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| 11 | %% Image and caption selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16804857790.18442400 |
| 12 | %% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread. |
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| 14 | [[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/SouthPark https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/photoshop_nichole_6.png]]]] |
| 15 | [[caption-width-right:350:[[VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole You can't change the difficulty level mid-game like that,\ |
| 16 | how shameful.]]]] |
| 17 | |
| 18 | ->''"If you are darker than a paper bag, then you are not sexy, you are not a woman, you shouldn’t be in the realm of anything that men should desire."'' |
| 19 | -->-- '''Creator/ViolaDavis''', [[https://www.theroot.com/viola-davis-on-colorism-in-hollywood-if-you-are-darke-1790886679 TheWrap interview]], 2015, speaking about the beauty standards placed on black people |
| 20 | |
| 21 | There's discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. And then there's discrimination against skin tone and/or physical features, which is known as colorism. Light skin is favored over dark, and Eurocentric facial and physical features are favored over non-Eurocentric ones. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Just like in real life, colorism is a broad issue which can manifest in many ways in fiction. |
| 24 | A character might be viewed as unattractive and undesirable for being dark-skinned. Another might be denied a job opportunity because their skin tone is too dark and for potentially scaring off those with a lighter skin shade. A parent with children of varying skin shades may [[ParentalFavoritism prefer their light-skinned child over their dark-skinned one]], who is regarded as the TheUnfavorite 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, are prone to experience hearing backhanded compliments such as "you're too pretty for a dark-skinned girl" while growing up, which can undermine their self-esteem and push them into hating their own skin color, as it's not validated by others. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Meanwhile, characters from ethnic minority groups with lighter skin (biracial or mixed race) may enjoy more privileges than those a shade darker, furthering the inequality between how the light-skinned character is treated in contrast with the dark-skinned character, depending on how the story explores this dynamic. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | If the character dealing with internalized colorism thinks low of other dark-skinned people and loathes them as well due to their skin tone then they're a BoomerangBigot. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | Contrast with ButNotTooWhite which is the inverse of this trope; a character facing discrimination over their light skin. Not to be confused with PassFail, which is failing to live as another identity. See also the UsefulNotes/{{Colorism}} useful notes page for more real life information on the topic. |
| 31 | [[noreallife]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | ---- |
| 34 | !!Examples: |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 37 | |
| 38 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 39 | * The 2012 Acura commercial (starring Creator/JerrySeinfeld and [[Series/TheTonightShow Jay Leno]]) casting call asked for a [[http://www.tmz.com/2012/04/18/acura-nsx-super-bowl-commercial-seinfeld-light-skinned-black-casting/#comments-anchor "nice looking, friendly, not too dark"]] African-American car dealer. |
| 40 | * [[http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/03/syfys-eureka-starts-production-scores-bsg-star/ This]] promotional picture for Creator/SyFy series ''Series/{{Eureka}}'' shows Alison Blake (played by the half-black Creator/SalliRichardsonWhitfield) with a complexion that is lighter than her actual coloring. |
| 41 | * The skin-lightening cream "Fair and Lovely" is sold in India and the Middle East. The commercials often feature pretty women who feel insecure because of their dark skin, and sometimes feel it's holding them back for some reason or another. But here's what makes them fall directly into this trope: ''the women already have very light skin to begin with.'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIUQ5hbRHXk This is one of the ads,]] and there are plenty of others. [[{{Irony}} Unilever, also makes Dove soaps and shampoos, which has been having one of those "Feel beautiful in your own body!" campaigns in the US.]] This is more ValuesDissonance as in India, lightening your skin is considered the same as getting a tan is in the West. However even among some Indians this is viewed rather negatively. |
| 42 | * Hilariously U by Kotex overtly {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this trope [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIzaM1VdVP0 in this commercial.]] |
| 43 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_VZd5w90aA Another]] L'Oreal ad featuring Beyonce, this time promoting True Match, and showcasing her skin color. |
| 44 | [[/folder]] |
| 45 | |
| 46 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 47 | * ZigZagged in ''Manga/BootyRoyaleNeverGoDownWithoutAFight''. Main character Haebaru Misora is an ethnic Okinawan and has noticeably darker skin than the rest of the Japanese cast. On the one hand, this is a boon to her modeling career since, coupled with her large bosom and muscular build, she looks exotic next to typically pale ethnic Japanese models, but there's that one time a PoliticallyIncorrectVillain offered to make her his SexSlave, promising to "bleach your shit-colored skin with my cum." |
| 48 | * ''Manga/{{Lady}}'': [[https://mediaproxy.tvtropes.org/width/350/https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lynn_russell.jpg This]] is Lynn Russell. She is half-English and half-Japanese. However, she looks completely white. Not that this stops her RacistGrandpa from refusing to acknowledge her as his grandchild because he doesn't like the fact that his son married a non-white lady. |
| 49 | [[/folder]] |
| 50 | |
| 51 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 52 | * ''Fanfic/MarinettesWeekOff'': {{Discussed|Trope}} in the sequel; when Marinette notes that the casting director was surprised when she showed up to an audition, her agent Leslie reveals that the casting call specified wanting a ''Caucasian'' girl with dark hair, blue eyes and olive skin at the darkest. She explains that while Marinette is largely white-passing, her appearance is "exotic" enough to put her into a sweet spot that Leslie has been exploiting to help diversify Hollywood; she looks white enough to potentially get cast anyway, while potentially helping get a "foot in the door" for others who might not have been considered otherwise. |
| 53 | -->'''Leslie:''' Casting call was for a dark haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian, light to olive tanned-skinned girl, between the ages of thirteen to fifteen. I sent you. I send you for the same reason Zendaya tells her manager that: Anytime it says they're looking for white girls, to send her out. Maybe you'll change their minds. Maybe you won't. But in this case you did. |
| 54 | * ''Fanfic/WithPearlAndRubyGlowing'': |
| 55 | ** Penny Polendina's father attempts to protect her from being discriminated against for being mixed race; however, Shere Khan sexually assaults her after mistaking her for a white girl, then nearly kills her when he bombs the train she's on. |
| 56 | ** Jackson's white family prefer him to his twin Holt since he has an easier time passing as white; however, this also gets him ostracized by his peers at school, who are mostly minorities. A police officer later assualts Holt, but spares Jackson because he doesn't look as black. |
| 57 | ** One of the reasons why Bidoof's mother treated her as TheUnfavorite was because her skin was darker than her siblings; as a result, her mother insists Bidoof is much less attractive. |
| 58 | ** Bliss' kidnapper claims that Professor Utonium prefers his other daughters since they're lighter-skinned than her, and that nobody else will want her. While she eventually manages to escape, she's still grapples with fear that her kidnapper was right all along. |
| 59 | [[/folder]] |
| 60 | |
| 61 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 62 | * 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 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 assholes, even when they are worth tens of billions) is rather {{Anvilicious}}, but then again.... |
| 63 | * ''Film/BlackChristmas2006'': The only non [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant WASP]] in the cast appears to be Lauren - who's played by the half-Chinese Creator/CrystalLowe, and her hair is lightened to brown. Unless you count Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg is Ashkenazi-Jewish), Dana (Lacey Chabert is half-Cajun) or Mrs Mac (Andrea Martin is Armenian), but all of them are white-passing. |
| 64 | * HBO special ''Film/CosmicSlop'', 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. |
| 65 | * The documentary ''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. |
| 66 | * ''Film/HaroldAndKumarEscapeFromGuantanamoBay'': Lampshaded with a light-skinned black security guard. Kumar accuses him of racism when is "randomly selected" to be searched. The security guard 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. |
| 67 | * Parodied in Robert Townsend's ''Film/HollywoodShuffle''. In the sketch about "Black Acting School," the host of the commercial asserts that Hollywood prefers dark-skinned black actors to play thugs and low-lifes, and implies that these are the only roles available to black men. |
| 68 | * ''Film/TheHumanStain'' covers this, as the protagonist's from a family of mixed Caucasian and African-American descent who's light enough to pass for white (to his brother's resentment-none of the rest can). Ironically it works ''too well'', since everyone else believes this (he's made himself out to be Jewish as the explanation of his slightly swarthy skin and curly hair), thus he's accused of racism due to a misinterpreted remark about a couple absent students from his university class (both black). This was BasedOnATrueStory. |
| 69 | * 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 jump the hurdle. He's even played a real-life Italian-American mafioso in Sidney Lumet's ''Film/FindMeGuilty.'' |
| 70 | * ''Film/{{Saltburn}}'': Farleigh is Felix's cousin, and the [[TokenBlackFriend only black member of the aristocracy]], but he is light-skinned. He's conscious of his race despite his social class. |
| 71 | * In ''Film/TheSapphires'', the story of an Aboriginal girls quartet that toured Vietnam entertaining the troops, one of the group members, Kay, is a member of the stolen generation, and her time spent in Melbourne passing as a white girl (after being taken away by an agency and put into a mission as a child) is a source of tension between her and Gail, the darkest member of the group who deals with whatever insecurities she has about her complexion by almost relentlessly bullying Kay. And rather than lording her light complexion over the others, Kay has her own insecurities about it (probably due to Gail's ill treatment)--in the course of developing a relationship with a black GI, she feels it necessary to point out that even though she's "pale black", she's still black. |
| 72 | * ''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. |
| 73 | * Creator/SpikeLee films: |
| 74 | ** ''Film/{{School Daze|1988}}'' references the old practice of black fraternities and sororities performing "the paper bag test" on their potential applicants - only those with skin lighter than a brown paper bag would be allowed in. |
| 75 | ** ''Film/GetOnTheBus'' features a culture clash between a very light-skinned and Anglo-looking black man (played by [[ProductionPosse Spike Lee Joint regular]] Roger Guenveur Smith) and the darker black men on the bus. The rest of the bus riders see him as an outsider and criticize his anecdotes about his white mother. |
| 76 | * In ''Film/JungleFever'' when Wesley Snipes' African American architect begins 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. |
| 77 | * ''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.]] |
| 78 | * In ''Film/{{Vivah}}'', Rajni isn't considered as attractive a marriage prospect as her cousin Poonam, even though Poonam is an orphan with no dowry, in part because Rajni is darker-skinned. |
| 79 | * ''Film/TheWedding'', a TV movie about a wealthy light-skinned Black family on Martha's Vineyard, played this trope straight and subverted it all over the place. Halle Berry plays the lead Shelby, who faces a great deal of judgement from her family and friends for marrying a white man. Her sister, Liz, is married to a very dark-skinned man which has caused some pretty severe intra-family strife, especially with their white great-grandmother, since they pride themselves on being fair-skinned. There's also a flashback where Shelby and Liz's mother, Corinne, is implied to have aborted her third child since she didn't want to risk having a baby who looked like her (dark-skinned) father (her mother was white.) |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 83 | * 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 whiter. |
| 84 | * ''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. |
| 85 | %% * Ditto ''Literature/TheBlackerTheBerry'' by Wallace Thurman. |
| 86 | * ''Literature/TheBurningKingdoms'': It's mentioned repeatedly that highborn people prefer to have light skin as being dark is a mark of the poor who are out working. They try to keep their own from tanning by being out unshaded less. |
| 87 | %%ZCE* The topic of period-typical colorism is prevalent in ''Literature/TheColorPurple''. |
| 88 | * In the Tell-All biography ''Literature/ConfessionsOfAVideoVixen'' 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. |
| 89 | * 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". |
| 90 | %% * The whole point of ''Literature/DontPlayInTheSun''. |
| 91 | %% * ''Literature/FeastOfAllSaints'' touches on this. |
| 92 | * ''Literature/HisOnlyWife'': As part of an ArrangedMarriage, Afi moves from her small village in Ghana to her new husband's elegant flat in Accra. One of the two female security guards for the building asks her twice what bleaching cream she uses (Afi does not use any), implying she admires Afi's complexion. Nobody else in the book comments on her skin tone, but she is of Ewe ethnicity. |
| 93 | * In the ''Literature/{{Hudson|Series}}'' 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]]. |
| 94 | * ''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. |
| 95 | * 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. This 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. |
| 96 | * The protagonist of ''Literature/TheSkinImIn'' has been bullied for years by her equally black peers for being dark skinned. |
| 97 | * 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. |
| 98 | * 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. |
| 99 | * 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." |
| 100 | [[/folder]] |
| 101 | |
| 102 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 103 | * 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. |
| 104 | * The episode "Black Like Us" from ''Series/BlackIsh'' is dedicated for this issue. Dre points out that colorism exists in Asian, Indian, and Latin American communities but that it has been particularly harmful to African Americans since slavery. Meanwhile Ruby declares that light skins have privileges but Rainbow, who's a light skin woman, objects to this, and Diane opens up about how she's been told she's "so pretty for a dark-skinned girl" and how society pushes the idea that lighter skin is better. |
| 105 | * 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!" |
| 106 | * ''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]]. |
| 107 | * ''Series/DearWhitePeople'': The narrator (Creator/GiancarloEsposito) states that he was selected for the role due to his being ethnic enough while still being non-threatening. 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. |
| 108 | * Portrayed in ''Series/FranksPlace''. 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: |
| 109 | -->'''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? |
| 110 | * 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 but 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. |
| 111 | * ''Series/GinnyAndGeorgia'': Bracia notes that Ginny gets it a bit easier due to being light-skinned because she's biracial, while Bracia is a dark-skinned black girl. |
| 112 | * ''Series/{{Girlfriends|2000}}'': 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." |
| 113 | * In one episode of ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'', Giardello hits it off with a black woman only for her to turn him down when he asks her on a date. The darker-skinned Giardello realizes she did so because he's out of colorism, and tells Russert he's been rejected because he's "too black" more times than he can count. |
| 114 | * A major bit of the crossover between ''Series/HowToGetAwayWithMurder'' and ''Series/{{Scandal}}'' has Annalise Keating slamming Olivia Pope on the latter being lighter-skinned and thus "getting more of a pass" by society than the darker-skinned Annalise. |
| 115 | * ''Series/LawAndOrderUK'': 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. |
| 116 | * ''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. |
| 117 | -->'''Elena:''' You're saying I can go through my whole life without being oppressed at all?\ |
| 118 | '''Penelope:''' Okay, you know that wouldn't be a bad thing, right?\ |
| 119 | '''Elena:''' ''[miffed]'' I guess... |
| 120 | * Covered in ''The Creator/PhilDonahue 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. |
| 121 | * ''{{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). |
| 122 | * ''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. |
| 123 | * ''Series/UglyBetty'': 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. |
| 124 | * ''{{Series/Vida}}'': Prejudice against darker-skinned Latinos is {{discussed|Trope}} as being common in the community. |
| 125 | ** 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". |
| 126 | ** After Emma fires Lisa after Nico reports her for stealing from the cash register, she claims that Emma only listened to her because she's "light skinned and bougie". |
| 127 | * ''Series/TheWhiteLotus'': |
| 128 | ** 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 an indigenous Hawaiian). |
| 129 | ** 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 Cameron and Daphne feel progressive, but not dark enough to threaten any of their existing biases. |
| 130 | * ''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 Neil's case, his wife is dead), while Anna and Neil are white. |
| 131 | [[/folder]] |
| 132 | |
| 133 | [[folder:Magazines]] |
| 134 | * ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' always boasted that it was the first mainstream magazine to have African American models as part of Hugh Hefner's commitment to the Civil Rights Movement. However critics pointed out that the black Playmates were more accurately described as mixed race, every one having at very least one white parent, giving them light coloured skin, straight hair and European features. |
| 135 | [[/folder]] |
| 136 | |
| 137 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 138 | * Music/JCole on his song "Crooked Smile" |
| 139 | -->''"I asked if my skin pale, would I then sell like Music/{{Eminem}} or Music/{{Adele}}?"'' |
| 140 | * Lampshaded by Music/NellyFurtado in the song "Powerless", which downright opens with her complaining "paint my face in your magazines, make it look whiter than it seems". |
| 141 | * 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. |
| 142 | * Music/PrimitiveMan 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. |
| 143 | [[/folder]] |
| 144 | |
| 145 | [[folder:Pro Wrestling]] |
| 146 | * 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) |
| 147 | [[/folder]] |
| 148 | |
| 149 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 150 | * ''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. |
| 151 | * 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. |
| 152 | [[/folder]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 155 | * 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. |
| 156 | [[/folder]] |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 159 | * Parodied by Website/TheBestPageInTheUniverse [[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=stock_photos here]]. |
| 160 | -->'''Maddox:''' She should be dark enough to score that hip diversity dollar, but not so dark as to scare away that heartland racist dollar. |
| 161 | * ''Website/NotAlwaysRight'': In [[https://notalwaysright.com/playing-the-racist-card-is-shady/84057/ "Playing the Racist Card is Shady"]], a clerk in a cosmetics store offers to help a black woman who is using foundation to lighten her face, and suggests a much darker shade. The customer accuses her of being racist for suggesting dark-colored foundation because she's black, and the clerk says they actually don't think she needs foundation in the first place because her natural skin is beautiful, shocking the customer into leaving. Several days later, the clerk sees the woman in the store again, this time with her natural dark skin and no foundation. |
| 162 | * [[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. |
| 163 | [[/folder]] |
| 164 | |
| 165 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 166 | * ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' lampshaded this with Condoleeza Rice when Stan tries to sober up a drunken George W. Bush: |
| 167 | -->'''Stan:''' Coffee! I'll get you some coffee! How do you take it?\ |
| 168 | '''Bush:''' Well, Stan, I like my coffee like my Secretaries of State, not too dark and a little sweet. |
| 169 | * 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]] |
| 170 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'': |
| 171 | ** 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. |
| 172 | ** 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. |
| 173 | ** 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. |
| 174 | --->'''Woman''': ''Oh lord, thank you Jesus. I never thought I'd ever be with a man so loving and light skinned''.\ |
| 175 | '''Man''': ''And I will always be light skinned-ed just for you''. |
| 176 | * Subtly alluded to on ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. When the girls start Photoshopping their pictures to make themselves unrealistically hot, Nichole, the one black girl, makes her skin lighter and her hair straight. (Though oddly, later it's shown dark again.) |
| 177 | [[/folder]] |
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