Line #137 Main/BlackVikings


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15	[[quoteright:345:[[Film/TheNorseman https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/norseman.jpg]]]]
16	[[caption-width-right:345:One of them is not like the others (no, not the guy without [[HornyVikings a helmet]]).]]
17
18	This trope comes into play when an actor is cast for a role in a historical setting who would appear to be of an unlikely ethnicity to portray such a role, usually because the population of the historical setting tended to be predominately inhabited by people of a different ethnicity.
19
20	This may occur because the creators were unaware of the actual ethnic composition of the historical setting, value diversity over historical accuracy, had budget problems, or a myriad of other reasons. If the work is a comedy, this may also be simply RuleOfFunny.
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22	Depending on the time and place, this can actually be [[AluminumChristmasTrees surprisingly realistic]], due to environments like trade cities and ports being conducive to ethnic mash-ups. For instance, Egypt, while having an ethnically distinct population of its own, has been a trade hub, tourist destination, and cultural melting pot for millennia. It's also important to note that "race" as it is seen today is largely a modern construct only appearing in the past few centuries.
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24	It is possible that when a Black Viking appears in film or TV, the character is not intended to be seen as the same race as the actor. [[AbilityOverAppearance The actor used might have simply been the best available for the role]], and the writers are merely asking us to use our imagination to make the actor's physical appearance fit the character's. This is actually standard doctrine for modern stage theatrical productions as is called "non-traditional" or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour-blind_casting colour-blind casting,]] referring to "the casting of ethnic minority and female actors in roles where race, ethnicity, or sex is not germane", in other words, where it is not relevant to the plot; Theatre/{{Othello}} can never be played by a white actor again, for instance, because his blackness (or [[AmbiguouslyBrown Moorishness]], in any case) is central to the plot, and {{blackface}} has understandably fallen out of vogue. (Aside from special productions like one with Creator/PatrickStewart in the title role, with Othello being a white guy while every other character [[PersecutionFlip is black]].)
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26	This trope can have a touchy relationship with tropes like PlaysGreatEthnics; for instance, it's not uncommon (especially in US productions) to cast black actors to portray North African peoples such as the Berbers,[[note]]Which is quite wrong. Thanks in part to the long history of Mediterranean trade and the travel barrier of the Sahara desert, North African populations are ethnically and culturally distinct from Sub-Saharan Africans, to the point that in some European languages "White Africa" is a synonym of "North Africa" (though the term is rarely used today).[[/note]] to the objections of those who feel misrepresented as much as they would by having a European actor play the same role (with the additional irony that southern Europeans like Italians and Spaniards sometimes resemble Northern Africans enough to belivably pass as them).[[note]]This goes back to the ancient times, as while Mediterranean civilizations were often enormously different in cultural terms, ethnically wise they could be often very hard to tell apart, which is, for instance, the whole joke of Roman playwright Creator/{{Plautus}}'s play ''Poenulus''. Add in the Carthaginian and Muslim conquests of Hispania and the mix goes even higher.[[/note]]
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28	A SubTrope of PoliticallyCorrectHistory and ColorblindCasting. Compare with NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent and RaceLift (and DivineRaceLift). Related to WesternSamurai, when a non-Japanese character is a samurai right down to the armor and strict adherence to the code of ''bushido''. Compare and Contrast NonSpecificallyForeign, when a character is from a different culture and/or ethnicity in an ambiguous but acknowledged manner.
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30	Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease This is strictly a casting trope and not intended for use to describe historical figures.
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32	----
33	!!Example subpages:
34	[[index]]
35	* BlackVikings/{{Film}}
36	* BlackVikings/{{Literature}}
37	* BlackVikings/LiveActionTV
38	* BlackVikings/VideoGames
39	[[/index]]
40
41	!!Other examples:
42	[[foldercontrol]]
43
44	[[folder:Advertising]]
45	* A late-1990s multimedia ad campaign for Three Musketeers candy bars portrayed the Musketeers in claymation and comic book art. One of the Musketeers was black. Later commercials replaced the short white Musketeer with a [[RaceLift short Latino]]. Ironically, Alexandre Dumas was himself one-quarter black, as her grandmother was a black slave turned concubine, though he lived 200 years after the events of his story.
46	* One Capital One commercial features a black ''Visigoth''. (Yes, they are supposed to be Visigoths, though they dress like stereotypical HornyVikings.)
47	* An early 2000s commercial for Kim's potato crisps featured a black African as the cook of the Viking ship. Considering everything else historically inaccurate in the commercial[[labelnote:To whit...]]the Vikings all wear horned helmets and [[SpeakingSimlish speak Norse-sounding simlish]], the Viking ship has an iron anchor, the Vikings use the anchor as soup stock, they know the concept of "fast food", there's a potato onboard, and their food shortage is solved by the Viking chieftain cutting the potato into enough crisps for the whole journey[[/labelnote]], it was very much PlayedForLaughs.
48	[[/folder]]
49
50	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
51	* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', Nakago is blonde-haired and blue-eyed, yet lives in ancient China. He's explicitly stated to be a foreigner and later revealed to be a member of a tribe that lived in the Kutou region that tended to have those traits. There might be some factual basis to this.
52	* Karin from ''Manga/UQHolder'' could easily pass as being Japanese, despite the fact though she's implied to be [[spoiler:a {{Gender Flip}}ped Judas Iscariot]].
53	* Lampshaded in ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' when Sousuke explains to Nami that he learned to pilot Arm Slaves in the [[UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan mujahideen]] when he was a preteen. Nami buys [[ImprobableAge the age]] much more readily than the faction.
54	-->'''Nami:''' Oh, I see–wait, a ''mujahid?!'' How does a Japanese kid become an Afghani guerrilla?
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Comic Books]]
58	* Subverted in an issue of ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' featuring the immortal Hob Gadling attending a Renaissance fair with his current girlfriend (and [[DeadpanSnarker making a lot of cutting comments about it]].) When Hob asks his girlfriend why she isn't the Queen of the Fair, she points out her ethnicity (she's black) and the fact that the fair is trying to be at least ''a little'' authentic (she specifically says, "There were no black Queens of England.") To which Hob immediately replies, "Catherine of Aragon. If she'd been living in Selma, Alabama in the early 60s, they'd have made her ride at the back of the bus." Presumably, he would have to have been referring to the "just one drop" rule since it has been claimed, although not substantiated, that Catherine of Aragon had a black (or Moorish) ancestor just a few generations back, considering that [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/catherine_of_aragon/ Catherine had red hair, blue eyes, and very fair skin.]]
59	* At least once, the African-American soldier Gabe Jones, of ''ComicBook/SgtFuryAndHisHowlingCommandos'', impersonated a German soldier. He appeared to have no greater or lesser difficulty pulling this off than any of the white Howlers, which is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_black_people_in_Nazi_Germany#In_the_armed_forces actually]] a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. Gabe's presence in the Howling Commandos is itself an example, though, as the US Army was segregated during World War II. The same can be said of Jackie Johnson in ''ComicBook/SgtRock'''s Easy Company.
60	** Although as noted on other pages, the Commandos and Easy Company were select units so their commanders had discretion over personnel decisions.
61	* In Creator/FrankMiller's ''ComicBook/ThreeHundred'', King Xerxes of Persia looks more black than Persian. Less so in [[Film/ThreeHundred the movie]].
62	* In ''Truth: Red, White, and Black'', a Nazi sympathizer WWII vet lectures a black man about Germany's political motivations for war. The black man knows all about it -- his family is German going back generations, ever since Germany colonized what is now Namibia in the 1800s. His grandfather fought on their side in WWI and wasn't interned in the camps because of his veteran status.
63	* Franchise/WonderWoman: The first example of this trope in the series was the [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Silver Age]] character ComicBook/{{Nubia}} who was Diana's long lost, black sister who was also made of clay but was kidnapped by [[Characters/WonderWomanAres Ares]]. Since the Perez run [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1987 from the 1980s]], the Amazons of Themyscira have been shown as being a multi-racial society with Amazons from Europe, East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. There is also a separate tribe of mostly black and Arab Amazons called the Bana-Mighdall which ComicBook/{{Artemis}} comes from.
64	* In ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'' (2000 series), an immortal woman currently going by "Paulina" was once Erishad, a priestess in ancient Chaldea (a kingdom in first-millenium B.C.E. Mesopotamia, now Iraq). A flashback depicts her as a natural blonde even then. This would've been near impossible within a region where everyone was dark-haired, and which as far as we know wouldn't have had any contact with northern Europeans until over two thousand years later.
65	[[/folder]]
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67	[[folder:Fan Works]]
68	* In ''Fanfic/AThingOfVikings'', a WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon fanfic that puts the events of the first HTTYD film in real-life history and [[AlternateHistory letting the consequences explode from there]], one member of the [[CadreOfForeignBodyguards Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire]] (Gudmund Hallvarsson) is a literal Black Viking--an Afro-Norse warrior who is the child of a retired Varangian who returned to Sweden a generation earlier with an African concubine.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
72	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells'' has Italian, British, Chinese, and African monks living in the monastery in Ireland. As recounted in ''How The Irish Saved Civilization'', though, refugees from all over the Roman world went to Ireland fleeing the barbarian horde, so the monks of Ireland at the time would, in theory, be cosmopolitan, although Chinese would be pushing it a bit even then.
73	* ''WesternAnimation/FrozenII'' has Captain Mattias, a black soldier in a 19th-century Scandinavian kingdom. The fact that he's black is less jarring than the fact that [[AnachronismStew he and his soldiers still use medieval swords and shields.]] Mathias implies that his father moved to Arendelle, making him a first-generation immigrant, which could possibly avert this trope.
74	[[/folder]]
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76	[[folder:Folklore]]
77	* An urban legend claims that a black man is depicted at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the back of the American $2 bill. It turns out that the man is Robert Morris, a white financier who later became a Pennsylvania senator. His face appears dark because it is overly shadowed in the bill's picture, which is an engraved copy of a famous painting. In the painting, Morris is unmistakably white.
78	* There is a long-standing Christian tradition that the Three Kings are of multiple ethnicities, although there is no consensus as to which, with a legend proposing that is because they were from each continent. It is very common in Latin America and Spain to represent one of the Three Wise Men, generally Balthazar, as an African black (another is generally represented as blonde or redhead, thus Europe, the third as Middle Eastern, thus Asia). Traditions vary, one claiming Caspar is from Anatolia, Melchior is from Arabia, and Balthazar is from Yemen, or alternatively Melchior is Persian, Caspar is Indian and Balthazar is Ethiopian. In the actual New Testament account, they aren't kings (they are Magi, translated as wise men, but originally meant to be probably Zoroastrian priests), they come together from the East (generally thought to be Persia), and there aren't necessarily three of them (no specific number is given).
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:Music]]
82	* The UpdatedReRelease of ''Music/JeffWaynesMusicalVersionOfTheWarOfTheWorlds'' gives Parson Nathaniel what sounds like a Jamaican accent. Not by any means ''impossible'' for Victorian England, but the odds of a (presumably) black man becoming a parish priest in a place and time where he'd attract rude stares for merely walking down the high street are not terribly high.[[note]] Both subverted and reinforced in RealLife by the experiences of George Edalji, a Christian of Indian Parsi descent who became a respected country parson in late Victorian times - until he was accused of a spate of animal slashings and went to prison for it. Forensic evidence eventually cleared him, but his reputation was shot, and ended up being a chaplain to a charity, never to serve as a frontline priest again. [[/note]]
83	* Music/MichaelJackson's music video "Remember the Time" has a cast made mostly of black actors as Ancient Egyptians, as explained before although some people may associated Egyptians with black people due to being both of African origin, however most scholars believe that native Egyptians were a distinct ethnic group (and not white either, of course).
84	[[/folder]]
85
86	[[folder:Myths and Religion]]
87	* According to the Prose Edda, which turned the Norse Pantheon into humans in order to comply with Christian rule, Thor himself qualifies. The Edda describes Thor as being the son of Memnon, a hero from the Trojan cycle (specifically the lost epic known as the Aethiopsis) who was from Aethiopia. At the time, Aethiopia referred to the land south of Egypt, making Thor half-Nubian.
88	* Andromeda, the DamselInDistress in the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology myth about Perseus]], is the daughter of the Ethiopian king Cepheus. But [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Persus_wiewael.jpg in most illustrations]], [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_011.jpg her skin colour]] [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/1840_Chasseriau_Theodore_-_Andromeda_Chained_to_the_Rock_by_the_Nereids.jpg is decidedly]] [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Paul_Gustave_Dore_Andromeda.jpg very un-Ethiopian.]] (NSFW, if your boss doesn't like nipples!) [[JustifiedTrope Although:]] According to the TangledFamilyTree of the Greek mythological characters, she wasn't ethnically Ethiopian anyway, at least not 100%. (Her father's ancestry can be traced back to Poseidon, but there is no information about where her mother Cassiopeia comes from.) Also, some people speculate that Cepheus' kingdom wasn't ''that'' Ethiopia.[[note]]At several times throughout history, "Ethiopia" meant literally any place in Africa, so it's entirely possible she came from a northern pre-Muslim African nation -- the people there would have had skin and hair colors much closer to ancient Greeks, and when one factors in how many mixed marriages there were between the various cultures, it makes more sense. The problem is that there were texts describing Andromeda's dark skin. Possibly not black, but not actually until later artists decided not to depict her as such.[[/note]]
89	* Depiction of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} tend to make him resemble the artist's local population more than would be historically accurate. As a Galilean Jew, and one whose appearance is described in Literature/TheBible only as being completely ordinary (to the point people who didn't already know him couldn't pick him out of a crowd), Jesus would most likely have a darker olive complexion similar to that of other Middle Eastern peoples.
90	* It also happens with other major figures of Literature/TheBible, such as Abraham, Moses, David, etc, who look almost exclusively pale in European artistic depictions (because of local models being used).
91	* Due to its syncretic nature and the loas' ability to change shape, the Vodou pantheon is filled with Black Vikings. Some loa like Ogoun and Erzulie Dantor appear as black Africans. Others are white, like Mademoiselle Charlotte and Mama Brigette, who's a foul-mouthed Irish redhead. Others are shown as Native American like the Agua Dulce family of loa adopted from the Taino Indians.
92	* Gautama Buddha is often depicted with East Asian physical traits in countries such as China and Japan, despite the fact that the Buddha was born in Nepal and therefore probably looked South Asian.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Theater]]
96	* Increasingly common in theater nowadays. Many productions of Shakespeare in the UK are colorblind, which aside from historical accuracy sometimes results in some unlikely familial relations (cousins or even siblings being different races, etc).
97	* Theatre in general, per convention, makes much heavier use of WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, and the audience knows and accepts it. When characters are unable to recognise voices in order to make ''quiproquos'' easy, or when two characters talk loud enough for the audience to hear but the character next to them cannot hear them unless he/she is directly looking at them to show he/she is listening, or when holding a prop dagger is not needed for Juliet to stab herself because she can just mime it, then a character's theoretical ethnicity/gender being conform to the actor's is the least of the audience's concerns. Doubly so when the same production has actors play several roles or several people take turns playing the same character.
98	* ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'': Major productions of the musical usually cast the US Founding Fathers and associates with people of color. This is done for strictly stylistic reasons, however, and the play itself treats the characters as white men who own black slaves, etc., with the jarring contrast this creates being part of the point.
99	* In the 1999 Broadway revival of ''Theatre/TheLionInWinter'', African-American actors Creator/LaurenceFishburne and Chuma Hunter-Gault were cast as (British) King Henry II and his son Richard Lionheart, respectively. The actors who played Henry's two other sons and his wife were white.
100	* Judge Brack in ''Theatre/HeddaGabler'' is often played by a black actor, as James Earl Jones played the part in otherwise all-white production.
101	* Toni Braxton played Belle in ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' on Broadway from September 1998 to February 1999.
102	* Broadway's colorblind casting frequently results in this. Case in point, Norm Lewis as ''Theatre/LesMiserables''' Javert in the 2006 Broadway revival as well as the 2010 25th Anniversary Concert. While it's entirely possible that there were black people in France during that time period (indeed, a black actor played Enjolras in the most recent Broadway revival), it's not likely that one could have risen to Javert's rank in the police department[[note]]though in [[Literature/LesMiserables the book]] it's said that Javert's parents were "gypsies", reading to some fan debate as to what exactly his ethnicity is, as it's uncertain whether that means specifically Romani, or just vagrants more generally[[/note]].
103	* As in the film, the Broadway production of ''Theatre/{{Chicago}}'' has often cast an African-American actress as Mama Morton. A few black actors have played Billy Flynn as well.
104	* Famous playwright August Wilson openly defied this trope in his life and writings. Specifically, Wilson was against the idea of colorblind casting and stated that to deny the reality of race when writing or planning a show was to (pun intended) whitewash history. He refused to allow white actors to play any part he had written for African-Americans (although he did allow a Chinese production of his play ''Fences'').
105	* In ''Theatre/Frozen2018'', black actors commonly play King Agnarr (making him a literal example), Kristoff, and the [[TheFairFolk Hidden Folk]].
106	[[/folder]]
107
108	[[folder:WebOriginal]]
109	* ''LetsPlay/AScotsmanInEgypt'' has repeated mentions of Middle Easterners with red hair caused to Scotland's [[TakeOverTheWorld World Domination]] starting in Egypt and spreading from there. Of course, as one Scot proudly proclaims, the Scots are good at two things: fighting and making more Scots.
110	** A similar joke is made of the Irish.
111	* Parodied in ''WebVideo/DiamandaHagan'''s review of "Vikingdom" when they talk about how historically inaccurate the film is and Malcolm shows up in Viking costume. Happy Viking, Malcolm, and Diamanda get so caught up in the argument that it takes them a while to realize they're all completely aware that black Vikings did in fact exist.
112	* In ''WebVideo/EpicRapBattlesOfHistory'', Music/SnoopDogg is casted to play the role of Moses. Probably due to RuleOfCool.
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Western Animation]]
116	* The AmbiguouslyBrown Sir Bryant in ''The Legend of ComicStrip/PrinceValiant'' looks like an example, until it is explained in a centric episode that he is an exiled Moorish prince that joined Myth/KingArthur's knights after arriving in England and suffering quite a few misfortunes there too, among them the assassination of his wife and son by thieves.
117	* In the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' animated short ''Jungle Jitters'', the queen of an African tribe is revealed to be an elderly white woman.
118	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
119	** Carl portrays explorer William Clark (of course, Lenny is Meriwether Lewis). Homer, who, in an inversion, plays the father of Sacajawea (Lisa), lampshades this at one point, welcoming "the white man... and Carl."
120	** Carl is canonically from Iceland, and the episode "The Saga of Carl" centers around his Icelandic family. His parents are both white and a possible adoption is never brought up. The later episode "Carl Carlson Rides Again" confirms that he was, indeed, adopted, and his birth parents were African-American (with his dad being a famous bull-riding cowboy).
121	** ''The Simpsons'' does "color blind" casting quite often, in fact. Whenever the episode takes place in a historical or fantastical setting (e.g. ''Treehouse of Horror'' stories), it seems that the main criterion is which established characters fit the role best personality- and relationship-wise. Dr. Hibbert and Apu, for instance, have played all sorts of characters in all sorts of contexts where an African-American or Indian might not ordinarily be found.
122	* Inverted with Francis X. Bushlad and his tribe in ''WesternAnimation/{{Tazmania}}'', who are, inexplicably, white Indigenous Australians.
123	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' features one, not in its many historical flashbacks, but in modern-day New York -- a recurring antagonist there is Mafia don Tony Dracon. While his organization consists almost entirely of {{Mooks}} who don't diverge in the slightest from a stereotypical template of a suit-wearing, slick-haired Italian-American, the role of TheConsigliere is held by a slightly less sharp-dressed black man known only as "Glasses", even though the Mafia is usually very selective about the ethnicity of its membership and the consigliere is almost always a full-blooded Sicilian. WordOfGod vaguely implies there's some sort of personal history between Dracon and Glasses which allowed the pair of them to circumvent the Mafia's usual restrictions.
124	[[/folder]]

Context Main / BlackVikings