History Main / ButNotTooBlack

* In ''Film/JungleFever'' when Wesley Snipes' African American architect begin an affair with a white woman his light skinned black ex lambasts him, telling him she'd been teased all her life for her light complexion and now people would say she was just a stepping stone before he went all the way to a white girl.

* ''Series/ColdCase'': An episode cast a dark-complexioned actress as the victim and used lighting techniques to make her appear light-skinned, which didn't become relevant until near the end when [[spoiler:her white lover tried to convince her to pass for white so they could be out in the open with each-other]].

* ''Series/KCUndercover'' star, model, and singer Creator/{{Zendaya}} has faced this issue a number of times with her being AmbiguouslyBrown and able to crossover. But she is unapologetic about embracing her black side and often speaks out about black women being stereotyped in the entertainment industry.

** Paula is a light-skinned black woman, which is implied to be why the (all white) Mossbachers - who claim to be progressive but are actually very shallow and covertly racist - feel comfortable with her, and Olivia holds her up as her TokenBlackFriend. She grows increasingly frustrated by having her race dismissed, which leads to her shoddy plan with Kai (who's indigenous).

Someone would be deemed undesirable and unattractive for being dark-skinned. Another would be denied a job opportunity because their skin tone is too dark and for potentially scaring off those who have a lighter skin shade. A parent with children of varying skin shades may [[ParentalFavoritism prefer their light-skinned kid than their dark-skinned one]] who'd be seen as the BlackSheep of their family. There are also the characters with [[InternalizedCategorism internalized colorism]] who despise themselves for being dark-skinned and might be obsessed with conforming to Eurocentric beauty standards by whitening their skin and the like because of their self-hatred. Such characters, especially female ones, would be used to hearing backhanded compliments such as "you're too pretty for a dark-skinned girl" growing up which can destroy their confidence in their skin and push them into hating their skin color as it's not validated by others.

* Covered on ''Series/ThePhilDonahueShow'' - talking to light-skinned black people 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.

There's discrimination based on sex, class, race, and then there's discrimination against skin tone and/or physical features which are known as colorism. Light skin is favored over dark skin, and Eurocentric facial and physical features are favored over non-Eurocentric features (African or Indigenous).

* ''{{Series/Vida}}'': Prejudice against darker-skinned Latinos is {{discussed|Trope}} as being common in the community. Nelson, the sleazy developer, told someone right to her face he wasn't interested after she turned out darker than in her online photo. Marcos and Lyn decide to use this by setting up a fake profile on a dating site of a very white girl, then catfish him. He tells Lyn (thinking she's the girl) he's not into Latinas due to preferring "pink nipples".

* ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'': In Season 8, Lynn hits a racial brick wall after the manager at her record label explicitly tells her that the higher-ups don't know how to market her music (primarily indie rock) because she neither looks nor sounds "black enough."

* Subtly alluded to on ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. When the girls start Photoshopping their pictures to make them unrealistically hot, Nichole, the one black girl, makes her skin lighter. (Though oddly, later it's shown dark again.)

-->-- '''Creator/ViolaDavis''', [[https://www.theroot.com/viola-davis-on-colorism-in-hollywood-if-you-are-darke-1790886679 TheWrap interview]], 2015

[[quoteright:350:[[Music/{{Beyonce}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loreal_640.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Not even Beyoncé is exempt from this trope.]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/SouthPark https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/photoshop_nichole_6.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole You can't change the difficulty in the mid-game like that, how shameful.]]]]

[[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!
[[/folder]]

* Used in the French movie ''[[Film/NinetyNineFrancs 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....
* This trope plays a central part in the plot of ''Film/BadHair''. Our protagonist, a black woman, is told that she has to change her hairstyle from her natural hair to something more conventionally attractive (read: Caucasian) in order to move up in her job, and ends up struggling to choose between her ethics and her career (the fact that the weave she gets [[ItMakesSenseInContext is bloodthirsty and sentient]] doesn’t help much). [[spoiler:It plays a part in the film’s backstory, too -- in the past, a black slave girl tried to use moss as a wig to replicate the hair of her white masters, only to learn too late that the "moss" was the hair of dead witches and end up possessed.]]

* ''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.

* 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.

* Creator/VinDiesel's semi-autobiographical film ''Film/MultiFacial'' 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.''
* 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.

* ''Film/SexIs'', 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."

* Satirized in ''Film/UndercoverBrother'' when The Chief said "''We can make the world a safe place for black people of all races''", which was a TakeThat to black people who like to subdivide themselves based on skin tone. Also mocked with [[ConspiracyTheorist Conspiracy Brother]], who responds to "hi" with "As in '[[EverythingIsRacist High-yellow]] [[OutsideInsideSlur wanna-be WHITE]]'?!"

* Addressed in ''Film/AWrinkleInTime2018'' where the Murrys are a mixed race family. Meg is shown to be insecure about her hair, and the IT shows her an ideal version of herself - who notably has long straight hair. The supporting cast also features Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, Andre Holland and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (as Meg's mother).

* Nicole from ''Literature/BeautyQueens'' is quite black. She states how difficult it is for her to manage her hair. However, her mother bought her skin bleaching cream to make her appear more white.
* ''Literature/TheBluestEye'' is a novel that examines the relationship between beauty and race. The protagonist is a dark-skinned black girl who notices how light-skinned black girls are given more respect than she. Eventually she gets it into her head that if she only had blue eyes then people would stop treating her so horribly.
* Played straight - historically straight - in Creator/BarbaraHambly's ''Literature/BenjaminJanuary'' novels, a series of historical mysteries set in New Orleans in the 1830s, a place and time where it mattered a ''great'' deal what shade a person of color was.

* DeconstructedTrope in ''Literature/TheCrocodileGod'': The titular god Haik is an emphatically dark-skinned Filipino, being a precolonial Tagalog deity. In modern times, he's often mistaken for Polynesian due to his skin-tone combined with his [[TattooAsCharacterType cultural tattoos,]] and immediately pegged as an ''indio'' [[note]]a term for the indigenous Filipino tribesmen[[/note]] once he corrects people. Unfortunately, that also means when he's revealed to be [[TheIllegal an illegal immigrant,]] [[{{Profiling}} the ICE department starts hunting him down the minute they can't find his records.]] The Filipino-American Mirasol (who's been having a ReincarnationRomance with him) is also olive-skinned, and her Latina friend Imelda points out to a white neighbor that they're either going to jail her for "helping a criminal" or even deport her as well, because even ''she's'' too dark and ethnic-looking to be seen as properly "American".

* In ''Literature/FevreDream'', a man who procures beautiful slave women for vampires to feed on talks about his taste for quadroon and octoroon girls. Period-appropriate racism is expressed by various characters in the book.

* ''Literature/TheLoveAndLiesOfRukhsanaAli'': Rukhsana is chided by an older Indian woman for going out in the sun more often than is fashionable, so that her skin's darker. It appears to be a common prejudice in Bengali culture, from what's said.
* In Aphra Behn's ''Literature/{{Oroonoko}}'', the titular character, an African prince, is explicitly described as having European facial features and having "a perfect ebony" complexion as opposed to "that brown rusty black which most of that nation are" and the description she gives makes him seem less like a real person and more like a statue carved out of black stone. The fits with the overall theme of the novel, which does not condemn slavery so much as say that Oroonoko should not be a slave because he is royalty and different than the other citizens of his country, who are fair game.
* ''[[Literature/OutliersTheStoryOfSuccess Outliers: The Story of Success]]'' is a book by Malcolm Gladwell that looks into how systems and cultures can accidentally create bias where none might otherwise exist, predisposing some people to succeed and others to fail. The most dramatic example is in the Canadian Youth Hockey League (in Canada, hockey is SeriousBusiness and begins at an early age), where the majority of players are born in the early months of the year. This is because each league is age based and the cut-off date is January 1st. Children born earlier in the year are older, larger, and better coordinated than children born later in the year and as they progress, continual sifting and selection gives them better coaching and more practice such that by the time they're 17, when the accident of birth no longer matters in terms of native talent, the cumulative effect of all that extra work has made them into elite players. The theme of accidental success is personal for Gladwell. Generations earlier, one of his African ancestors was purchased to be a concubine in Jamaica, thus granting all her descendants extra whiteness. Jamaican racism, as described by Gladwell, differentiates with acuity based on the skin color, and he credits much of his own success to the easier successes of each generation of his family. His mother grew up relatively affluent, which allowed her to get a better education, eventually studying in London before moving to Canada.
* In ''Literature/TheSchoolForGoodMothers'' Friday is facing a hearing to regain her daughter's custody. Since she is Asian instead of Black or Latina, and Chinese instead of Vietnamese or Cambodian, she anticipates she will be perceived as close enough to being white to get the leniency white mothers seem to get. Instead the judge rules that she must attend the school and pass if she wants to regain custody. It is not known if her race worked against her or if it was a factor at all.

* ''Series/ThirteenReasonsWhy'': Jessica's actress Alisha Boe is mixed race, so she's shown to have a mixed family too. Season 2 even has an episode where Jessica straightens her hair for her court appearance, and there's an uncomfortable moment where she comments that her mother (who is the white parent) likes it straight. It's no coincidence that this is the same episode where she compares herself to the white Hannah - who she claims [[GoodVictimsBadVictims makes a better victim than her]].

* Rainbow from ''Series/BlackIsh'', played by mixed-race Tracee Ellis Ross, has a RunningGag about this.
-->"If I'm not black, could someone tell my hair and my ass?"

* ''Series/ColdCase'':
** An episode cast a dark complexioned actress as the victim and used lighting techniques to make her appear light-skinned, which didn't become relevant until near the end when [[spoiler:her white lover tried to convince her to pass for white so they could be out in the open with each-other]].
** In two other episodes both a suspect and victim respectively were African American but so light skinned that they were believed to be white.
* Satirized in ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'', in which Wanda wants Larry to get her script looked at by his colleague and explains how to "play the race card", telling him to emphasize that she's "one of those light-colored black folks".
* ''Series/DearWhitePeople'': The narrator (Creator/GiancarloEsposito) states that he was selected for the role due to his being ethnic enough while still being nonthreatening. Coco also complains of being thought poorly about by many black guys due to having dark skin, and claims Sam has "light skinned privilege" because she's mixed race. Sam retorts that no one calls Coco "half breed" or "Zebra". Joelle also deals with being seen as the RomanticRunnerUp in her LoveTriangle with Sam and Reggie, because of being darker-skinned than her.
* Very much intentional when it came to the casting of Creator/AnneRice's ''Series/FeastOfAllSaints''. Because well, it was basically about fair skinned Creole folks during pre-Civil War America in New Orleans. A dazzling yet damned class caught between the world of white privilege and black oppression.

* On a French talk show, model Noemie Lenoir & and fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld argue about this trope and how it applies to the modeling/high fashion world....They disagree. Karl said that there is no racism in fashion. Noemie said the contrary. Then Karl said she's the proof there's no racism because she's famous. Noemie points out that light-complexioned and or biracial black models are the new trend.

* ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'': The biracial Lynn. An early episode reveals that she was very culturally White growing up (justified since she was adopted by a white family), and her interest in exploring black culture is very recent. This is later [[CallBack revisited]] in Season 2 when her white adopted sister Tanya, who ''thinks'' she's [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy pretty fly for a white girl]], takes her act a bit too far and ends up [[NWordPrivileges saying the N-word]] in a salon full of black customers (including other main girlfriend [[SassyBlackWoman Maya]], who had up until that point been the only girlfriend who didn't mind Tanya's antics), leading to this confrontation:
---> '''Tanya:''' Ain't this a trip? Suddenly ''you're'' the authority on what's "black?" Two years ago, you were a biracial grunge girl, and before that, you were just some pretty white girl!\\
'''Lynn:''' That doesn't matter. Because when you use that word, only '''ONE''' of us gets hurt! And there is pain behind it that ''you will never know.''
** In Season 8, Lynn hits another racial brick wall after the manager at her record label explicitly tells her that the higher-ups don't know how to market her music (primarily indie rock) because she neither looks nor sounds "black enough."

* A major bit of the crossover between ''Series/HowToGetAwayWithMurder'' and ''Series/{{Scandal}}'' has Annaliese Keating slamming Olivia Pope on the latter being lighter-skinned and thus "getting more of a pass" by society than the darker-skinned Annaliese.
* ''Radio/TheHowardSternShow'': Parodied on an episode of the syndicated TV show from the early-1990's. The segment was called "Black Folk With White Features" and was hosted by Stern dressed in Malcolm X gear, giving his name as 'Howard Washington Stern' and claiming that he and Robin Quivers were brother and sister, the idea being that he was a light-skinned black man instead of white.

* ''Series/TheLWord'': Creator/JenniferBeals plays [[ActorSharedBackground a biracial woman like herself]]. 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.
* The ''Series/LawAndOrder'' episode "Blood" revolves around a black man who tries to pass himself off as white.

** At the end of the episode, the family stand up to some racists at an ice cream shop and leave in triumph. Elena proudly talks of how she's with them...and a black girl at a table says "Wow, Anne Hathaway just stood up for those Mexicans!"
* Covered on ''Series/ThePhilDonahueShow'' - talking to light skinned black people 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.

* Music/{{Eminem}} has said both onstage and off that he believes his success is in part to do with being white, declaring on his song "White America":
-->''Look at these eyes, baby blue, baby just like yourself\\
If they were brown Shady'd lose, Shady sits on the shelf\\
Let's do the math: if I was black, I would've sold half''

* Alternative hip-hop group Music/TheJungleBrothers covers this trope in a song called "Black Is Black".
* Afrobeat musician Music/FelaKuti tackled this topic in his 1976 song "Yellow Fever". It was a common view in Africa that lighter skin was more beautiful, and many women became physically ill from using unsafe skin-lightening creams. Fela criticized that view as a holdover from colonialism, and pointed out that those lightening creams just made you look sick anyway.

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* The comedy film podcast ''Podcast/BlackMenCantJumpInHollywood'' frequently critiques this practice in the American film industry.
[[/folder]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/SouthPark https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/photoshop_nichole_6.png]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Music/{{Beyonce}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loreal_640.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Not even Beyoncé is exempt from this trope.]]

** Paula is a light-skinned black woman, which is implied to be why the (all white) Mossbachers - who claim to be progressive but are actually very shallow and covertly racist - feel comfortable with her, and Olivia holds her up as her TokenBlackFriend.

** Discussed by Harper (who is played by Creator/AubreyPlaza, a light-skinned Puerto Rican woman). She says that she and her husband, Ethan (who's half-Japanese) are "exotic" enough to make their white friends Ethan and Daphne feel progressive, but not dark enough to threaten any of their existing biases.

* ''Series/TheWomanInTheHouseAcrossTheStreetFromTheGirlInTheWindow'' parodies the prevalence of this trope, as both Anna and Neil, the protagonists, have light-skinned, mixed-race daughters. Their spouses, who are people of color (but both are still relatively light-skinned), don't feature in the plot as much (and, in Tom's case, his wife is dead), while Anna and Neil are white.

* 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.

* Rainbow from ''Series/{{Blackish}}'', played by mixed-race Tracee Ellis Ross, has a RunningGag about this.

* Covered on ''Series/ThePhilDonahueShow'' - talking to light skinned black people 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.

* Covered on ''Series/ThePhilDonahueShow - talking to light skinned black people 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.

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[[quoteright:350:[[Music/{{Beyonce}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loreal_640.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Not even Beyoncé is exempt from this trope.]]

->''"They said, 'If you was white, you'd be alright\\
If you was brown, stick around\\
But as you is black, oh brother,\\
Get back, get back, get back'"''
-->-- '''Big Bill Broonzy''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0c1c0ZsTLA "Black, Brown, and White"]] (1947)

After a long struggle in gaining visibility and acceptance in the entertainment world, ethnically-African American actors and actresses have many more opportunities in Hollywood and on television than they ever had before. Some have become huge stars in their own right. Unfortunately, as these new opportunities grew, a new dark side of 'racial' bias emerged.

Or should we say: "a new ''[[{{Pun}} light]]'' side."

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.

In a word, this phenomenon has been called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_based_on_skin_color "colourism."]] Colourism can also come down to a latent class bias: worldwide, lighter skin (relative to one's own people) has typically been associated with wealth and lounging around indoors, and darker with poverty and working in the fields.[[note]]Yes, including societies that didn't have protectorates established over them by and/or had little contact with The European Powers, such as The Empire Of The Qing, and societies prior to Europe even being much of a thing; the Song of Solomon contains a plea not to despise the speaker for being dark due to having to work in the fields.[[/note]] Not until the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII post-war]] period did the trends start to reverse; the only country not devastated by The War, the USA, led a new trend which saw those with wealth being able to afford extended vacations or holidays, [[ButNotTooWhite and the sun-induced tans that came with them]], while the reduced number of people employed in agriculture meant that poor people were more likely to spend their workdays indoors in factories (or later call centres and offices) instead of out in the fields.

Skin colour is only the most obvious manifestation of the underlying theme of casting people on the basis of something other than their acting style and/or ability. For example, an Asian actor might be asked to cover his eyes or a black actress asked to straighten her hair. Colourism is a subset of "degreeism" in which members of a marginalized group rank themselves based on how closely they resemble the dominant group.

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.

Also see ButNotTooForeign, MixedAncestryIsAttractive, and AmbiguouslyBrown. Contrast with ButNotTooWhite (though it's not the trope's total opposite) and HalfBreedDiscrimination.

Compare TheWhitestBlackGuy for when black characters are said to be 'acting white' as opposed to 'looking white.' Not to be confused with LightIsNotGood or PassFail, though it can be somewhat related to the latter insofar as the casting choice is concerned.

Not related to the sitcom ''Series/BlackIsh'', though the show does deal with this trope as a running theme.

* Creator/JenniferBeals plays a biracial woman like her 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.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' is an interesting example. In almost every season, the show has had one Black person as a Ranger, ranging from the dark-skinned [[Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue Joel]] and [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Zack]] to the medium-toned [[Series/PowerRangersSPD Jack]] to the very light skinned [[Series/PowerRangersSamurai Kevin]], and many shades in between. What's a bit unfortunate, however, is how Kevin, the most recent one, is not only fairly light skinned but also seen by many as an {{Uncle Tom|foolery}}. [[Characters/AmericasNextTopModelCycleThirteen Sundai Love]], an actress trying out for ''Series/PowerRangersMegaforce'' [[http://racebending.tumblr.com/post/27466085749/an-actress-on-twitter-writes-i-didnt says she was told that they couldn't cast her in the show]], since they [[TokenMinority already cast a black actor]]. And the black actor chosen (John Mark Loudermilk) is very light-skinned at that.
* Rainbow from ''Series/{{Blackish}}'', played by mixed-race Tracee Ellis Ross, has a RunningGag about this.
-->"If I'm not black, could someone tell my hair and my ass?"
* Bonnie Bennett from ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' is of African-American descent but she is relatively light-complexioned and she could be seen as more of a light skinned African-American. Her Grams also appears to be very light skinned as well as her mother Abby so this could be a genetic thing or it could be a possibility that Sheila was biracial and had a white parent although this has not been proven or confirmed. The reason for Bonnie being light skinned and appearing rather white in terms of her physical features is because Bonnie's portrayer Creator/KatGraham is actually biracial and is half black, half white (her mother is White Jewish of Polish and Russian descent and her father is Black of Liberian descent). Katerina is only slightly darker than white and olive skinned Creator/NinaDobrev (who is of Bulgarian descent) and Katerina also has hazel-green eyes and predominantly slight, narrow and white facial features.
** It's worth noting the Sheila "Grams" Bennett, Bonnie's grandmother, is portrayed by Creator/JasmineGuy, who is maternally of half Caucasian (specifically Portuguese) descent.
%% * ''Series/AmericasNextTopModel'' has been accused.
* Covered on the old Donahue daytime talk show - talking to light skinned black people 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.
* Creator/TyraBanks had a few episodes about this subject on her talk show, with one mixed black man (who was not terribly light-skinned himself) saying that he thought all dark-skinned men looked like cockroaches.
* On a French talk show, model Noemie Lenoir & and fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld argue about this trope and how it applies to the modeling/high fashion world....They disagree. Karl said that there is no racism in fashion. Noemie said the contrary. Then Karl said she's the proof there's no racism because she's famous. Noemie points out that light-complexioned and or biracial black models are the new trend.
* ''Series/KCUndercover'' star, model, and singer Creator/{{Zendaya}} has faced this issue a number of times with her being AmbiguouslyBrown and able to crossover. But she is unapologetic about embracing her black side and often speaks out about black women being stereotyped in the entertainment industry.
* ''Series/LawAndOrderUK'' inverts this when a dark-skinned suspect taunts the light-skinned DS Joe Hawkins, calling him a "mongrel". Joe's [[BerserkButton reaction]] indicates that this is a sore point for him and that this probably isn't the first time someone has made comments like this to him--his explanation to Ronnie makes it clear that colorism goes both ways.
* 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 "getting more of a pass" by society than the darker-skinned Annaliese.
* An episode of the Creator/{{Lifetime}} series ''Series/AnyDayNow'' had the dark-skinned Renee clashing with her light-skinned campaign manager (she was running for DA), feeling that every suggestion the woman made was an example of this trope. But during a huge argument, Renee was shocked when the woman accused ''her'' of colorism. It turns out that what Renee saw as standing up for herself and embracing her complexion, the other woman perceived as insulting her for being fair-skinned and of biracial heritage.
* ''Series/LukeCage2016'' received some criticism over the casting of Creator/SimoneMissick to play Misty Knight, given that she is lighter skinned than some of her male co-stars. Her skin is also slightly lighter than how Misty's is drawn in the comics. But since Simone Missick has been named by critics as the show's "standout performance", AbilityOverAppearance may have come into play.
* ''Series/Supergirl2015'' drew some criticism in its first season for featuring no women of color in the main cast, with only Tawny Cypress in a couple of episodes as Senator Miranda Crane, and Wrestling/EveTorres as Maxima. Season 2 introduced two - Maggie Sawyer (also [[TwoferTokenMinority a lesbian]]) and M'gann aka Miss Martian. Both however are still lighter skinned than Creator/MehcadBrooks (Jimmy Olsen) and Creator/DavidHarewood (Hank Henshaw). Given that M'gann is an alien disguised as a human, it is possible she {{invoked|Trope}} this trope. The fact that the actress who played Maggie Sawyer, Floriana Lima, is a white actress playing a Mexican-American character[[note]]Lima says she is of Italian, Portuguese and Spanish ancestry[[/note]] does not help.
* ''Series/DearWhitePeople'': Invoked by the narrator (Creator/GiancarloEsposito), who states that he was selected for the role due to his being ethnic enough while still being nonthreatening. Coco also complains of being thought poorly about by many black guys due to having dark skin, and claims Sam has "light skinned privilege" because she's mixed race. Sam retorts that no one calls Coco "half breed" or "Zebra". Joelle also deals with being seen as the RomanticRunnerUp in her LoveTriangle with Sam and Reggie, because of being darker-skinned than her.
* ''Series/ThirteenReasonsWhy'':
** The show justifies it when it comes to Jessica. Her actress Alisha Boe is mixed race, so she's shown to have a mixed family too. Season 2 even has an episode where Jessica straightens her hair for her court appearance, and there's an uncomfortable moment where she comments that her mother (who is the white parent) likes it straight. It's no coincidence that this is the same episode where she compares herself to the white Hannah - who she claims [[GoodVictimsBadVictims makes a better victim than her]].
** Sheri meanwhile is darker than Jessica and wears her hair curlier, while still serving as the love interest to the white Clay. She has switched to straight hair by Season 2, but the show introduces another black female in Nina, who wears hers curly.
* ''Series/OneDayAtATime2017'' focuses on a Cuban-American family with Penelope and son Alex dark-skinned while Penelope's mom, Lydia, speaks in a thick accent. In "The Turn," Alex reveals he's been bullied at school by racist classmates, complete with "Go back to Mexico" taunts. Penelope's daughter, Elena, talks of how she's been lucky to have never been subjected to this. It takes seeing the reactions of her mother and grandmother to realize the reason is that she can "pass" for a white person (her mom even compares her to a young Anne Hathaway). A proud activist, Elena is actually upset folks see her this way.
-->'''Elena:''' You're saying I can go through my whole life without being oppressed at all?
-->'''Penelope:''' Okay, you know that wouldn't be a bad thing, right?
-->'''Elena:''' ''[miffed]'' I guess...
** At the end of the episode, the family stand up to some racists at an ice cream shop and leave in triumph. Elena proudly talks of how she's with them...and a black girl at a table says "Wow, Anne Hathaway just stood up for those Mexicans!"
* ''Series/{{Grownish}}'' received some criticism for mostly having lighter-skinned women. Zoey is played by Yara Shahidi, who is half Iranian and half black (and in-universe has one mixed-race parent) and the other two black girls on the show are lighter-skinned as well.
* After Christel Khalil vacated her role as the ''Series/TheYoungAndTheRestless''' Lily Winters, she was recast with Davetta Sherwood. For reasons unknown, Sherwood was soon replaced with Khalil again. The notable difference in the actresses skin tones--Khalil is of Caucasian, Native American, African-American, and Pakistani heritage and thus considerably lighter than Sherwood--resulted in many viewers feeling that TPTB were displaying this.

* ''{{Series/Trinkets}}'': {{Discussed|Trope}} by Tabitha and Marquise, one of the only other Black students at school (with darker skin than hers). He notes she passes the "brown paper bag test" (i.e. her skin is lighter than that), and would have expected she wouldn't have been racially profiled while shopping, causing her to be falsely accused of shoplifting (her dad's white).

* ''Series/{{Twenties}}'': Hattie accuses Ida of having it easier than other black people because she's light-skinned, with a more conventional style white people accept. Ida retorts that she's still had to endure great hardship breaking through the glass ceiling however despite that.
* ''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 a biracial actress with a significantly lighter skin tone. (The character is shown to have two black parents.)
* ''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 exceptions to this are Nikki, a recurring character whose played by a biracial actress as well but darker skinned than the rest, and Curtis' [[GenderBender female]] [[SexShifter form]], who has dark skin like him.
* ''Series/ConversationsWithFriends'': Bobbi is the only person of color in the series, a very light-skinned expatriate African-American woman. She's played by biracial actress Creator/SashaLane.

* Probably a large part of the reason Music/{{Drake}} (who is actually biracial) is more successful than say, Frank Ocean. Keep in mind that his suburban middle class Canadian upbringing was also considered part of his appeal as a rapper as well.
* Naturi Naughton of the R&B girl group Music/ThreeLW was booted from the group for being too dark, though the other two members claim [[MultipleDemographicAppeal that was the reason they chose her to be in the group in the first place]]. That, in addition to Kiely Williams and Adrienne Bailon's involvement with ''Film/TheCheetahGirls'' (which had a Caucasian girl in the group) had serious collateral damage too, which caused huge {{Flame War}}s [[BrokenBase and utterly decimated their fan base]], [[FanDisillusionment especially their urban fans]]. It also caused burned bridges with rap group Music/BoneThugsNHarmony as they featured 3LW on their first single off of their ''Thug World Order'' album. The single was released, but the break up of the group put the music video up in the air, which kind of rubbed Bone the wrong way as the single was doing very well. It also didn't help that the group was actually forced on Bone by ExecutiveMeddling in the first place.
* Music/AliciaKeys was accused of benefiting from this once she received more Grammy wins over her much darker complexioned peer Music/IndiaArie at The 44th Grammy Awards, especially since India had 7 nominations and [[AwardSnub won none]].
** Consider both Musician-Singer-Songwriters have put out six albums:
*** India Arie: 10 million worldwide and 4 Grammys.
*** Mixed-race (White mother, Black father) Alicia Keys: 65 million worldwide and 15 Grammys.
* Tommy Mottola wanted mixed-race Music/MariahCarey to be very vague about her background earlier in her career. Some believe she intentionally undermined this by appearing on the cover of Ebony Magazine's April 1994 issue.
* Similarly Music/WhitneyHouston while not "light skinned" was marketed in the beginning by only sending her to white A/C radio stations while avoiding Urban Radio stations to promote her debut album.
* Perri "Pebbles" Reid has also had album covers depicting her a lot lighter then what she actually was. This is especially jarring considering she was already fairly light complexioned.
* Alternative hip-hop group The Jungle Brothers covers this trope in a song called "Black Is Black".
* Mixed-race Music/LennyKravitz 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.

* Music/MichaelJackson's albums became a subversion of this starting with the ''Dangerous'' CD due to his music becoming more urban and less Pop/Rock oriented. Well [[BrokenBase in some fans opinion anyway]], particularly the ones who preferred the more R&B disco ''Off The Wall'' Album to his ''Thriller'', and ''Bad'' album.
** Notoriously, Jackson's actual appearance seemed to be playing this trope straight. His gradually paling skin from the mid-1980s onwards was the subject of much speculation that he was intentionally bleaching it, even though he was already hugely successful and didn't have to worry about this trope. He explained in a 1993 interview that he had the skin disorder vitiligo, which destroyed his skin pigmentation. Still, combined with his plastic surgeries, jokes may always be made about how he resembled a white woman (at best) in his later years: i.e. "Only in America can a poor black boy grow up to be a rich white woman." (You can do anything... [[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries IN AMERICA!]])
** Some people say MJ enforced this trope with his children, using a white sperm donor and a white surrogate because he didn't want black kids[[note]] To this day there is no serious evidence that he used a sperm donor; he himself denied it.[[/note]]
* Hip-hop mogul, [[Music/SeanCombs 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 ExecutiveMeddling her debut album didn't show her picture or let her appear in public.
* Music/CabCalloway may have been one of the first people this trope was applied to. His lighter skin made him easier to accept for whites at the time (this being the 1930's, back when performing in blackface was still okay). He also came from a middle-class background -- quite rare for blacks at the time -- and so was able to transcend the "ghetto" and "sharecropper" stereotypes applied to poorer blacks.
* Jelly Roll Morton was known to brag about his fair appearance and White ancestry and mocked other African-Americans for looking blacker than him. When interviewed about his past, he would emphasize his Cajun ancestors and gloss over his African ones.
* Music/{{Beyonce}} anyone?
** She not only has very light skin but has dyed her hair progressively lighter colors over the years (so that it's basically blonde now).
** This is highlighted in the music video for "Beautiful Liar" where Beyonce duets with Shakira. Throughout the duration of the video, it is often difficult to identify which singer is which. Seriously. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrOe2h9RtWI Check out the video on YouTube here]], you might start to doubt your powers of facial recognition.
** Beyonce [[http://web.archive.org/web/20110227092859/http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/fashion/beyonce-in-hot-water-over-latest-photo-shoot-blog-22-yahoo-lifestyles.html came under fire]] for an African-inspired photo shoot in which she wears dark makeup.
** Beyonce's skin has ranged for brown to light, depending on lighting/makeup/tanning. Naturally, she's "damn near white." That Beyoncé is also rumored to bleach her skin in real life only adds to the confusion.
* Besides the above mentioned Cab Calloway the UrExample for female artists was probably the The Ronettes, Especially Ronnie Spector.
* Music/NickiMinaj is a mild example, she is of Afro-and Indo- Trinidadian descent. Though some see this as unfortunate anyway due to hip-hop music showcasing light-skinned black females.
* Music/ThinLizzy have maintained a strong cult following, and their ''Live and Dangerous'' album is often mentioned as among the greatest, if not ''the'' greatest, live albums in rock history. However, they achieved only moderate success in their day, and singer Phil Lynott has been described as "too black for America". Keep in mind: whether or not this was the case, if the record label believed so, then they were not going to be receiving adequate promotion. And it could fairly be said that they ''did not'' receive adequate label support; they remained semi-obscure despite a series of consistent albums, and a sound that went on to influence later hugely-successful acts such as Music/DefLeppard and Music/IronMaiden. Same could be said about most black rock artists. As it was covered in the documentary, ''Electric Purgatory''.
* Some rappers have come under fire for praising light skinned black women while trashing dark skinned women. Rapper Yung Berg, who is barely fair skinned, made a statement on XFM radio that he doesn't like dark skinned women, going on calling them [[UnfortunateImplications "dark butts"]]. He then states in order for him to date a woman, they must pass a pool test. [[UnfortunateImplications The pool test is if a woman jumps in the pool and doesn't look better than she did before jumping in, meaning her hair is nappy, then it's "not a good look"]]. The day after he made an apology and stated that his mother is dark skinned.
** Music/LilWayne made a similar comment when he [[http://bossip.com/327464/does-lil-wayne-really-have-beef-with-brown-skinned-women12006/ encountered a dark-skinned black female fan]]. After another rapper, Gudda Gudda, commented that she was attractive [[BackhandedCompliment for a dark girl]], Wayne agreed by quoting a lyric from his song "Right Above" (''Beautiful black woman, I bet that bitch look better [[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=redbone red]]''). The fan asked him how he could say something so disparaging when his oldest daughter shares his own brown skin tone, he allegedly replied "my daughter is a dark skinned [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney millionaire]]. That’s the difference between her and you."
* Music/{{Rihanna}} is light-skinned to begin with, but for a [[https://jezebel.com/rihanna-sure-looks-pale-on-her-new-vogue-cover-30811242 Vogue cover]], they still lightened up her skin.
* During the 70s and 80s, light-skinned black male artist were the most popular and presented to the public media in America, mainly because they had crossover appeal and were popular with both black and white females. Groups like Debarge and singers like Al-Be-Sure and Music/LionelRichie were the face of R&B music. Rappers like Music/LLCoolJ and Creator/WillSmith were the face of rap music. This changed during the 90s after gangster rap became popular for showing mostly dark-skinned black men in a strong, masculine, light regardless of the many negative factors of the music itself. It would help put dark-skinned black men on an equal playing field with light-skinned black men in the rap industry.
** Yet which rapper in the 90s stirred up the most controversy with his song "Cop Killer"? The very light skinned [[Music/IceT Ice-T]]. Although, it should be noted that the song was actually released by Ice-T's hardcore punk/metal side project Music/BodyCount Body, which is part of two genres that are generally known for being predominately white.
** Also Music/JamesBrown, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett were the face of R&B in the 60s. Musical content '''does''' contribute a great deal to popularity.
* Music/JCole on his song "Crooked Smile"
-->''"I asked if my skin pale, would I then sell like Music/{{Eminem}} or Music/{{Adele}}?"''
** Worth noting that Music/{{Eminem}} himself has said he believes his success is in part to do with being white, declaring on his song "White America":
--->''"Look at these eyes, baby blue, baby just like yourself/If they were brown Shady'd lose, Shady sits on the shelf"''
--->''"Let's do the math: if I was black, I would've sold half"''
** Despite being white, Eminem still had to alter his appearance at the start of his career to look as white as possible. Before he was famous, he had closely-buzzed near-black hair worn in moisturised waves and wore hip-hop clothing. When he broke out, he wore a platinum blond crop styled to emphasise his smooth hair texture, and a tshirt and jeans. Once he got famous, he started wearing more clearly hip-hop clothing, like do-rags, visors, basketball shirts and jewellery. In 2009 he marked his CareerResurrection by changing his hair to a dark edge-up buzzcut, at a time when he needed to remind people how much a part of hip-hop he was.
* Crossed with ButNotTooWhite, musically this was Music/{{Fishbone}}'s biggest problem early in their career, since black radio wasn't interested due to the PunkRock element, and white radio wasn't interested because they were a black band that didn't sound like anything else.

* Music/ElvisPresley was largely considered this, and was basically a 50's version of Eminem. Funnily enough ''Elvis himself'' was well aware of and hated this trope, and resented the fact that people preferred him over Music/FatsDomino (whom Elvis considered the true king of Rock 'n' Roll) just because he was white and Domino wasn't.
* Primitive Man addressed this on "Disfigured" (as frontman Ethan [=McCarthy=] is a very light-skinned mixed-race black man): if you're light-skinned enough and lack any obviously black features, you will enjoy white privilege, but at the cost of being an alien; you will be accepted by white people without really being one of them, and you will feel like a traitor to black people despite being the descendant of slaves because of that same white privilege that you enjoy solely because of a lucky spin on the genetic roulette.
* Rampant throughout Asia in general. Korean or Japanese pop stars westerners are familiar with are often ghostly pale compared to normal Koreans or Japanese (who are already some of the palest Asian populations). Take [[https://youtu.be/H_B5SsxaZEQ?t=71 this music video of a Mandarin song]]. The lead singers are noticeably paler than the backups, particularly the female singer, who also has unusually wide and round eyes and dyed brown hair to look more white.

[[folder:Music Videos]]
* Hip-hop stars have come under fire for having predominantly light-skinned black women or other oiled up [[AmbiguouslyBrown ethnically vague]] women of color (biracial, multiracial etc.), including Latina or even only white women in their videos. It could be argued that it's the casting director's fault, and not the fault of the artists themselves (and even then, casting directors can suggest other skin tones and ethnicities, but the director still has final say). This is also likely due to the fact that modeling agencies tend to favor ethnic women of a lighter shade, so they're more likely to be cast by default.
* Hip Hop videos tend to cast dark-skinned models in large groups as the background eye candy but any video focusing on a single girl playing the singer's main squeeze will almost invariably be played by a model of caramel skin or lighter.
* R&B videos have gotten the same type of criticism.

[[folder:Pinballs]]
* Done with Data East's ''Pinball/{{Star Trek|DataEast}}'' pinball, where the depictions of Lt. Uhura on the playfield show her as notably lighter than Nichelle Nichols, to the point of looking like she has a mild tan.

[[folder:Print Media]]
* Elle Magazine has been accused of [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100917033008/https://www.colorlines.com/archives/2010/09/gabourey_sidibe_on_the_cover_of_elle.html lightening the skin]] of actress Creator/GaboureySidibe.
* Time Magazine caught a lot of flak for artificially darkening Creator/OJSimpson's skin in the mugshot that ran on their cover. Back when you could actually get in trouble for "fauxtography", as opposed to it being par for the course.
* British Asian TV presenter Jameela Jamil has talked about magazines that have either lightened her skin or used photoshop to change her nose to look more Caucasian.

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* The comedy film podcast ''Podcast/BlackMenCantJumpInHollywood'' frequently critiques this practice in the American film industry.

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
* Mostly avoided in WWC, where Carlos Colon's light skinned, head shaving son Wrestling/{{Carl|ito Colon}}y openly referred to himself as black. Valet of the [[ForeignWrestlingHeel Dominican heel team]], Destiny, was also referred to as black by fans and reporters despite being light skinned and having long blonde hair. (Although it does bring to mind ''Music/DestinysChild'', whose lead singer was also a long haired light skinned black woman and valeting next to Wrestling/BlackRose ''may'' have helped. Also became more obvious when Carly [[AfroAsskicker grew a huge afro]]) Despite this though, you'll occasionally hear/read comments like "not black, Puerto Rican" in regards to members of WWC and IWA PR's rosters, as if the two are mutually exclusive.
* In what could have been a TakeThat to this trope, in 2003 the very dark Wrestling/TeddyLong developed the gimmick of an oppressed black man and starting a stable with black wrestlers and having them squash white jobbers in what he dubbed the "White Boy Challenge". The kicker? Most of the wrestlers he recruited were very light skinned such as [[Wrestling/DLoBrown D'Lo Brown]] and Rodney Mack. However he did also recruit the very dark [[Wrestling/CarleneMoore Jazz]] and Wrestling/MarkHenry. (Jazz and Rodney Mack are married in real life, so they were a package deal)
* [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] ran into this issue when he made a FaceHeelTurn for the very first time in his career. As part of said heel turn, The Rock joined a militant black pride group (Wrestling/TheNationOfDomination, loosely based on the Nation of Islam[[note]]emphasis on loosely. The original USWA NOD was mostly made up of white men. Trust WWF to ruin the joke.[[/note]]) and as soon as he became a bad guy, his skin color suddenly [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/Da_Nation.jpg darkened considerably]] from its [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/The_Rock_Axxess_2002.jpg normal shade]]. In one of his memoirs about his wrestling career, The Rock wrote about being well aware of and uncomfortable with some of the underlying racial implications, and so went out of his way in all his promos to have his character make both the heel turn and joining the Nation be more about [[XPacHeat fan disrespect]] instead of about race/color.
* Noted [[http://web.archive.org/web/20151011043527/http://www.lethalwow.com/2015/09/13/bobby-between-the-ropes-the-wwe-divas-and-the-uncomfortable-subject-of-race/ here]] where it's said how, although African-American Divas have been Women's Champion, none of them were pushed significantly if at all. And although Wrestling/SashaBanks (who is mixed black and Hispanic) eventually netted a push, it took her ''two years'' to finally get one - in contrast to other Divas who got them rather quickly. Likewise any Latina Divas who are lighter skinned, have historically downplayed their ethnic backgrounds in favour of being either Anglo or AmbiguouslyBrown. Things became even more questionable after the article was published when Wrestling/SashaBanks did become Women's Champion - only to drop the title twice back to Charlotte after short-lived reigns. Things got worse when her feud with Charlotte ended, and she won the title from Wrestling/AlexaBliss...only to drop it back almost immediately afterwards.
* In addition to the points outlined in the article above {{Wrestling/Layla}} always wore her curly hair straight as soon as she started getting proper pushes. Her first title win was a co-champions deal with the white Wrestling/MichelleMcCool, and her second saw her getting barely featured. Wrestling/AliciaFox likewise held the Divas' title around the same time, also coincidentally switching her afro hairstyle out for a more Anglo set of curls. There were a few WWE.com photo shoots that appeared to have lightened her skin in TheNewTens as well.
* Greek Divas Wrestling/TrishStratus and Wrestling/MariaKanellis notably downplayed their roots while in WWE. Trish's real name is Stratigeas and she's naturally brunette - but her modelling days saw her going for the more neutral name Stratus, bleaching her hair blonde and adopting a bronze tan. Notably once Trish achieved some prominence in the women's division, the bronze tan was lessened, and her Greek heritage was acknowledged in a promotional DVD. Maria too had blonde hair early in her career and later became redhead. She never used her last name during her first WWE run, but is now using it (with real-life husband Mike Bennett taking his wife's surname in storyline) as of her 2017 return.
* WWE's Arab performer {{Wrestling/Aliyah}} initially looked as if she were going to play up her heritage - with a BellyDancer inspired gimmick. She ended up dropping the gimmick after only two appearances, and her heritage has not been referenced on screen yet. While her ring name 'Aliyah' is Arabic in origin, it's associated with the black R&B singer and has been used in Latina and Jewish circles too - making her come across as AmbiguouslyBrown (she's even been mistaken for a tanned white girl). In 2018 she was even accused of having cosmetic surgery to look less ethnic.
* Wrestling/EveTorres suspiciously had her last name dropped around the time she got pushed for the title, and her Latina background was never acknowledged on TV.
* {{Wrestling/Naomi}} was suspiciously kept out of the title picture for years despite her popularity with fans and catching onto wrestling very quickly. She had the poor luck in 2014 to get an eye injury while in the middle of a title push - and she was shunted aside in favour of calling up {{Wrestling/Paige}} from NXT (and it quickly became clear the writers had no idea what to do with Paige either). Next year Naomi got her push - by being turned heel in a move that nobody (including the lady herself) thought was a good idea. It was finally averted in 2016 where she was turned back face and pushed as the top woman of the Smackdown women's division. She held the Smackdown Women's Championship twice. She later revealed that she experienced colorism when she was first signed; in FCW, she performed with her natural hair in braids but had to put in a straight weave when she was called up to TV. She didn't wrestle with her natural hair until 2020, and admitted that she was terrified to finally do so.

[[folder:Sports]]
* Ice hockey goaltender Grant Fuhr played 19 seasons in the NHL, helped the Edmonton Oilers win five Stanley Cups, and was regarded by no less than UsefulNotes/WayneGretzky as the greatest goalie in hockey history. Only when be was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame did many fans realize that Fuhr is half black, and notably, the first black person inducted to the [=HHoF=]. Being raised in Alberta by white Canadians and spending his entire career in the older-style goalie mask may have had something to do with that.

[[folder:Theatre]]
* In ''Theatre/TheIcemanCometh'', Joe Mott, a former owner of a casino that catered to a black clientelle, is described as having only "slightly negroid features"
* Played with in ''Theatre/PassingStrange'': [[BlackAndNerdy The Youth]]'s high school infatuation Edwina wants him to "get some soul" and blacken up a bit, but, as she notes, not so much that he'll "become unhirable". The casting of the show itself naturally disregards this trope completely.
* A stage direction in ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'' refers to the Prince of Morocco as a "tawny moor", as opposed to a "black" moor. Justified in that the Moors and most other North Africans were Arabs or Berbers rather than black.
* ''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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* 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}}'' [[https://barbie.fandom.com/wiki/So_In_Style 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.
* The ''Literature/{{American Girl|sCollection}}'' dolls have a similar problem to Barbies, but with hair. While the black dolls arguably have black facial features and do usually have thicker hair than the white dolls, their hair is still not as thick as that of most black people in RealLife.
* In the Franchise/DisneyPrincess Merchandise, Jasmine from ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'', while not black, seems to have widely varying skintone. Sometimes she'll be the same tone as she was in the movie, but a lot of merchandise features her with much lighter skin. In at least one of the children's books, she was almost as light as the white princesses! The Japanese official art is even worse at lightening her skin than the American ones. A similar non-black example occurred with WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}} in the 2013 relaunch of the Disney Princess franchise, which included more "stylized", "fashionable" redesigns for the characters. In addition to her skin being lightened until she was literally whiter than WesternAnimation/{{Snow White|AndTheSevenDwarfs}}, her face was altered to have more of an Anglo look and her eyes were made blue. Due to backlash, the skin tone and eyes, at least, were corrected to something closer to the movie.
* As a collaboration with ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'', Creator/{{Sanrio}} released a line of special merchandise that featured Sanrio characters in the world of Splatoon and vice versa. This line includes [[https://twitter.com/sanrio_news/status/1092618836933636097 plushies]] of [[SaltAndPepper Pearl and Marina]], two characters from the game. However, though Marina has a very dark skin tone in-game, her Sanrio plushie is incredibly pale, to the point where she looks Caucasian. This, naturally, caused a lot of backlash.
* Sashabella from ''Toys/{{Bratzillaz}}'' is supposed to be black like her cousin Sasha from the main ''Toys/{{Bratz}}'' series. In the web-cartoon her skin is lightened, making her looking AmbiguouslyBrown.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* This is a common problem in many games with a "Create A Character" mode. In many cases, the option to play a really dark-skinned character doesn't even exist. This is especially jarring in games which allow you to play a "Dark ''Elf''" which is black in the most literal sense, but do not allow you to make a dark-skinned ''human.'' Sometimes, even when there are options to darken the skin, there are still no facial features or hairstyles to match. So what's left is either AmbiguouslyBrown or the "white person in blackface" effect. Fortunately, there are exceptions.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}:'' [[invoked]] In game, [[http://archive.is/SCqW3 Steve]] has [[AmbiguouslyBrown tawny brown skin]] that is much darker than [[http://archive.is/jqUaJ Alex's]], but his ethnicity is not revealed. Confusingly, Minecraft's official [[TheMerch promotional merchandise]] tends to portray him [[http://archive.is/Iytwd a fair bit lighter than he appears in-game]], to the point that he could be a Caucasian with a tan.
* The darkest gnome skin in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' could barely pass for Hispanic. Black humans, dwarves, and even orcs are creatable, though.
* 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 necessarily 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''. Later installments fixed this by giving brightness and saturation individual adjustment bars.
** Additionally, while Zasalamel is from an undetermined homeland, most clues put his origin as being in what is now ''Iraq'', and his home stage is in ''Poland''. As of the first six games in the series, he is also the only human character not to hail from Western Europe or Eastern Asia.
* ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' is a very bad offender. Whenever you try to make a dark-skinned Redguard, they turn out with ugly green splotches that should NOT be there. Makes you wonder if the people at Bethesda have never seen a real dark-skinned black person before. The fact that Redguards share a skin texture file with the other human races does not help.
* In the futuristic racing ''VideoGame/FZero'' series (specifically ''F-Zero GX'') introduces the series first playable black female character in [[https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Kate_Alen?file=KateAlen.jpg Kate Alen]], a tall and beautiful female who is unambigiously black and is an aversion of this trope. This doesn't last long as her next appearances in games and in the anime make her not only half a shade shy of white, but also erase her black facial features, [[https://fzero-facts.fandom.com/wiki/Kate_Alen_(Anime)?file=KateAnime.png turning her into a generic anime girl colored tan]].
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' are just as bad as Oblivion about this. "Black" characters often end up looking like dark-skinned white people.
* ''Franchise/StreetFighter'':
** Elena from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' has a caramel-colored sprite, which is especially ridiculous when you remember she's from Kenya. She also lacks any African features and has blue eyes and straight white hair. Though in ''3rd Strike'' her official character art did get changed to a more realistic dark brown color.
** 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 due 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.
** Kimberly from ''VideoGame/StreetFighter6'', the series' first Black American female fighter, averts this. This is mostly likely due to Capcom reaching out to [[https://www.thegamer.com/street-fighter-6-kimberly-black-consultants/ Black consultants for help in creating her]]].
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/TheSuffering''. If not for the photo he carries of his family (In which, for some reason, he's quite a bit darker) there'd be no way to tell if he was actually black. It came across like the studio got cold feet when making the character. Made worse in the sequel, where they lightened him up to look like a tanned white man.
* Sheva from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'':
** [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] described her as looking like "a white woman who's been dipped in tea." She also doesn't sound very African, using some sort of meandering British/Australian accent. She was motion captured and modeled after an Australian actress [[http://www.michellevanderwater.com/ Michelle Jade Van Der Water]], who is on the lighter side...though it does cater to the trope in that every other African is darker in the game and she happens to have green eyes.
** There is also the controversy after rumors that Sheva was only made black at all to combat the accusations of racism the game was receiving for having dark-skinned African villagers as the "monsters" of the game, so some people saw Sheva's light color as being an insufficient compromise and example of this trope (dark skinned Africans = crazy diseased zombies, light skinned African = female lead).
** Sheva has always been a character in the development of the game, but her role changed after the allegations. However, Sheva's appearance is really jarring when compared to Josh, who averts the trope.
* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', if the player weren't shown Alyx Vance's father (who is an example of this trope himself), boards would probably be awash with debate around whether she was supposed to just have a tan or was multi-ethnic- which is because she's half-black, half-Asian. As a result, she's left off many lists of notable badass video game women of color. And the only way we know she's supposed to be half-Asian inside the game is a picture of her with both of her parents from before the Black Mesa Incident.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series:
** Crying Wolf is African, but looks more like a Japanese woman with a tan- Her look is based on model [[https://www.model-management.de/overview/lad/mieko-rye-778 Mieko Rye]] who is light-skinned (and apparently mixed with other ethnicity) herself.
** Fortune from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' is African-American, and her in-game model is brown-skinned, but the official art for the character tells a different story, as [[http://media.photobucket.com/image/fortune%20metal%20gear/Nathaneal_2006/mgs2/chara_fortune.gif she is very fair-skinned]]. She and her father are both blond (with blond eyebrows) and with blue eyes. The comic adaptation adds to this, as the colour/lighting of the comic is essentially "white with very dark and bold colours as the shadows", which has the unfortunate effect of making her look white in a majority of pages. The only pages in which she looks like her game counterpart are her introductory page (in which the lighting is mostly red and brown) and a watercolour image of her a few pages later (that still manages to be paler than she is in-game).
** Naomi Hunter's ambiguous ethnicity is actually what led her to study genetics in the first place, as she wanted to find out about her roots. Although never definitively confirmed, in a Codec conversation she states that she believes her skin tone is from the Indian laborers from her native Zanzibar and even her Japanese bio describes Hunter as a "brown-skinned beauty". She didn't receive an in-game model until the ''VR Missions''/''Integral'', yet she looks almost indistinguishable from a white woman there. Naomi received a completely updated look in ''[=MGS4=]'', but at best she still looks quite light skinned with a bit of a tan.
* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' ran into this a couple of times, particularly with the Edenian natives as Edenia draws on several cultural influences, particularly Asia and the Middle East leading to ambiguous aethnic characters:
** Introduced in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'', Edenian native Jade has [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:0047.png always]] [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jade_versus2.png had]] [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jade.jpg brown]] [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jade_And_Baraka.jpg skin]] along with [[AmbiguouslyBrown enough speculation on her actual race]] up until ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. For whatever reason, Jade is [[http://www.fightersgeneration.com/np7/char/jade-mk9render.jpg barely]] [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jademk9render.png tan]] in the official art and renders despite keeping her brown skin for her gameplay model. The mobile version of ''Mortal Kombat X'' has Jade at a tan skin tone instead of her usual brown skin tone. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'', she's back to her browner skin tone, though her facial features still make her of ambiguous ethnicity.
** The trend almost continued in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'' with Tanya, who had brown skin in her [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:MK4-12_Tanya.png previous]] [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tanyacopy5wz.png appearances]] in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat4'' and ''Videogame/MortalKombatDeception''. In ''Mortal Kombat X'', [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tanya_MKX_Render.png her skin is lightened to an olive tint]], with her overall look being AncientEgypt inspired. Tanya's fans were not happy at all, so her model was changed back to the [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/File:Mortal_kombat_x_ios_tanya_render_4_by_wyruzzah-da29qwl.png brown skintone and black facial features]].
** Jax's daughter, Jacqui, suffered from this when she debuted in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX''. Not only did she looked too similar to the Caucasian Cassie Cage, Jacqui shared almost no physical similarities to her father, with only her cornrows arguably being the only thing Black about her. Come ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'', Jacqui had a complete overhaul, looking much more like Jax (''including'' skin tone), and having more diverse hairstyles that Black women actually wear.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Subverted in ''VideoGame/PokemonBattleRevolution'', of all things. The Japanese version had everyone light skinned, and the Western ones added tanned and black versions of all the various trainers. It was implemented a bit awkwardly, but it's there.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' unfortunately have this. While you have [[VirtualPaperDoll a good number of customization options for you character]], the darkest you can have your skin be is light brown. (''May'' be justified, since the player's mother looks the same no matter what, implying it could be due to them being biracial.)
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' added a dark brown skin tone option. In terms of hair options, the protagonist still only has straight hair (though you can get a braided cornrow hairstyle), but this is most likely due to NoFlowInCGI. The game, which is set on a Hawaii counterpart, has [=NPCs=] of various skin tones.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', there were many white, Asians, Hispanics, and AmbiguouslyBrown characters, but no black people or people of African descent until Jacob in the second game. Character creation is mixed on this. There ''are'' broad noses and full lips to select, but no appropriate hairstyles, at least for black men. The best attempts at creating a black male Shepard will still look off when standing next to Jacob, whose features are unique.
* ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' does this to Zack and Lisa in the fifth installment. Compare how they looked in [[http://www.fightersgeneration.com/np7/char/doa-dimensions/3/lisa-doap.jpg previous]] [[http://www.fightersgeneration.com/np7/char/doa-dimensions/c/zack-doad-render.jpg games]] to how they [[http://nerdreactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/DOA5-Lisa_fin.jpg look]] [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/deadoralive/images/e/ec/C_088_23.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160719115542 now]]. Interestingly enough, due to ''DOA 5'''s more realistic aesthetic for the fighters, Lisa has a broader nose and fuller lips, making her actually look like a black woman instead of a [[{{Mukokuseki}} generic anime babe painted brown.]]
* Similarly, ''VideoGame/VirtuaFighter'' has Vanessa, a dark skinned Vale Tudo fighter with long straight white hair. In her debut, her skin tone was very dark, even darker than the resident ScaryBlackMan Jeffry. Fans loved her, but a small minority found her to be something of Scary Black Woman thanks to Vanessa also being very buff and having a tough, tomboy attitude and gruff voice. In the next game after, Vanessa's skin tone was made much lighter, on top of losing muscle mass and her voice becoming more feminine. Thankfully, customization options in the last update allowed fans of her original look to make her skin dark again.
* An odd example from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': in the promotional materials for the game, Isabela had a far lighter skin tone than she actually has in-game. Unfortunately, this has persisted in comic covers and art books even after release. The character creation also makes it hard for you to create a person of East African descent. You can make their skin dark brown, but there are no facial features or hair to complete the package.
* ''VideoGame/DontStarve'' offers some odd examples as well, perhaps due to its Tim Burton influence. In more [[ArtEvolution recent years]] this has been less prominent. The game's first two characters of color, Walani and Warly, are significantly washed out both in-game and in some older promotional art despite being Hawaiian and Black respectively. Warly, after being added into its sequel game had noticeably darker hair and skin in all promotional art, although his in-game skintone stayed the same.
* A variation of this occurred with [[WarriorPrincess Farah]] from the ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia'' series, though in her case it's "But Not Too ''Brown''". In ''[[VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime The Sands Of Time]]'', Farah debuts with a nice dark skin tone befitting an Indian princess. In ''[[VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones The Two Thrones]]'', her skin is visibly lighter. In addition to this, whereas Farah's first game had her voiced with the hybrid accent of an Indian person educated by British English speakers, ''Two Thrones'' had her voiced with a generic American accent, so it comes across as making Farah ButNotTooForeign as well as ''But Not Too Brown''. The upcoming ''Sands Of Time'' remake seems set to avert this, depicting Farah with her normal dark Indian skin yet again, and this time she has a pure Indian accent.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'': Christie Monteiro from ''Tekken 4'' is on the lighter side, though her skin tone has been consistently light brown since her debut. Her grandfather also appears to be Asian - though it's not confirmed if she's adopted.
* Clementine from ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'', to the point where she can be confused with every other ethnicity. A persistent rumor used to be that she's Asian, due to her being based on the daughter of the storyboard artist, Derek Sakai. Some people, especially in her season 3 version, thought she was Hispanic. Her skin is quite light and she lacks any traditionally black facial features. Her voice actress, Melissa Hutchison, is white. The official statement on her ethnicity is that she's African-American, but it's possible she has distant ancestors of different races.
* ''VideoGame/PathfinderKingmaker'':
** Your Garundi ([[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy African]]) party member Ekundayo is ''very'' dark-skinned, but his companion questline puts him into a LoveTriangle between local bartender [[https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Elina Elina]] as the {{Betty|AndVeronica}}, and his old friend [[https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Ntavi Ntavi]] as the [[BettyAndVeronica Veronica]]. Ntavi is stated to also be Garundi but is almost as light-skinned as European-looking Elina.
** The only other explicitly Garundi character in the game, Hellknight Linxia Benzekri, is a Characters/{{Pathfinder Iconic|s}} character who is [[https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Linxia depicted]] noticeably lighter-skinned than [[https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Linxia_Benzekri her canon counterpart]].
* ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous'': In the game, party member Sosiel Vaenic is depicted with roughly bronze skin, whereas in part 2 of the the original ''Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path'', he's clearly meant to be black (not to mention being clean-shaven in the game versus having a thin mustache in the book).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* PlayedForDrama in ''Webcomic/DumbingOfAge'': according to [[TroubledButCute Sal]], her twin brother [[BrilliantButLazy Walky]] received ParentalFavoritism because he "came out whiter," which Walky denies. (The pair have a white mother and mixed-race father.) There's no noticeable difference between their skin tones, at least at the time of the comic, but Sal has naturally kinky hair that she works very hard to straighten.
* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] a little bit with ''Webcomic/BloodyUrban'': [[CuteMonsterGirl Camille]] is of African decent but has blue skin and no features that would obviously read 'black'. However, since vampires in this universe lose their UndeathlyPallor after feeding on blood, she's occasionally shown with very dark skin.
* Inverted in ''Webcomic/EnnuiGo''. Tanya's skin was intially [[http://ennuigo.thecomicseries.com/comics/16 on the lighter side]] but became [[http://ennuigo.thecomicseries.com/comics/1446 progressively darker]] as the series progressed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Parodied by Website/TheBestPageInTheUniverse [[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=stock_photos here]].
-->'''Maddox:''' She should be dark enough to score that hip diversity dollar, but not so dark as to scare away that heartland racist dollar.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/user/taren916#p/u/3/EeEvwTxZpjY This Vlogger]] talks about how people automatically assume that you're DIRECTLY biracial if you're light-complexioned with curly hair. Not realizing that they could just be black.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'':
** This is often a concern of Jazmine Dubois, the mixed-race girl on ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'', particularly when the subject of her hair comes up (she hates her curly hair and wants straightened like her white mother). Meanwhile, Huey is often prone to accusing her of not being black enough, particularly in regards to her hair. Poor girl can't win. She could be Aaron's take on a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_mulatto Tragic Mulatto]]. Her mother is white and has blonde hair, which explains why Jazmine has lighter hair and skin than other characters.
** On at least one occasion Uncle Ruckus claimed the Freeman family are stuck up because of their relatively light skin. Ruckus himself in ''very'' dark-skinned, which is (probably intentionally) satiric considering he is [[BoomerangBigot racist against black people]]. He claims to have "re-vitiligo" that makes him get darker.
** 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’s 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-ed just for you''.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'':
** Blade is so light that it's difficult to tell he isn't white, well until you notice his other features.
** Blade's [[EvilMatriarch mom]] is clearly African-American too.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'', the character Lana (voiced by Aisha Tyler) is a light-skinned black woman. Archer calls her "black-ish." When she gets offended, he defends himself, saying she exploded when he called her a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadroon quadroon]]. Archer himself appears to have this preference as evidenced by his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbquDj3mkGc ringtone]]
* It appears every black character on ''WesternAnimation/{{Zevo3}}'' falls into this trope, they're all caramel-colored.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' lampshaded this with Condoleeza Rice when Stan tries to sober up a drunken George W. Bush:
-->'''Stan:''' Coffee! I'll get you some coffee! How do you take it?\\
'''Bush:''' Well, Stan, I like my coffee like my Secretaries of State, not too dark and a little sweet.
* ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'': Twister's brother Lars for the first season had a dark skin tone, but in the seasons that followed afterwards, he had the same light brown skin tone that his brother had. This was either UnfortunateImplications by lightening a character's skin or an aversion of the UnfortunateImplications since Lars was the JerkAss bully and "villain", and the only dark-skinned character at that.
* Disney Junior's ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'' features the first Latina princess, 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".
* Spyke from ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' had 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.
* It's been noticed that in promotional works for ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', [[http://www.damnlayoffthebleach.com/post/36182721084/racebending-damnlayoffthebleach-this-is Katara's brown skin]] and [[http://www.damnlayoffthebleach.com/post/36182265599/dear-everyone Aang's olive complexion]] get lightened to a light complexion.
* Subtly alluded to on ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. When the girls start Photoshopping their pictures to make them unrealistically hot, Nichole, the one black girl, makes her skin lighter. (Though oddly, later it's shown dark again.)
* In her debut Luna, the keyboardist, from The Hex Girls in ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' is AmbiguouslyBrown and a redhead. Future appearances lighten her skin to be like her bandmates. ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' ended up returning her back to her original skintone.
* ''WebAnimation/DCSuperHeroGirls'': Although Bumblebee has a consistently dark skin tone throughout the animated show and movies, the LEGO toy line and movies based on the franchise portray with a ''much'' lighter skin color.
* ''WesternAnimation/DCSuperHeroGirls2019'': Karen Beecher/Bumblebee is lighter-skinned than she's previously been portrayed, and her eyes are green rather than brown.
* There's been debates with ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' fans about how Susie is colored in ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp''. Her skin and general coloring is lighter in season 1 but became even lighter in season 2. At least part of it is blamed on ArtEvolution, as creators became more lighter in season 2.
* This common criticism of Orange Blossom in the 2009 incarnation of ''WesternAnimation/StrawberryShortcake''. Due to her hair being straight and OnlySixFaces being in action, she comes off as AmbiguouslyBrown instead of the very unambiguously black she normally is. The 2018 reboot reversed this and made her more like her past designs.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'': Gerald, along with his mother, father and older brother all are fairly dark-skinned. His younger sister Timberly, is considerably light-skinned.
* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'': This happened to Flora and Aisha when the series got new designs for season 8 and the spin-off ''World of Winx''; while previously they appeared unambiguously Latina and black, respectively, the new designs lightened their skin tones so much that Aisha looks AmbiguouslyBrown and Flora only looks barely tanned compared to her white friends.
* A recurring criticism of ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' is about how the superhero forms of several nonwhite characters seem designed to make them appear more caucasian; for example, the black Max gets white hair and lighter skin when he transforms into Pegasus. Even outside of the transformations, protagonist Marinette is supposed to be of mixed Chinese and Italian descent, but her light skin and round, blue eyes (the latter of which [[HollywoodGenetics she shouldn't even be able to have]]) make her appear fully Caucasian
* Aqualad from ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010'' is dark-skinned, but with very blue eyes and blonde, buzzcut hair. His father turns out to be fairly dark-skinned, but a picture of his mother from the tie-in comics has her as light-skinned with blonde hair.

[[/folder]]

* ''Film/SoulFood''. Maxine accuses her son Ahmad of being "color struck" when she notices that out of the two girls who have come to visit him, he completely ignores the dark-skinned girl in favor of the light-skinned one, even though he has more in common with the darker girl.

* ''Film/RoughNight'': Blair, the only person of color in the film, is portrayed by Creator/ZoeKravitz, who's biracial and also light-skinned. This even gets discussed in the film when Blair says she's Black, after which Frankie accuses her of forgetting.
* This trope plays a central part in the plot of ''Film/BadHair''. Our protagonist, a black woman, is told that she has to change her hairstyle from her natural hair to something more conventionally attractive (read: Caucasian) in order to move up in her job, and ends up struggling to choose between her ethics and her career (the fact that the weave she gets [[ItMakesSenseInContext is bloodthirsty and sentient]] doesn’t help much). [[spoiler:It plays a part in the film’s backstory, too -- in the past, a black slave girl tried to use moss as a wig to replicate the hair of her white masters, only to learn too late that the "moss" was the hair of dead witches and end up possessed.]]
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'':
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] 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.
** This trope came up during the casting of ''Film/BlackPanther''. Creator/AmandlaStenberg was originally in the running for several roles, but took herself out of consideration, specifically stating that she wanted to avoid colorism; since the movie takes place in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, Stenberg argued that dark-skinned actors should play the parts.
* ''Film/BlackChristmas2019'': Both the Black characters in the main quartet, Kris and Jesse, were played by light-skinned actresses who have mixed race heritage.
* ''Film/{{Master}}'': PlayedForDrama. Gail and Jasmine are Black women who are the victim of racism at the college. The third of the trio, Liv, is a very light-skinned Black woman who feels she's being discriminated against for her skin color, but she teaches as if EverythingIsRacist. [[spoiler:This, and her light skin tone, is because she's actually white, but she still comes out on top and being welcomed into the university, while Gail undergoes a HeroicBSOD and Jasmine is dead.]]
* In ''Literature/TheHateUGive'', Starr is explicitly depicted as a dark-skinned black girl. In TheFilmOfTheBook, she is played by the mixed-race, light-skinned Creator/AmandlaStenberg. Although in this case, the actress wanted to step down from the role out of concerns that she was enabling colorism, but the original author insisted she'd written Starr with her in mind (and there is mention in the book that Chris calls her "caramel" because of her skin). People had assumed her to be darker based on the cover, making this a rare inversion.
* The 1963 movie ''Hud'' was based on a novel called ''Horseman, Pass By''. In that, the character Halmaea was a Black woman. The film adaptation changed her to a white woman Alma, played by Patricia Neal, because they felt a Black woman being so desirable she ends up in a love triangle to be unrealistic.
* [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2022/11/21/23467145/black-panther-wakanda-forever-latino-colorism-racism-namor-tenoch-huerta It's been discussed]] that the film ''Film/BlackPantherWakandaForever'' has put a laser focus on colorism in the Latino communities of Americas, especially in the film's choice to hire Mexican actors with darker skin to portray the Mesoamerican people of Talokan and Namor. [[https://www.debate.com.mx/ciudaddemexico/Racismo-a-la-inversa-Activistas-responden-a-comentarios-sobre-discriminacion-de-conductores-de-TV-20221015-0260.html One Mexican newscast actually derided]] the film's choice as divisive as they did not feature lighter-skined or White Mexicans. Those comments did not go over well, given the documented colorism in Mexico.
* ''Film/HeartsBeatLoud'': Sam is a biracial girl with a white father and (deceased) black mother. Her girlfriend Rose is the only other black person in the film, who's even lighter than her. Both actresses are biracial.

* Creator/NikkiFlynn and Creator/EdwinDantes subvert this trope in ''Literature/AnthologiesOfUllord''. Many of their main characters are dark-skinned depending on their ethnicity and where they live in the world. Among them include Ritana, Althor and Tirtha.
* Justine Larbalestier's novel ''Literature/Liar2009'':
** It had a {{cover|sAlwaysLie}} featuring an [[http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/23/aint-that-a-shame/ obviously white girl, although the protagonist is black.]] Especially given the story, since the chosen cover called into question one of the few true things, according to the author, that the protagonist shared about herself.
** The publisher finally rectified the situation with a new cover, except some readers state that the [[http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/08/06/the-new-cover/ cover]] model is still too fair-skinned and long haired compared to the character in the book.
* ''Literature/TheMysteriousBenedictSociety'': The [[CoversAlwaysLie lying cover]] of the second book. Sticky appears to be a very, very pale boy, even practically white, while it is stated in the books that he has light brown skin.
* Some critics have noted that ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'' describes Friday, a Carib Indian from South America, as remarkably European in appearance: small nose, thin lips, a brighter skin tone than "other natives of America," and generally "all the sweetness and softness of a European in his countenance." As author J.M. Coetze put it, when talking about his Crusoe {{Deconstruction}} novel ''Literature/{{Foe}}'', the original Friday "is a handsome Carib youth with near European features".
* Janie from Zora Neale Hurston's ''Literature/TheirEyesWereWatchingGod'', who's considered to be beautiful, is described as having straight hair and a relatively light complexion. Mrs. Turner admires her for those white traits and even tries to set her up with her lighter-skinned son because she doesn't like her Not Too Black idol being married to a very dark-skinned man. Halle Berry quite appropriately plays Janie in the movie version of the novel.

* In one novel by Creator/AndrewVachss a black character explains "the paper bag trick" to his white friend. Paraphrased: "I know lots of black guys who do the paper bag trick-- they hold a brown paper bag up next to their face in the mirror; if their skin is darker than the bag they're going nowhere in life. Nowadays black mothers want their daughters to marry lighter."
%% * The whole point of ''Literature/DontPlayInTheSun''.

* In the Tell-All biography ''Confessions of a Video Vixen'' the author explain how her mother was favored by her grandmother due to her light complexion which put a wedge between her mom and aunts.

* Played straight - historically straight - in Creator/BarbaraHambly's ''Literature/BenjaminJanuary'' novels, a series of historical mysteries set in New Orleans in the 1830s, a place and time where it mattered a ''great'' deal what shade a person of color was.

* In ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'', the main character Eliza is one quarter black, with skin just light enough for her to pass as white. She takes advantage of this early on in her escape. Her husband is mulatto, and with a little makeup was able to pass as Hispanic while on the run. The 1927 [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] took this to the extreme by casting white actors for both parts.

* The first edition of Octavia Butler's ''[[Literature/LilithsBrood Dawn]]'' had the main character portrayed as a white woman when she was really black. More examples [[http://thebooksmugglers.com/2010/02/cover-matters-on-whitewashing.html here]].
* In the ''[[Literature/HudsonSeries Hudson]]'' books by Creator/VCAndrews, heroine Rain is praised for her beauty including being lighter-skinned than the rest of her family. This turns out to be because [[spoiler:she's actually biracial and her biological mother is white]].
* Day, a protagonist from Marie Lu's ''Literature/LegendSeries'', 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]].
* This trope was just one of the many, ''many'' reasons that ''Literature/SaveThePearls: Revealing Eden'' [[CluelessAesop fell down flat on its face with its message about the pains of racism]]. So it's far in the future, blacks are on top culturally, whites are on the bottom, and as a result, the standards of beauty lean black... and yet when white girls "pass" as black (using, yes, [[{{Blackface}} exactly the means you think they do]]), they've still got some pretty damn straight hair. Videos made to promote the book show Eden applying the black make-up to her skin but she does nothing to alter her hair - and this is supposed to be a future where white features are considered ugly.
* The cover art version also comes up on the covers of ''Literature/TheRunelords'' novels. Princess Iome is specifically noted in the books as being a result of a mixed-race political marriage between her white father and FantasyCounterpartCulture Middle Eastern/Indian mother (it's a bit ambiguous, as the region her mother came from covers a wide-enough range to fairly match that of "from the Middle East to India" and is internally very diverse; given political marriages, being Raj Ahten's cousin is no indicator). After her own political marriage, a common woman in her husband's homeland is shown wondering if pale complexions will become unfashionable now that the darker-complexioned (and very popular) Iome is to be their new queen. On the covers she looks like a white woman who never goes outside.
* Nicole from ''Literature/BeautyQueens'' is quite black. She states how difficult it is for her to manage her hair. However, her mother bought her skin bleaching cream to make her appear more white.
* In 19th century adventure novel ''Literature/KingSolomonsMines'', Umbopa/Ignosi, a Zulu, is a noble leader who speaks to the white men as an equal. So of course he must be described as "very light-coloured for a Zulu".
* ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', published in 1872, features protagonist Phileas Fogg falling in love with Aouda, an Indian princess that he meets on his travels. Verne makes his mixed marriage easier to swallow for 19th century readers by describing Aouda as having "skin as white as a European's" and expressing herself "in perfect English".
* In the original illustrations of ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', Captain Nemo doesn't look remotely Indian. This is for two reasons: his nationality wasn't revealed until the sequel, and he was originally planned to be a Polish noble fighting against the Russians. France being allied with Russia at the time, Verne's editor convinced him to use a more traditional (to the French) {{Acceptable Target|s}}, and Nemo became an Indian fighting the British.
* In ''Literature/FevreDream'', a man who procures beautiful slave women for vampires to feed on talks about his taste for quadroon and octoroon girls. Period-appropriate racism is expressed by various characters in the book.

* Inverted in the FilmNoir MonsterMash ''Literature/FiftyFeetOfTrouble''. Those jaguar people, a monster basically known for being physically attractive, of African American descent tend to get even darker after their change.
* DeconstructedTrope in ''Literature/TheCrocodileGod'': The titular god Haik is an emphatically dark-skinned Filipino, being a precolonial Tagalog deity. In modern times, he's often mistaken for Polynesian due to his skin-tone combined with his [[TattooAsCharacterType cultural tattoos,]] and immediately pegged as an ''indio'' [[note]]a term for the indigenous Filipino tribesmen[[/note]] once he corrects people. Unfortunately, that also means when he's revealed to be [[TheIllegal an illegal immigrant,]] [[{{Profiling}} the ICE department starts hunting him down the minute they can't find his records.]] The Filipino-American Mirasol (who's been having a ReincarnationRomance with him) is also olive-skinned, and her Latina friend Imelda points out to a white neighbor that they're either going to jail her for "helping a criminal" or even deport her as well, because even ''she's'' too dark and ethnic-looking to be seen as properly "American".
%%ZCE* The topic of period-typical colorism is prevalent in ''Literature/TheColorPurple''.
* The titular protagonist of the ''Literature/MaximumRide'' series should be at least half-Latina given that one of her [[DesignerBabies genetic donors]] is the Latina Dr. Valencia Martinez, but she's described as having light skin and blonde hair. This is somewhat justified given that [[BigBad the woman]] that oversaw her creation is light-skinned and blonde herself (even trying to pass herself off as Max's biological mother), and [[AllGermansAreNazis heavily implied]] to be a Nazi on top of that.
* ''Literature/TheLoveAndLiesOfRukhsanaAli'': Rukhsana is chided by an older Indian woman for going out in the sun more often than is fashionable, so that her skin's darker. It appears to be a common prejudice in Bengali culture, from what's said.
* In ''Literature/TheSchoolForGoodMothers'' Friday is facing a hearing to regain her daughter's custody. Since she is Asian instead of Black or Latina, and Chinese instead of Vietnamese or Cambodian, she anticipates she will be perceived as close enough to being white to get the leniency white mothers seem to get. Instead the judge rules that she must attend the school and pass if she wants to regain custody. It is not known if her race worked against her or if it was a factor at all.

* On an episode of ''Series/TheOprahWinfreyShow'' during golfer Tiger Woods' meteoric initial rise to national attention, there was considerable controversy after Tiger said that when he was a child, knowing he was of mixed heritage--having not only white and black, but Asian and Native American (American Indian) ancestry--led him to cobbling together a word for himself, "Cablinasian". Some black celebrities took offense to this, with one even citing the "one-drop" rule (that being, if you have one drop of black blood, you're black). It was noted on a follow-up episode discussing the issue and how it related to race in America that ''this was a rule invented by slavers to expand their potential "product base"''. {{Inverted|Trope}} in the Gatorade Focus commercials, in which the animators seem to have assiduously eradicated any trace of non-black features on the animated Tiger.
* Portrayed in ''[[Series/FranksPlace Frank's Place]]''. Frank, a medium-dark man, is invited to join a black men's society that historically limited their membership to those who passed the "paper bag test," but now want to distance themselves from their past. Ultimately Frank decides to refuse their invitation:
-->'''Frank:''' All my life, I've been, quote, the "only black". I was the only black in this class. I was the only black in that organization. I was the only black on this team. Look, man. I'm not about to become the only black in a ''black club''. I think that's going a little too far, don't you think?

* Janet Hubert-Whitten, who originally played Vivian Banks on ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'', was replaced by the lighter-complexioned Daphne Maxwell Reid in the last few seasons. This was {{lampshade|Hanging}}d on her first appearance. However only the change in actress was lampshaded. No mention was made of [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190713035343/http://i50.tinypic.com/adc1e1.jpg the half-shade difference in color]]. Even worse, the change in actress (and, with that, skin tone) also corresponded with a change in personality from an assertive outspoken career woman--more specifically a professor--who was every bit her husband's professional equal, to a [[UnfortunateImplications docile, permissive housewife who appeared much less often]].

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'':
** Simone was the only prominent woman of colour in the main cast of Season 1, played by the light-skinned actress Creator/TawnyCypress. [[spoiler: She also gets [[BlackDudeDiesFirst killed off]], as does her Latino boyfriend]].
** Micah is {{justified|Trope}}, however, because he has a white mother. And his black father features as a character. The father however kept having his debut pushed back, and ended up being unceremoniously written out.
** Played for laughs with redneck truck driver Sam Douglas, who is played by Asian-American actor Ken Choi.

* In one episode of the first season of ''Series/MacGyver1985'', a JerkWithAHeartOfGold makes a sarcastic comment about a woman's race ("Yes, I am a cripple. And you, madam, are black.") to help establish his initial {{Jerkass}} tendencies. The actress playing the woman in question, however, is so light-skinned as to almost appear white.
* A decent number of {{Soap Opera}}s have been accused of this trope. Hispanics soapies even more so, since, save in Venezuela and Brazil (who follow this trope to a T), they tend to MonochromeCasting favoring white people.
* Creator/MargaretCho's short-lived sitcom ''Series/AllAmericanGirl'' is very But Not Too Asian. She makes reference to this a lot in her live shows. Ironically, they had hired an "Asian consultant" to teach the Korean-American woman to act more Asian. She was both too Asian and not Asian enough. Much of Cho's comedy stems from the fact that she has "Classic" Asian looks, but has a very American Gen X attitude. The network wanted someone who ''looked'' western (read: slender) while certain MoralGuardians within the Asian-American community wanted her to ''act'' a certain way, essentially inverting her stage persona.
* Very much intentional when it came to the casting of Creator/AnneRice's ''Series/FeastOfAllSaints''. Because well, it was basically about fair skinned Creole folks during pre-Civil War America in New Orleans. A dazzling yet damned class caught between the world of white privilege and black oppression.
* ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'': The biracial Lynn. An early episode reveals that she was very culturally White growing up (justified since she was adopted by a white family), and her interest in exploring black culture is very recent. This is later [[CallBack revisited]] in Season 2 when her white adopted sister Tanya, who ''thinks'' she's [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy pretty fly for a white girl]], takes her act a bit too far and ends up [[NWordPrivileges saying the N-word]] in a salon full of black customers (including other main girlfriend [[SassyBlackWoman Maya]], who had up until that point been the only girlfriend who didn't mind Tanya's antics), leading to this confrontation:
---> '''Tanya:''' Ain't this a trip? Suddenly ''you're'' the authority on what's "black?" Two years ago, you were a biracial grunge girl, and before that, you were just some pretty white girl!
---> '''Lynn:''' That doesn't matter. Because when you use that word, only '''ONE''' of us gets hurt! And there is pain behind it that ''you will never know.''
** In Season 8, Lynn hits another racial brick wall after the manager at her record label explicitly tells her that the higher-ups don't know how to market her music (primarily indie rock) because she neither looks nor sounds "black enough."
** Lead character Joan is played by biracial actress Creator/TraceeEllisRoss as if she were 100% African-American.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** Kendra has been accused of this by some fans, as her actress Bianca Lawson is lighter skinned and the character is from rural Jamaica. This is however a case of RealityIsUnrealistic - as Jamaica is quite the melting pot of ethnicities, Kendra having lighter skin is plausible. Her actress Bianca Lawson usually wears her hair straight but it's worn with a bit of an unkempt curl - presumably so Kendra would look believably like someone who was isolated from the latest beauty treatments.
** Giles's girlfriend Olivia appears in Season 4. She's an aversion as, despite being Giles's love interest (he's white), she's very dark skinned.
** A huge aversion is the First Slayer Sineya, the root of the Slayer line and the very first to be given the power. Not only is she shown to be a powerful combatant, she is quite clearly a very dark-skinned African girl.

* 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 background for her characters.
* One HBO special, ''George Clinton's Cosmic Slop'', was a set of several 'Twilight Zone' short episodes. In one episode, aliens land in the United States, and offer to solve all their economic and energy problems. In return, they wanted all the black people in America - everyone who would 'fail' the paper bag test - for undisclosed purposes. Guess how that story ended.
* Creator/RashidaJones is of mixed-race ancestry (her father is music mogul Quincy Jones and her mother is the white Jewish actress Peggy Lipton) but few of Rashida's characters are actually identified as ''black''. Her character in ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' is implied to be Italian-American, and her character in ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' being AmbiguouslyBrown is a RunningGag. They made her look really white on [[http://cdn.images.juno.co.uk/full/IS400854-01-01-BIG.jpg this cover]] of ''Bust'' magazine.
%% * The whole main cast of UPN's ''Series/SecondTimeAround'' was accused of this.
* Justified on ''Series/{{Glee}}'' with Rachel's dad Leroy. It's established early on that she has two gay dads: one black, one white. Both men donated sperm and mixed it up so that they wouldn't know who directly sired her. The show cast the very fair-skinned Brian Stokes Mitchell as the black dad because a man with skin too dark is obviously not going to be her biological father.
* ''Literature/GossipGirl'' gives Vanessa Abrams a RaceLift by being played by the mixed race Jessica Szohr, and also has Creator/GinaTorres as her mother. This has the effect of making Vanessa the TokenMinority in the very white cast--save for Penelope (Middle Eastern), Isabel (Black) and Kati (Asian) in Blair's GirlPosse.
* ''{{Series/Friends}}'' of course fell into MonochromeCasting very early on - with few people of colour appearing. But in the later seasons the darker skinned Gabrielle Union and Creator/AishaTyler appeared as love interests.
* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'':
** Lisa is the object of Screech's affection, and while certainly a pretty girl, she had very fair skin and angular features, and her hairstyles were rarely very different from Kelly's or Jessie's (it helps that EightiesHair tends to look "ethnic", no matter who is sporting it). The character was originally supposed to be a white Jewish Princess. Creator/LarkVoorhies got the role based on the strength of her audition, despite the fact casting specifically asked for only white females.
** The show drew some criticism for ignoring Slater's ethnicity during its run. The character was written to be white but when they couldn't find the right actor - they extended casting calls to actors of colour, and the Hispanic Creator/MarioLopez won the part. An episode of ''[[Series/SavedByTheBellTheCollegeYears The College Years]]'' reveals that Slater's father changed his last name from the more obviously Latin 'Sanchez' when he joined the army.
** While on the subject of Zack, his actor Creator/MarkPaulGosselaar is mixed race - part Indonesian on his mother's side. But the bleached blonde hair he sported for the show's run has the effect of making him look more Anglo.
* How long before someone calls this on the leads of ''Series/{{Undercovers}}''? NBC's promos for the show (and all of their new programming) flash the phrase "more colorful" at the end, likely a nod to it.

* ''Series/ColdCase'':
** An episode cast a dark complexioned actress as the victim and used lighting techniques to make her appear light-skinned, which didn't become relevant until near the end when [[spoiler:her white lover tried to convince her to pass for white so they could be out in the open with each-other]].
** In two other episodes both a suspect and victim respectively were African American but so light skinned that they were believed to be white.
* ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'', with a cast of dark complexioned actors playing Raven's immediate and extended family (the members not played by [[ActingForTwo Raven herself]]) but the title character and her friend being light-skinned.
* While ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' has had several black characters over the years, the only ones with any real development were Jimmy and Liberty. Both characters were portrayed by biracial actors. By comparison, the much darker-skinned Chantay Black was on a high school show for ''six seasons'' before she got any character development. Actress Andrea Lewis [[http://missandrealewis.com/2013/03/28/new-post-a-real-conversation-about-degrassi-tbt/ explains why there were little to no character development with black characters in her blog post]].
* ''Series/UglyBetty'' has an in-show example. Wilhelmina Slater underwent surgery and skin bleaching in order to conform to the fashion industry's standards as a model. Even as an ex-model, she is still ashamed of her previous appearance and real name, Wanda.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': Derek Morgan has a white mother, black father, and several sisters. The actresses who played his sisters had a range of skin tones. Creator/ShemarMoore himself has a black father and white mother.
* The two leads of ''Series/{{Key and Peele}}'' cater to this....and poke fun at the fact.
* 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. The actors playing her father and brother were also dark-skinned.
* It's a judgement call where ''Series/{{Firefly}}'''s Creator/GinaTorres lands on this trope. She's of Cuban descent with mixed-race features. Early in her career she had a minor role in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' (she found the corpse), and when a white cop at a coffee shop commented on her beauty, his black partner said it was only because she had "white features". She identifies as Latin.
* Parodied on an episode of Howard Stern's syndicated TV show from the early-1990's. The segment was called "Black Folk With White Features" and was hosted by Stern dressed in Malcolm X gear, giving his name as 'Howard Washington Stern' and claiming that he and Robin Quivers were brother and sister, the idea being that he was a light-skinned black man instead of white.
* On ''Series/ChappellesShow'' Charlie Murphy relates his friend Rick James' nickname for him: "Because of my complexion he used to call me 'Darkness'. He calls me and my brother Eddie 'Darkness'. Called us the "Darkness Brothers". See, this is long before Wesley Snipes. Back then we as the blackest niggas on the planet according to Rick James!"