/Jamaican/English/German/Jew/Cherokee/Russian/French/Dutch/Lebanese/Syrian]].
* Inverted in ''Film/GetShorty'': Elmore Leonard's novel included several pages of dialogue between Chili and Harry about Bo Catlett's skin color -- Harry, who'd known Bo for years, had never even realized he was black. In the movie, Bo was played by the dark-skinned Delroy Lindo. Obviously, those pages of dialogue were removed from the script.
* [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson]], of African and Samoan heritage.
** He's been on the covers of ''Jet'' and ''Ebony'' magazines, and Wrestling/MickFoley described him as black in his autobiography ''Have a Nice Day!'' (specifically to make fun of Margaret Carlson for describing The Rock as a "white skinhead hateful wrestling guy").
** The Rock is popularly thought to be "raceless," even though he doesn't downplay his ethnicity outside of his roles. Some roles have even featured him as "baseline" white characters (such as on an episode of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', where he played Superman/Clark Kent).
* ''"Sex Is..."'' a documentary from 1993. 59 minutes in, Wayne Corbitt, a black man who is into white men, says, "I have rebelled against anybody telling me what I ought to be, and that includes the gay community, who doesn't really want you to be '''too black''': 'Uh, don't get so Black Specific with those issues.' And the black community, which goes, 'Huh! SM? A black man who LIKES getting whipped?! Do you know blah blah blah lynchings in the 20s and blah blah blah.' Yeah, I do know that did happen. I didn't do it. I'm not a part of that. This is 1992 in San Francisco."
* Justified in ''Film/EvesBayou'', which was specifically about black Creoles, who were of mixed ancestry and often formed their own communities.
* ''Film/StreetFighterTheLegendOfChunLi'' has Chun Li played by Creator/KristinKreuk, who's got Chinese heritage but looks decidedly mixed. And it really stands out when all the child actresses who play her in the prologue are ''decidedly'' Chinese.
* Kristen Kreuk also played an Indian Muslim woman in ''Partition'', looking very out of place alongside British Irish/Indian actor Jimmy Mistry playing an Indian Sikh.
* The documentary ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXG38QxXY-s Dark Girls]]'' is about this trope, dissecting its implications and how it creates prejudice within the black community. In a strange twist, one (rather dark skinned) interviewee said that black men found her attractive and exotic, but refused to actually date her because she was too dark for them to be seen with in public.
* Creator/EddieMurphy's love interests tend to be light-skinned African Americans.
* The 2013 film ''Film/TheBlingRing'' is based on a group of thieves who targeted celebrities. Rebecca Lee is played by Katie Chang, who is one-fourth Asian. For reference, [[http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3220876800/nm4583512 this]] is what Katie Chang looks like and [[http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/bling-ring-leader-rachel-lee-faces-years-prison-celebrity-home-burglaries-article-1.957506 this]] is what Rachel Lee looks like.
* ''The Wedding'', a TV movie about a wealthy light-skinned Black family on Martha's Vineyard, played this trope straight and subverted it all over the place. Halle Berry plays the lead Shelby, who faces a great deal of judgement from her family and friends for marrying a white man. Her sister, Liz, is married to a very dark-skinned man which has caused some pretty severe intra-family strife, especially with their white great-grandmother, since they pride themselves on being fair-skinned. There's also a flashback where Shelby and Liz's mother, Corinne, is implied to have aborted her third child since she didn't want to risk having a baby who looked like her (dark-skinned) father (her mother was white.)
* This trope plagued the LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek "Aaliyah: Princess of R&B" (a biographical feature on late R&B singer Music/{{Aaliyah}}). Originally, Creator/{{Zendaya}} was cast in the title role only for online criticism of the casting (particularly with biracial Coleman bordering on AmbiguouslyBrown) led to Coleman dropping out and the movie being placed on hold. Eventually, the producers cast Alexandra Shipp, who is still a fairly light-skinned biracial actress.
* The announcement of Alexandra Shipp as the teenaged Storm in ''Film/XMenApocalypse'' has been met with many fans decrying the casting of Shipp as not being "black enough." Creator/HalleBerry is also frequently called out with this for the previous films (Berry and Shipp both had black fathers and white mothers). It should be noted that Storm in the comics has been drawn with a mixture of white, African and Asian features - with WordOfGod saying it was to portray her as "a woman of the world", resembling Gaia. Storm's full background, however, does have two parents who were definitely African.
* Retired porn star Heather Hunter claimed that earlier in her career she was pressured to do scenes only with white performers. Although ''most'' of her partners were white (and mainly females), she arguably never fully obliged. On the other hand she didn't start having black co-stars until her last couple years in the industry, so there might have been some hesitation. To her credit she did bring in more black performers into the industry and was the first black major contract girl.
* The casting of Shana in the ''Film/JemAndTheHolograms2015'' LiveActionAdaptation came under fire for casting Aurora Perrineau, a biracial actress with straight hair. Shana is fairly dark skinned and has a tightly-coiled afro in [[WesternAnimation/{{Jem}} the cartoon]].
* ''Film/{{Nina}}'' caused controversy when mixed-race actress Zoe Saldana was cast as African-American musician Nina Simone. Saldana's skin is darkened and she wears a prosthetic nose to better look the part.
* In ''Film/TheSapphires'', the story of an Aboriginal girls quartet that toured Vietnam entertaining the troops, one of the group members, Kay, is a member of the stolen generation, and her time spent in Melbourne passing as a white girl (after being taken away by an agency and put into a mission as a child) is a source of tension between her and Gail, the darkest member of the group who deals with whatever insecurities she has about her complexion by almost relentlessly bullying Kay. And rather than lording her light complexion over the others, Kay has her own insecurities about it (probably due to Gail's ill treatment)--in the course of developing a relationship with a black GI, she feels it necessary to point out that even though she's "pale black", she's still black.
* ''Film/TheHungerGames'' drew controversy with the casting of Creator/JenniferLawrence as Katniss. She's described as olive-skinned and dark-haired in the books - and WordOfGod is that everyone in the universe is mixed race to some degree. While AbilityOverAppearance comes into play, the main source of controversy was that the casting was restricted to white actresses only. This is especially ironic, as some fans erupted with controversy over Rue being played by a black actress, despite her being described as brown-skinned in the book. However, Rue's casting has been criticized in turn, with her portrayed by a biracial light-skinned actor.
* Creator/ZoeKravitz [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/zoe-kravitz-dark-knight-rises-809141 claims]] that she was denied an audition for ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'' - with the reasoning being "we're not going urban". Fans assume she was going after the small role of Selina's friend Jen - who ended up played by the very white Juno Temple.

* Oscar Micheaux is considered a pioneer film director, especially when it comes to black Americans directing films. Many of his {{race film}}s were {{Author Tract}}s. He usually had mixed-race or light skinned black people as the leads while darker skinned people were lower-class supporting roles or villains.
* The stylist of ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' claims that they considered giving Valkyrie blonde hair, as in the comics. But out of respect of this trope, they left Creator/TessaThompson's hair black as opposed to making her a dark-skinned blond.
* Creator/JamieChung claims she was turned down for a role in the adaptation of ''Literature/CrazyRichAsians'' because they wanted an actress who was ethnically Chinese (she is of Korean descent, though has played Chinese characters before). She then took time to criticize the movie for casting an actor who is half-white to play another part.
* Inverted for ''Film/TheWorldOfSuzieWong''. The titular Suzie was played by Creator/NancyKwan, who is half-Chinese and half-European. She was apparently given make-up so that she looked more convincingly Asian. The actress she replaced - France Nuyen - was also half-European - but looked more convincingly Asian.

* A plot point in the film ''Film/NappilyEverAfter'' (and the book it's adapted from). The protagonist is a black woman in advertising who is obsessed with maintaining her straight hair, and the plot involves her suffering BreakTheHaughty and embracing her natural hair. It's shown that her obsession with it being perfect comes from pressures her mother put on her as a child.
* Noel Clarke called out the marketing department for his film ''Film/FishermansFriends'', where he was the only cast member to be billed on the poster but not featured on it. He was also the only non-white cast member. He also slammed his fellow cast-mates, saying "not one of these other actors spoke up for me when I was left off the poster".
* Creator/RachelTrue has been open about how, despite being one of the leads in ''Film/TheCraft'', she was frequently ignored by the press and marketing. Her three co-stars (all white by the way) were invited to the MTV Movie Awards when she wasn't, and she was left off press junkets until another actress called the studio up to include her. Twenty years later, conventions would likewise ignore her when inviting cast members for reunions (one article listed Christine Taylor as a star of the film, when she has a small supporting role). Rachel has often spoken out about how she was always cast as the TokenBlackFriend.
--> "There's a casual racism to not including the Black person, we're the afterthought quite often."
** On the flip side to the above, Rachel True also has confessed to getting backlash for her curls being "looser" and therefore not counting as natural hair (she is of mixed African and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry). She's quick to fire back that she refused to straighten her hair for roles in the 90s when it was the done thing for black actresses.
* ''Film/CharliesAngels2019'': Two of the three Angels (Jane, then eventually Elena) are now women of color. However, both have more Caucasian features and fairly light skin (the actresses were biracial). ZigZaggingTrope though in that their first Bosley is played by Beninese actor Creator/DjimonHounsou.
* ''Film/MargaritaWithAStraw'': Laila, the lead, was played by Kalki Koechlin, a very fair-skinned French-Indian actress (born in India to French parents). As a result, she stands out glaringly from the Indian actors who play her parents, friends and love interest who have far darker looks.
* ''Film/TheNewMutants'': The film was criticized for casting an actress to play Dani/Mirage who's much lighter-skinned than her comic book counterpart.
* ''Theatre/ForColoredGirls'': Alice's father didn't like that she has dark skin, and "gave" her to a white man for light-skinned grandchildren, because that was what is beautiful to him.

* ''Series/ColdCase'': The victim in "Libertyville" was half black and half white but looked completely white. It was central to the plot, as he'd passed as white and been murdered for doing so.

Fair skin is a common beauty standard by some cultures, one strengthened by Euro-centrism ('the West'[[note]] Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and Western Europe[[/note]] produces or influences much of the world's media). However, most of the world's population is possessed of brown skin tones of varying shades. As the trope title states, this hits ethnic Africans particularly hard; some 'Western' casting directors are in the habit of only--or mostly--hiring non-European actors and actresses with lighter skin tones because they assume that they will be more relatable to their largely ethnic-European or European-descent audiences. Black actresses are hit even harder ([[http://www.teenvogue.com/story/hollywoods-colorism-problem-cant-be-ignored?mbid=social_twitter as detailed here]]) due to Eurocentric beauty standards favoring fair skin for women.

Variations of this casting trope are also seen in Latin America, Northern Africa/Western Asia, and East Asia. This trope is a common source of UnfortunateImplications; given this trope's prevalence throughout the world's entertainment industries, [[Administrivia/TropesAreFlexible there are numerous variations on this trope listed below]]. Note also how the changing definitions of desirability have resulted in new and/or different hiring biases over time. This can actually go the other way round too, particularly in casting from people who are attempting to avert this trope; where mixed race or lighter skinned actors can be turned down for not being "[[PersecutionFlip black enough]]". Of course in that case, the ideal solution would be to represent more characters beyond the TokenMinority - allowing for more diversity in skin tones.

* This trope plagued the LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek "Aaliyah: Princess of R&B" (a biographical feature on late R&B singer Music/{{Aaliyah}}). Originally, Creator/{{Zendaya}} was cast in the title role only for online criticism of the casting (particularly with Coleman bordering on AmbiguouslyBrown) led to Coleman dropping out and the movie being placed on hold. Eventually, the producers cast Alexandra Shipp, who is still a fairly light-skinned actress but actually looks more like Aaliyah.

** Also mentioned by Huey when describing the typical storyline for one of the Tyler Perry movie parodies. He discusses a story about an educated black woman who is abused by her bald, dark-skinned husband, who is just about ready to leave her for a white woman anyway. The black woman falls in love with a handsome, long-haired, light-skinned shirtless gardener. The sequence makes sure to note repeatedly about how the gardener is light-skinned and how her husband is dark-skinned and bald.
-->'''Woman''': ''Oh lord, thank you Jesus. I never thought I'd ever be with a man so loving and light-skinned''.
-->'''Man''': ''And I will always be light-skinned just for you''.

* Music/LilKim. When she first came out with ''Hard Core'' [[http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/l/lil-kim/album-hard-core.jpg she looked like this]]. And now she looks less like a light-skinned black person and more like something that crawled out of the UncannyValley. Despite that, she kept the plastic surgery coming, and now people have made some harsh jokes that now she looks closer to [[http://dlisted.com/2013/02/03/open-post-hosted-lil-kims-face "an Asian LaToya Jackson."]]

* ''Series/{{Misfits}}'': A trend with the black female characters. The show's original cast has Alicia, a black girl with light skin, in stark contrast with dark-skinned Curtis (and Tony the probation worker, another dark-skinned black man-a supporting character who's quickly killed off). In the later cast, Jess too is light-skinned. Both actresses are biracial. All the supporting black female characters are similarly light-skinned, played by biracial actresses as well. The sole semi-exception is Nikki, a recurring character whose actress is biracial as well but darker skinned than the rest.

* ''Series/TheBabySittersClub2020'': In the books, Jessi is described as having very dark, cocoa-colored skin, which is reflected in cover art. Here she's played by an actress with a significantly lighter skin tone.

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': Derek Morgan has a white mother, black father, and several sisters. The actresses who played his sisters had range of skin tones. Creator/ShemarMoore himself has a black father and white mother.

* Pleasantly {{subverted|Trope}} with Creator/AngelCoulby on ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'': in the promotional shots for series two she appears quite fair, yet in the shots for series four (the season in which she becomes Queen), she is portrayed as considerably darker.

* Covered on the old Donahue daytime talk show - talking to lightskin blacks who tried to pass as biracial or white when in reality they were just black usually born of two light-complexioned parents. Some changed their stance when they got older; needless to say some of their relatives weren't too pleased with their black acceptance.

* A major bit of the crossover between ''Series/{{Scandal}}'' and ''Series/HowToGetAwayWithMurder'' has Annaliese Keating slamming Olivia Pope on the latter being lighter-skinned and thus "geting more of a pass" by society than the darker-skinned Annaliese.

* Creator/JenniferBeals plays a biracial woman on ''Series/TheLWord''. One episode focuses on her and her white wife at a group therapy session being accosted by a radical black lesbian poet. The latter accused her of embracing her lesbian lifestyle but ignoring her own blackness. Previously, she requested her wife accept a black donor's sperm for their child so s/he could racially reflect both parents, so she argued the poet down, but was very hurt.
* Jennifer Beals played Cal Lightman's ex-wife on ''Series/LieToMe''. Although she could be mistaken for white, her character's heritage mirrors her own (Black father and White mother), and again a character with the same parental mixture on ''Series/TheChicagoCode''. Beals has insisted on this as background for her characters.

** Laura from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'' is Afro-Brazilian and on the fair side, much lighter than her brother Sean from ''Street Fighter III''. Granted, it makes sense to the high amount of interracial relationships throughout Brazil's history, but then in her story mode ladder, she and her brother are colored ''very'' pale for the picture cutscenes.

* The first black ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'' dolls had the right skin tone, but were processed from the same mold used to make white Barbies; thus they had African-American skin but white features. The ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'' So In Style line attempts to avert this, with mixed results. The dolls do have green/blue eyes and straight hair, but there was an effort to include many different types of skintones and they have distinct African facial features.

** It has been noted that skin creams that lighten your skin, that are sharply targeted towards blacks and Asians, are considered to be dangerous (physically, not just socially!). Decades ago there was a much worse product aimed at black people in the US to 'lighten' their skin. It involved giving them a hefty dose of X-rays. It lightened their skin, all right, and killed a good many of them rather quickly as well. In primarily Indian or Pakistani neighborhoods in Dubai, there are billboards advertising skin lightening cream. The model on the billboard is usually a very light skinned Indian in a business suit. Obviously, this is meant to imply that having lighter skin will increase your chances of being successful. Skin lightening creams are also popular in India. Most Bollywood actresses are very light, because it's very difficult for dark-skinned women to get acting jobs in India. Even in South Indian regional films, directors often prefer to cast North Indian actresses, as they tend to be fairer. And like Music/{{Beyonce}}, they can be made to look even lighter on camera. There are a few actresses with tan or wheatish skin, who are often touted as [[InformedAttribute "dark beauties"]], but rarely do you find truly dark actresses. Parminder Nagra (E.R. and Alcatraz), considered by some to be one of the most beautiful women in the world does have skin color about middle or average for Indian, but you wouldn't know it from her Website/IMDb cover photo however...
** There's a market in Kenya and Uganda where women buy products that bleaches their skin. It's outlawed in Kenya, but they are still able to buy the products due to smuggling. The products in question are extremely unhealthy, since it gives the women cancer and causes chronic skin poisoning. They use it anyway, because they want to look prettier. What's worse is that they are all encouraged by the culture assuming that women with lighter skin have more advantages than women with the average black skin.

* [[http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/03/syfys-eureka-starts-production-scores-bsg-star/ This]] promotional picture for Creator/SyFy series ''{{Series/Eureka}}'' shows Alison Blake (played by the half-black Creator/SalliRichardsonWhitfield) as being much lighter skinned than she is in real life.

* Disney Junior's ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'' features the first Latina princess, [[http://gawker.com/5952893/disney-declares-its-newest-princess-is-latina-just-so-we-can-all-fight-about-whether-or-not-she-looks-latina?post=53646737 a very fair-skinned girl with reddish auburn hair.]] It is a given that Latinos come in different shades, ethnicities and colors but a lot of people are taking issue that Disney declared her Latina just a short time before the show premiered. Mainly the fact that it seems "after the fact" and just declaring her Latina just to have a Latina princess, one of doesn't even debut in proper Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon movie, no less. Not to mention fair-skinned Latinos have more representation in the media. It since seems Disney has {{retcon}}ned her as not being Latina. They made such a big deal of [[WesternAnimation/ElenaOfAvalor another princess]], who has [[LatinoIsBrown brown skin]] and dark black hair, being their "first Latina princess".

* Inverted in the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' with James Rhodes, aka. [[Characters/IronManHeroes War Machine]]. In [[Film/IronMan1 the first Iron Man film]], he's played by Creator/TerrenceHoward. In ''Film/IronMan2'' and from then on, he's played by the much darker Creator/DonCheadle.

* In ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries Soul Calibur III]]'', the first appearance of a black character in the canon (Zasalamel), and the series' first create-a-fighter mode, doesn't translate into a black skin option, as the darker you try to go, the more the saturation drops. So even though there's at least one face option that has somewhat African features, trying to pick a naturally darker skin color to match it just makes your character ''gray''.

* EvilChancellor Agrippa from ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' in contrast to the typical AmbiguouslyBrown anime character look, he has fairly prominent African features, but passes the paper bag test with flying [[{{Pun}} colours]]. This is probably to make him a visual contrast to his opposite number from the Earth faction, the similarly scheming Guin Rhineford, who looks like a classic PhenotypeStereotype [[DarkSkinnedBlond who's been trying to give himself melanoma at the tanning salon]].

* ''Anime/MichikoAndHatchin'' has Atsuko Jackson, a mixed Afro-Japanese cop with [[DarkSkinnedBlond blonde hair and blue eyes]]. It's possible she wears contact lenses, but she's shown with the blonde hair even as a child.

* The stylist of ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' claims that they considered giving Valkyrie blonde hair, as in the comics. But out of respect of this trope, they left Creator/TessaThompson's hair black as opposed to making her a DarkSkinnedBlond.

* Spyke from ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' had [[DarkSkinnedBlond blonde hair]] and spoke with a TotallyRadical skater boy accent. He was included specifically to be a TokenMinority, but his original concept had cornrows that got rejected out of worry that it would 'frighten' children.

* In her debut Luna, the keyboardist, from The Hex Girls in ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' is AmbiguouslyBrown and a DarkSkinnedRedhead. Future appearances lighten her skin to be like her bandmates. ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' ended up returning her back to her original skintone.

* ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'': In Viz's colorings for the ''XY'' mini-volume covers, both Shauna and Emma are considerably lightened. In Emma's case, it's extra egregious considering an earlier, original colored image of her had her even darker than her game counterpart.
* Similar to the anime, Iris in the TruerToTheText ''WebAnimation/PokemonGenerations'' is still OffModel compared to her game artwork. She's darker than in the main anime but still not as dark as her official artwork.

'''Frozone:''' Oh that's right! The ''[[Funny/MrIncredibleAndPals tanned]]'' superhero gets caught!

* A stage direction in ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'' refers to the Prince of Morocco as a "tawny moor", as opposed to a "black" moor.

* Day, a protagonist from Marie Lu's ''Literature/LegendTrilogy'', is half-Asian and half-white but is described as having blond hair and blue eyes. The author explains how this is possible [[https://marielubooks.tumblr.com/post/66271859220/tuesday-night-at-my-first-bookstore-event here]].

* Mixed-race Lenny Kravitz said that his music was considered not black enough for some record labels, and not white enough for others. Of course he never changed his sound. And continues to blend retro-soul with classic rock.
* Lampshaded by Music/NellyFurtado in the song "Powerless".

* Hip-hop mogul, Diddy has also come under fire. In March of 2009, he placed an ad seeking models for a Ciroc Vodka promotion - as long as they were "White, Hispanic, or light-skinned African American."
* Teena Marie is an inversion as she was initially "But Not Too WHITE," so due to Executive Meddling her debut album didn't show her picture or let her appear in public.

** ''Princess and the Frog'' was also later criticized as being the first in a number of animated features focused on black protagonists undergoing BalefulPolymorph that immediately removes everything that could identify the main character as black, save for their voice alongside the later ''WesternAnimation/SpiesInDisguise'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Soul}}'' (though in ''Soul'''s case, [[NeverTrustATrailer it's doesn't take up as much of the film as the trailers would have you believe]]).

* Mixed-race actresses such as Creator/ThandieNewton, Creator/PaulaPatton, and Creator/KandyseMcClure (all of mixed white/black descent) are often paired with a white male co-star.