| 1 | %% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=s71xtv1b |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | %% Many examples have been commented out which don't provide enough context to judge whether they're valid examples. |
| 5 | %% As noted below, this trope is when some people can use a slur without causing offense while other people cannot. Just using a slur isn't enough to qualify as this trope. |
| 6 | %% The use of a slur being disallowed for EVERYONE is DEFINITELY not this trope, unless the prospect of a select group being allowed to use it is explicitly discussed, |
| 7 | %% in which case it's a DiscussedExample. |
| 8 | %% Re-appropriating a slur falls under AppropriatedAppellation, unless only some people are allowed to use the re-appropriated slur while others are not. |
| 9 | %% |
| 10 | %% |
| 11 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1453386889096713100 |
| 12 | %% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 13 | %% |
| 14 | [[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{Sinfest}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pigga.png]]]] |
| 15 | |
| 16 | ->''"Oh no, I'm white — I can't read that word."'' |
| 17 | -->-- '''Liz Lemon''', ''Series/ThirtyRock'' |
| 18 | |
| 19 | '''When people are not allowed to say slurs, or similar comments about a group of people, unless they are part of that group or otherwise granted special dispensation.''' |
| 20 | |
| 21 | [[AndThatsTerrible Derogatory slurs are wrong.]] They are used as a way to imply that a whole group of people is inferior to another group in some way(s), or, as Creator/RichardPryor memorably worded it, they "perpetuate [the] wretchedness" of a group of people. Yet, because words gain meaning from context, including the characteristics of the speaker saying those words, slurs are sometimes considered acceptable if they are spoken by people belonging to the group the slur is about, or someone given special dispensation by members of that group. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | The most notable is the word "nigger". Probably the most offensive word in the English language, it has been reclaimed and become a term of fellowship in American hip-hop culture, especially in the slang form "nigga". Yet, that fellowship only extends to those who have been accorded "[[TitleDrop N-Word Privileges]]". Putting it simply, some black people call each other this colloquially, generally when they are close friends; but if you address one of them with the word as a non-black (''especially'' white) individual, it can be an exceptionally effective method for getting some ''very'' dirty looks (and if proof of this event happens to go viral on the Internet, as through social media, it's also a great way to lose your job, lose your spouse or significant other, have your business or brand boycotted, be expelled from school, be stripped of a title or [[AwardSnub an award]], be doxxed and find yourself on the receiving end of nasty phone calls, and depending on the country, even going to jail for hate speech). |
| 24 | |
| 25 | So who has N-Word Privileges? Generally, those who are part of the group to whom the term originally applies usually get a free pass when speaking among themselves, at the risk of looking crass if saying it in mixed company. The occasional "honorary pass" (a concept that doesn't exist in every Black community) is given to others, such as Latinos saying the N-word, or straight women with [[FagHag lots of gay friends]] saying "fag", but this can be rather inconsistent, such as Music/JenniferLopez catching flack for using the N-word in a song a while back, but the Latin rap group Terror Squad would use it all the time with no issue. On the rare occasions where white people receive it, it's usually under ''very'' specific circumstances (e.g., being the only white kid in an otherwise entirely black circle of friends) and it is also understood that outside of those circumstances, they are not to use it. Even with historical context, a single use of the N-word guarantees ''at least'' a TV-PG L rating on television. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | SomeOfMyBestFriendsAreX will generally ''not'' work here. Even if such friends "grant permission" to use the slur in question, it still has the possibility of horrifying or angering anyone else. May result in very unusual dialogue if combined with FantasticRacism. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[SelfDeprecation Self-deprecating remarks and humour]] is often this on a more personal level. Just because you put yourself down, it doesn't mean other people are allowed to put you down - or even agree with such self-deprecation when applied to you. In other words, "only I'm allowed to put me down"! |
| 30 | |
| 31 | It also sometimes happens that a person is InnocentlyInsensitive or [[InnocentBigot otherwise doesn't realize]] they [[MistakenForRacist said something offensive]]; in these cases they may be given a one-time pass and let off with a warning [[CharacterDevelopment not to do it again]]. This rarely happens with the N-word itself, as there are very few people who don't already know how offensive it is, but may occur with more obscure slurs or dogwhistles. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | Compare and contrast AppropriatedAppellation and InsultOfEndearment for other ways people can turn around derogatory words. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | '''Note that simply using a slur is not enough. To be an example, the use of a slur must be considered acceptable for some people but unacceptable for others. If it's acceptable for everyone, or if it's never acceptable even for those who are part of the group to which the slur applies, it's not this trope.''' |
| 36 | |
| 37 | ---- |
| 38 | !!Examples: |
| 39 | |
| 40 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 41 | |
| 42 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 43 | * PlayedForLaughs in an ad for HR software Workday, which featured several rock stars (including [[Music/{{Kiss}} Gene Simmons]] and Music/OzzyOsbourne) warning "corporate types" to stop calling each other "rock stars", and asserting that only actual rock stars (or people who work with rock stars) can use the phrase. |
| 44 | -->'''Black executive''': You are a rock st--\ |
| 45 | [''Gene Simmons peers in and gives him a DeathGlare'']\ |
| 46 | '''Black executive''': ...I wasn't gonna say it.\ |
| 47 | [''Simmons backs out of the room without breaking eye contact''] |
| 48 | [[/folder]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 51 | * In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' the term jinchuriki means "power of the human sacrifice" and refers to people with [[EldritchAbomination bijuus]] [[SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan sealed in them]]. The titular character (himself one of them) is enraged when people who view jinchuriki as tools use it to dehumanize them but accepts it when used as a technical term. He's also okay with it being used by current/former jinchuriki. |
| 52 | [[/folder]] |
| 53 | |
| 54 | [[folder:Comedy]] |
| 55 | * Creator/GeorgeCarlin: Deconstructed in ''Doin' It Again''. |
| 56 | -->There's a different group to get pissed off at you in this country for everything you're not supposed to say. [...] Can't say Nigger, Boogie, Jig, Jigaboo, Skinhead, Junglebunny, Moolie, Mulignan, or Schwarzer. Can't say Yid, Hebe, Zebe, Kike, Mocky, Dago, Guinea, Wop, [...] Squarehead, Kraut, Jerry, Hun, Chink, Jap, Nip, Slope, Slopehead, Zip, Zipperhead, Gook. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those words in and of themselves. They're only words. It's the context that counts. It's the user. It's the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are completely neutral. The words are innocent. I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language. Bullshit! It's the context that makes them good or bad. The context. That makes them good or bad. For instance, you take the word "Nigger". There is absolutely nothing wrong with the word "Nigger" in and of itself. It's the racist asshole who's using it that you ought to be concerned about. We don't mind when Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy say it. Why? Because we know they're not racist. They're Niggers! Context. Context. We don't mind their context because we know they're black. Hey, I know I'm whitey, the blue-eyed devil, paddy, ofay, gray boy, honky, mother-fucker myself. Don't bother my ass. They're only words. You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth, even if it's an unpleasant truth, like the fact that there's a bigot and a racist in every living room on every street corner in this country. |
| 57 | %%* Creator/RichardPryor also deconstructed the trope a lot in his act. He ended up [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AltWj4iAmno renouncing his n-word privileges]] following a trip to Africa in which he found no... you know. |
| 58 | %%* Reginald D. Hunter likes to include the word in the titles of his standup tours. |
| 59 | %%-->'''Hunter:''' The actual, real name of the show is "Trophy Nigger". [[ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne Apparently some places had a problem with the word "trophy".]] |
| 60 | * Rich Vos, following a tasteful joke about Obama's black heritage to an audience filled with black people enjoying the show, only to be called out by one black audience member. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6SWN0WOq44 Naturally, he chose to question it]]: |
| 61 | -->'''Rich Vos:''' They're all upset about the white guy talking about black people. Loosen up. Turn on any black comedy and watch black comics trash white people for an hour. ''"White people crazy! They pay taxes! Crazy ass crackers!"''. |
| 62 | %%* Brazilian group Casseta & Planeta had a black and a few Jews on their squad, so they used this as a justification for any politically incorrect humor with slurs. A skit had said the black member doing a soliloquy and being interrupted: |
| 63 | %%-->-Shut up, nigger!\ |
| 64 | %%-Nigger like those who built Brazil...\ |
| 65 | %%-Shut up, darky!\ |
| 66 | %%-Darky like [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball Pelé]], who even screwed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuxa Xuxa]]...\ |
| 67 | %%-[[RuleOfThree Shut up, spook!]]\ |
| 68 | %%-Spook my ass, motherfucker! |
| 69 | %%* Creator/LouisCK has said in a routine that he prefers for people to just say the word, rather than saying "The N Word". His reasoning is that it forces the person hearing "The N Word" to think of the actual word, so you might as well just say it and take responsibility yourself instead of making others think it involuntarily. |
| 70 | * Creator/DonaldGlover: |
| 71 | ** He talks about this, saying that some black people just can't say the n-word. |
| 72 | --->'''Donald Glover:''' ''[imitating Obama]'' We stand here today, there are still some Americans who don't believe I have their best interests at heart, and I'd like to put those fears to rest today. But before I do that, I'd like to talk about how niggas be trippin'. They be trippin'. Niggas be trippin. Especially when bitches be around. |
| 73 | ** He discusses it again in his hour-long special, saying that Creator/CharlieSheen has N-word privileges after he had the audacity to call his white wife a "nigger", and that in order to remove the stigma, more white people have to start using the word casually, even though "we will lose some of you in the process". |
| 74 | ** In his music he's rapped a line about how he's "the only white rapper whose allowed to say the n-word". |
| 75 | %%* Gary Owen has a pretty creative way of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZNq8P6D8P0 getting around this problem]], while admitting to using the word quite frequently when he and other whites are not around blacks. |
| 76 | * Eddie Gossling put it simply: |
| 77 | -->'''Gossling:''' Some people wonder why black people can say the N-word and white people can't, and I think it's because we haven't always used it properly in the past. Yeah, we got a little bossy with it. Our N-word privileges have been revoked. |
| 78 | * Elon Gold says that he can say "fag", because he has a brother who is gay, and if you have a gay family member who you love and support, then you can say "fag". Or if you have a black family member and you love and support ''them''... [[BaitAndSwitch then you can say "fag" too]], because "you don't want to mess with that other shit". |
| 79 | * Chris Rock has visited the subject on several occasions: |
| 80 | ** In one HBO special, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63M34s8afbo he outlines the only instance in which a white person could have temporary N-word Privileges (for exactly one month).]] It's a very long drawn out scenario, involving a popular Christmas toy on Christmas Eve, being beaten up and peed on by a black man with a brick, within a certain time frame in the wee hours of the morning. Riverdance is also involved. If this improbable series of events occurs to you, you get privileges for a month. But you must carry the police report with you, to prove it happened. |
| 81 | ** Rock has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4 "Black people vs Niggaz" routine]] in which he contrasts "black people" (nice, normal black folks who just want to live and let live) with "niggaz" (obnoxious people who [[StopBeingStereotypical live down to the worst stereotypes]]). In one pre-show sketch, a number of black fans tell Rock how much they love the routine without incident, but a white fan who quotes the routine by saying that he loves black people but hates "niggaz" receives a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown. In recent years Rock himself has become uncomfortable with that routine, due to the number of truly racist whites who use this argument as justification for saying the n-word. |
| 82 | ** Another routine has him explain "Dr. Dre rules", which decree that it's acceptable for white people to ''sing'' the n-word as long as it's part of the lyrics in a rap song they're singing along to. |
| 83 | --->'''Chris:''' It's just ''sad'' to see some white person tryin' to do a niggaless rendition of a Dr. Dre song. |
| 84 | * Comedian Mike Birbiglia invokes this in a small skit on Two Drink Mike. "This black guy came up to me after a show and he says, 'My cracker'. 'Actually, ''you'' can't call ''me'' a cracker. You can say 'crack''a'' ', but not 'crack''er'' '."'' |
| 85 | %%* Another comedian to have gotten away with it was Creator/BillHicks, whose "Officer Nigger-Hater" routine from ''Arizona Bay'' is a big TakeThat at the LAPD (it's the last in a series of three tracks dealing with the LA riots of 1992). Much like Carlin above, no controversy ensued due to the context (specifically, mocking the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King). In context, one of the officers who beat King was actually named Koon, which was too perfect, so he invented "Officer Nigger-Hater and Officer Keep-Darkie-Down". |
| 86 | %%* Middle Eastern-origin comedians Ahmed Ahmed, Aron Kader and Maz Jobrani formed the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, the very name of which invokes this trope. Their acts frequently revolve around the Middle Eastern/Muslim equivalent of N-Word Privileges--terrorism. Jobrani has a joke about how "we're making progress! Because I'm starting to see AsianDrivers in car commercials. But you'll still never see a Middle Eastern pilot in an airline commercial." |
| 87 | * Music/TimMinchin: "Only a ginger can call another ginger ginger." |
| 88 | %%* Comedian Lisa Lampanelli, a white woman, claims to have this. Pretty much all of her material revolves around it, though. Gays, Mexicans, Asians...pretty much any separable group aren't safe either. This is mostly because she is, in her words, an [[HatesEveryoneEqually equal-opportunity insult comic]] in the vein of Creator/DonRickles; she's a regular at [[TheRoast Roasts]] and is nicknamed "The Queen of Mean". |
| 89 | * Subverted in a Eugene Mirman joke: |
| 90 | -->'''Mirman:''' Sometimes people say "I can say fag because I have a gay family member, thus it's okay". That's a horrible reason! See, it's okay for ''me'' to say fag, because I am full of hate! |
| 91 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_Hicks Rene Hicks]], after relating a GrammarCorrectionGag involving the word, proposes attaching it to something positive instead: [[https://youtu.be/0WWT8PAA7UA snack foods]]. |
| 92 | -->'''Rene''': And I'm gonna make some great flavors! Cheese Niggers. Sour Cream & Onion Niggers. And for my Latino brothers and sisters, [[PunnyName Nacho Niggers]]. But no Barbecue Niggers, because [[UnfortunateImplications I don't like the way that sounds]]. And the only time anybody will get upset when they hear that word again is when they're at a party and they don't have none. "What, no Niggers?! You can't have a party without Niggers! You got Crackers - nobody wants Crackers at a party!" |
| 93 | * Creator/JimmyCarr has joked about this: |
| 94 | -->Basically, how political correctness works in stand-up comedy is, if you are directly affected by something or involved in something, you get a free pass – you’re allowed to joke about that thing. So, for example, homosexual people can joke about being gay. Disabled people can joke about disability. Black or Asian people can joke about race. Those are the rules. So, these two pedophiles walk into a park... |
| 95 | * In a standup skit by Bill Dawes and Chocolate Sundaes titled "[[https://youtube.com/watch?si=A1LGSz_iy4LkNSq3 How a White Man says the N-Word to a Black Man]]," a white man hires a black man to follow him around and say "nigga" for him whenever he's in a conversation with black people. |
| 96 | -->'''White man:''' Now you threatening me? (''gestures to black man'')\ |
| 97 | '''Black man:''' Nigga,\ |
| 98 | '''White man:''' please. |
| 99 | [[/folder]] |
| 100 | |
| 101 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 102 | * ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': Parodied in the second issue of ''ComicBook/DarkNightsMetal'', where Aquaman insists that only he is allowed to make fish jokes. |
| 103 | * ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'': While it never saw print, originally the Brown Bomber (a white guy whose power is to turn into a superpowered black guy for an hour by shouting the words "black power!") had a scene where he asked Vixen (a black woman) whether he could say the N-Word while in his black form; she said he definitely couldn't. In a meta-example, his question [[https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-was-spider-man-nearly-superior-two-years-early/ was cut at the last minute]], but her reply was left in, leaving the entire page looking a bit bizarre and turning her response into an OrphanedPunchline. |
| 104 | * ''ComicBook/KillingAndDying'': Old white republicans who are upset at black people but can't articulate why are the subject of a black aspiring comedian's joke. He says they probably say the n-word in private just to let it out. |
| 105 | %%* ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'': In an issue of ''[[ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX Punisher MAX]]'', a member of the IRA visiting the United States goes on a rant to his friend about how he'll be "nobody's nigger ever again", forgetting that he isn't in Belfast and the word means something ''very'' different in the States. He soon finds himself surrounded by some very angry black people. |
| 106 | * ''ComicBook/QuantumAndWoody'': An issue called "Noogie" [[BreakingTheFourthWall starts with an intro]] explaining to the readers that they've been forbidden to use the "N-word", and will use the word "Noogie" instead. It then subverts it when a poor black character repeatedly calls Quantum "noogie". Quantum, who is black but whose costume covers his entire body, asks how the man knows he's black, and he responds "You're ''black?'' S-Word!" |
| 107 | ** Meanwhile, Woody (unmasked, white, and a former resident of the same neighborhood as the poor black character above)) does throw "Noogie" around without anyone but Quantum complaining, demonstrating that he does have privilege, while Quantum does not. |
| 108 | * ''[[ComicBook/RatMan1989 Rat-Man]]'': Utterly spoofed, where Brakko, who's black, is always at the receiving end of horribly racist insults from his mother-in-law... [[BoomerangBigot Who is black too but thinks she's white]], and only gets away with her insults because nobody has quite figured out how to point that out to her. |
| 109 | * ''ComicBook/StrontiumDog'': In one story, Johnny and Wulf receive some information from a fellow BountyHunter, Cecil 'Frog' Parsons. Wulf thanks him for this, referring to him as 'Frog', which causes Frog to fly into a rage about people who refer to him by his mutation instead of his name. Wulf apologizes, and then Johnny gives Frog a payment for the info, also calling him 'Frog'. When Wulf asks why he didn't get angry at Johnny, Frog matter-of-factly points out that Johnny is also a mutant, so it's different. |
| 110 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': Mocked by villain Manchester Black (who was visually Caucasian), who would frequently use this kind of word and immediately after claim it was okay for him to say that, because he was 1/16th (insert relevant minority group). At the end of his first appearance after being beaten by Superman, the Man of Steel uses this against him by taking a shot at his leadership skills, and then saying "[[MeaningfulEcho And I can say that because]] [[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague I am a leader]]." |
| 111 | * ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': Referenced, FantasticRacism style. |
| 112 | -->'''Northstar''': Sophomore year I realize I'm gay, and now you're telling me I'm a ''mutie''? \ |
| 113 | '''Angel''': Um, you may want to live the life for a bit before you start slinging derogatory terms like that, even if you're trying to reappropriate them, or whatever. |
| 114 | %%* ''ComicBook/XMen'' |
| 115 | %%** In an old issue of ''ComicBook/UncannyXMen'', where Kitty Pryde is confronting a group of her fellow students who are plotting to kill Professor Xavier during a visit to Columbia University (this was at a time that Kitty was taking college classes). One of the students, who was black, accuses Kitty of being "a mutie", to which Kitty replies: "I dunno, Phil, are you a nigger?" (The word was not censored in the original dialogue.) Ray responds predictably, prompting Kitty to call him on his hypocrisy. |
| 116 | %%** And in the ''Uncanny X-Men'' graphic novel ''ComicBook/GodLovesManKills'', Kitty's dance teacher Stevie Hunter attempts to keep Kitty from beating up a boy who'd called her a "mutie lover" (not knowing that Kitty herself was a mutant), by telling Kitty that "they're just words". Kitty immediately throws Stevie's seeming hypocrisy in her face, asking her if she'd be so calm had the boy called Kitty a "nigger lover". Both examples got a lot of flak and continue to do so, where a number of readers objected to the use of the word even if it was to make a point about tolerance, some citing the idea that it was wrong to equate the suffering of a fictional minority to the suffering of a real minority. |
| 117 | * ''ComicBook/XStatix'': The black team member Anarchist calls a black applicant a spear-chucker, and tells the Orphan (who is a purple-skinned Caucasian mutant) that he wouldn't be allowed to do the same. The Spike literally throws spears, as it happens. And this is all the more ironic when you consider that the Anarchist is adopted and his parents are white, so the Spike thinks he didn't have the right in the first place. |
| 118 | * ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'': The white Yorick's black bodyguard, Agent 355, tells him, "Nigga, please!" when asked if she's in love with him. Later, when asked if he's in love with her, he echoes her answer. She gives him a momentary look as if she's about to object, and then apparently decides to let it slide, implicitly extending him N-Word Privileges, at least in the context of that conversation. |
| 119 | [[/folder]] |
| 120 | |
| 121 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 122 | %%* [[WebVideo/YuGiOhGXTheAbridgedSeries "Limey!? How dare you!"]] |
| 123 | * From ''WebVideo/UltraFastPony'': |
| 124 | -->'''Dragon:''' What's a pegger like you doing out of the fields?\ |
| 125 | '''Fluttershy:''' Oh, hell no! You can't say that word! Only pegasus can say that word! |
| 126 | %%* In two episodes of ''Fanfic/PrettyCureHeavyMetal'', there's a black character whose favorite word just happens to be the N word. Since he's the TokenMinority, most uses of the N word in both episodes (the only exception when Shugo parodies the N word privileges of a white Australian in episode 24) go to that character. Since the author doesn't want UnfortunateImplications to arise, all uses of the word are censored like most strong profanity. When explaining the reason for the censorship, he actually invoked this trope by referring to himself as "whitey". |
| 127 | %%* In ''Fanfic/TheLastSpartan'', the FantasticSlur "Squidhead" has been adopted as a badge of pride by a Sangheili youth counterculture similar to {{Otaku}}, who have developed a fondness for human entertainment and popular culture. |
| 128 | %%* Deconstructed in [[http://pastebin.com/XmFGbHzZ this]] ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' fanfic. [[JerkAss Lilly's father]], a diabetic, refers to Yamaku as a "cripple school", [[KickTheDog insultingly questions how Hanako got her scars]][[note]]If you've played her route and know about how she got them, it's a borderline MoralEventHorizon for him[[/note]] and says Hisao is not suitable for Lilly because of his heart defect. This greatly upsets Hanako, Hisao and ''especially'' Lilly, who turns his logic back on him by arguing that he should consider her a "cripple" too. |
| 129 | %%* Spoofed twice in [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8822986/2/Kingdom-Hearts-III-Essentially-Embedded-Existence this]] ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' fanfic, TheHero Sora openly acknowledge that he's [[TheHeartless a Heartless]] and use it to justify his opinion on the current matter, [[WhatTheHellHero it was his friend who called him out on it]] ([[HilarityEnsues The context of situation usually humorous though]]). |
| 130 | * In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}[=/=]Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation'', Raj Kooprathali displays Indian patriotism in his disparaging opinion of India's Pakistani neighbors. He uses a Hindu equivalent of the N-Word to describe Pakistanis in general and one colleague in particular.[[note]]A debate about whether the Punjab and Kashmir belong to India or Pakistan got heated to the point where Janine Davis from HR had to call them into the office and enforce a ceasefire.[[/note]] The author stresses in a footnote that Raj can use the word as it's in a language mutually understood by Indians and Pakistanis. But to anyone outside the subcontinent it's a bit inflammatory.[[note]]The word in question is inflammatory even ''on'' the subcontinent. But if Howard Wolowitz, say, were to use it to Raj, it would push a BerserkButton. Even Howard would be crossing the line here.[[/note]] The Pakistani colleague promptly comes back with the Urdu/Moslem pejorative "kaffir", which boggles the mind of a "South African" who is listening to the discourse. Mutual insult over, the two go away together amicably talking about cricket - always safe ground for Pakistanis and Indians forced into each other's company. |
| 131 | * ''Fanfic/TheCelestiaCode'' features a unicorn, Jigsaw, finding out about some of the things other ancient unicorns were doing, along the lines of tribal supremacy (in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' canon, the various kinds of ponies are referred to as tribes--and, in ancient times, they ''hated each others' guts''). One insult that catches a shocked gasp from nearby Twilight is 'screwhead', referring to the horn. Jigsaw justifies it, being a unicorn herself: 'Hey, I'm a unicorn, I can use the S-word if I want!' |
| 132 | * Referenced in ''Fanfic/{{Ultrasonic}}'', a crossover fic between ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug''. At one point Marinette wonders whether Chat Noir's signature cat puns would be offensive in the world of Zootopia, coming from anyone other than a cat (as Marinette is at that moment). |
| 133 | * A variation in ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/8793565/chapters/20159878 How the Light Gets In]]'', where Dean and Laurel are both [[RecoveredAddict recovered alcoholics]]. When Laurel is inexplicably resurrected, Felicity suggests [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay making sure it's Laurel]] by offering her a glass of wine. Sara and Dean are both outraged by the idea, and a few seconds later Sara calls Oliver on his long-standing ableism towards Laurel. Upon waking, Laurel quips to Dean that [[INeedAFreakingDrink she needs a drink]]. |
| 134 | -->'''Dean:''' What? We can joke about it\ |
| 135 | '''Laurel:''' It's called GallowsHumor. |
| 136 | * In the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ImmaWiserd'', the black narrator and the other Hogwarts characters (who are {{race lift}}ed into blacks) use the word "nigga" repeatedly. When the narrator is jailed, a white police officer calls him a nigger and gets eaten by a dragon. |
| 137 | -->'''Turtle:''' Why did you put me in here? I didn't do anything.\ |
| 138 | '''Officer:''' Because you're a nigger, and as you know, we the police hate niggers.\ |
| 139 | '''Kiwan:''' YOU CAN'T USE THAT WORD!\ |
| 140 | '''Turtle:''' Yeah, that's our word! |
| 141 | * ''Fanfic/HereWeGoAgain:'' Lance Corporal Darian [[BoisterousBruiser "Rampage"]] Wilkes Jr. USMC regularly uses this on the other members of his tank crew, despite one of them being white and another hispanic. It's also made clear that Wilkes loves them all like brothers. |
| 142 | ** An [[EstablishingCharacterMoment early shining example]] as Horsemen Platoon rolls through the Gate into the Special Region with the joint JSDF/USMC expedition: |
| 143 | --->'''Wilkes:''' I spy with my little eyes... something black.\ |
| 144 | '''Elton:''' Oh shit, Rampage, lemme fucking guess, uh nothing?\ |
| 145 | '''Wilkes:''' Naw, nigga, ''you!'' |
| 146 | * In ''[[Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}} A Straight Line Down Through the Heart]]'', Cassie objects to Tom and Bonnie calling themselves "zombies" at first, but after they explain that it's nowhere near as bad as the other slurs for ex-hosts, Cassie concludes that it's okay for them to say it because they were Controllers for so long; Jake's parents are a grey area because they were only hosts for a few months, while she and Jake shouldn't say it at all because they were only briefly infested. |
| 147 | [[/folder]] |
| 148 | |
| 149 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 150 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}:'' Apparently only other rabbits are allowed to call a rabbit "[[BunniesForCuteness cute]]". This is treated more as a stereotype than an outright racial slur with Judy wanting to be judged on her actions and not dismissed due to being adorable, which is revealed to be a very real problem in Zootopia. |
| 151 | [[/folder]] |
| 152 | |
| 153 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 154 | * ''Film/BlazingSaddles''. The black characters in the movie use the N-word toward each other in a friendly manner, but all white characters who use it are stupid racists, including [[RefugeInAudacity the little old lady]]. Creator/MelBrooks stated that he intentionally wanted to [[OverlyLongGag overuse the word]] in the movie to the point that it became such nonsense that nobody could possibly be offended by it anymore. Screenwriter Creator/RichardPryor and lead actor Cleavon Little actually had to reassure the actors who were not comfortable with the use of the word on set. |
| 155 | ** Creator/MelBrooks made a ''career'' of this. Hitler jokes would probably be a bad idea for most comedians, but a Jewish UsefulNotes/WorldWarII veteran? He can [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line so many times]] it looks like a one-man game of ping-pong, especially if he's making Jewish jokes. The kind of humor in ''Film/BlazingSaddles'' would likely never fly with anyone other than Brooks and Pryor. |
| 156 | * In ''Film/MeanGirls'', Janis claims calling Damian "too gay to function" is only funny when she (herself possibly [[AmbiguouslyGay gay]] or [[AmbiguouslyBi bisexual]]) says it; she gets upset over it being written in the burn book. |
| 157 | * In ''Film/RushHour'', Carter (Chris Tucker) says, "Wassup, mah nigga!" to some of his friends at a bar -- after having told Lee (Creator/JackieChan) to follow his lead. When Carter leaves the room to question an informant, Lee (who's new to the United States) cheerfully uses the same greeting with the bartender, completely unaware of any UnfortunateImplications. It doesn't go down so well. [[RefugeInAudacity And when Lee is asked to repeat himself, he says it AGAIN, slowly and clearly...]] |
| 158 | * In ''Film/WhiteChicks'', two black men under cover as white {{Rich Bitch}}es make the mistake of singing along with a rap song on the radio, which they are clearly used to doing as black men but which is horrifying coming out of the mouths of what ([[PaperThinDisguise ostensibly]]) appear to be white women. When the genuine {{Rich Bitch}}es in the car with them get shocked, they respond, "No one's listening, right?" Cut to the whole car singing along with a [[ClusterFBomb Cluster N Bomb]], grinning and giggling girlishly at their transgressiveness. |
| 159 | * ''Film/{{Bamboozled}}'' has an in-character discussion of who is actually entitled to N-word privileges, based heavily on Creator/SpikeLee's [[WriterOnBoard personal gripe with]] Creator/QuentinTarantino frequently using the word in most of his films. Wayans has a conversation with his white boss. The boss contrasts himself with the starch-suited, [[SpockSpeak very carefully spoken]], single and uptown-living Wayans, saying, "I have a black wife, black children, hell, I even used to live in the ghetto, so I feel I'm entitled to use that word". Wayans says he'd prefer his boss didn't, at which the boss scowls and proceeds to drop a cluster N-bomb, never at any point directing it at Wayans, just saying the word a lot. The scene (without apparent transition) then becomes a fantasy Wayans has of violently assaulting his boss and beating his face in all while screaming "Whitey! Whitey! Whitey!" |
| 160 | * ''Film/GranTorino'': Averted by the otherwise NobleBigot protagonist, Walter. When confronting some black gangsters, he refer to them as "spooks" even though it would have made more sense for a heavily racist man of his age to drop the n-word. Reviewers commented on it, saying it was obviously done that way because it would be incredibly hard for a white character to say that word in a modern film while still remaining sympathetic to the audience. |
| 161 | * ''Film/LeprechaunInTheHood'' and ''Film/LeprechaunBack2ThaHood'' have pretty much all the black characters regularly using the word to refer to each other, almost exclusively good naturedly. In the latter, when a minor white character cheerfully uses it during a drug deal everyone (including people in the background) just stare at him in disgust, with a [[RecordNeedleScratch record scratch noise]] (and the sound of a ''car braking'') even being heard when the guy utters the word. Of note, at one point in the movie one of the main characters tells another that "nigga" is actually out and that the new word is "ninja". |
| 162 | -->'''The Leprechaun:''' Whassup, ninjas!? |
| 163 | %%* In ''Film/TheHebrewHammer'', when Mordecai meets with the head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front (Muhammad Ali Paula Abdul Rahim), Mordecai and he greet each other as "nigger" and "kike". The KLF's white accountant lampshades this. |
| 164 | * In the 1990 movie ''Heart Condition'', Bob Hoskins is a racist cop who, on arresting a black man (Denzel Washington), uses the N-word. His (black) boss explains to him that that while he (the boss) can say "Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger", Hoskins' character, being white, cannot. Hoskins later gets to justifiably refer to Washington's character as a "spook". |
| 165 | * In the 1950 film ''The Lawless'', fruit pickers Lopo and Paul address each other as "cholo", but when [[JerkJock overprivileged white boy]] Joe uses the term, those are [[BerserkButton fighting words]]. |
| 166 | %%* Played with in the Russian film ''Film/{{Brother 2}}'' by Aleksey Balabanov. The Russian main character Danila gets in trouble with a black bum when he calls him "negro". Upon being explained why he can't say "negro", Danila is completely bewildered; in Russian, negro is a neutral word to describe a black person: "That's what I was taught in school: the Chinese live in China, the Germans in Germany, the Jews in Israel and Negroes in Africa." Ironically, his brother and prostitute friend's blatantly racist remarks go unnoticed, as they are said in Russian. |
| 167 | %%* One character in the British war film ''Film/TheDamBusters'' has a black Labrador dog named... [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgePEO7GUtE um, yeah]]. It's also one of the code words for a successful operation. They dubbed "Trigger" in for rereleases, but the original is kept on the British DVD and Blu-Ray. Noteworthy, the censorship caused confusion because "Trigger" was the name of Roy Rogers' horse. |
| 168 | * Inverted in ''Film/TropicThunder'' : when black rapper Alpa Chino uses the word, Kirk Lazarus (an extreme method actor who stays in-character at all times and underwent cosmetic surgery to darken his skin in order to play the black Lincoln Osiris) gets dead serious and sternly chastises him for it, claiming that "for four hundred years, that word has kept us down". Predictably, this confuses the hell out of Alpa. |
| 169 | ** Doubled down upon later in the film when Tugg says "You people". |
| 170 | --->'''Kirk Lazarus''': What do you mean, "you people"?\ |
| 171 | '''Alpa Chino''': What do ''you'' mean, you mean "you people"!? |
| 172 | * In ''Film/DownToEarth2001'', the main character tends to forget that he's a black man who's trapped in a white body. The first time he performs his regular comedy routine in his new body, the audience is shocked into silence. He later gets knocked out by a couple of black guys for singing N-word containing lyrics in public. |
| 173 | * The {{blaxploitation}} film ''Film/BossNigger'' concerns two black bounty hunters who set themselves up as sheriffs in a white town. They declare it illegal for the "whiteys" to refer to them as "niggers", but use the word indiscriminately themselves. |
| 174 | * In ''Film/TheHebrewHammer'', Mordecai Jefferson Carver (Jewish) and Muhammad Ali Paula Abdul Raheem (black) address each other as "my kike" and "my nigger" when they first greet each other in the film. When the TokenWhiteGuy points out that they just called each other by racial slurs, they say, "It's OK when we say it." |
| 175 | * An example of privileges beings extended (sort of) to a out-group member from ''Film/BriansSong'': during a workout/physical therapy session for his friend Gale Sayers (played by Billy Dee Williams), Brian Piccolo (played by James Caan) calls him a nigger, hoping to motivate Sayers by making him angry enough to forget his despondency over his low chances of recovery. As soon as he says it, Sayers stares at him, shocked, for a few seconds... then busts up laughing. |
| 176 | --> '''Gale Sayers:''' ''[to his wife, through tears of laughter]'' Oh, babe, you won't believe it. Brian ''tried'' to call me 'nigger'! |
| 177 | * The documentary ''Fagbug'' is an interesting example: in 2007, a lesbian graduate student named Erin Davies discovered her VW Bug to have been vandalized by someone who spray-painted the words "fag" and "U R Gay", presumably because she had a rainbow sticker in her window. After discover her insurance wouldn't cover the cost to get the paint removed, she decided to just drive around with the car as is, and after getting many interesting reactions to the car decided to drive around the country interviewing people about their reactions to it: some were supportive of her, others were obviously uncomfortable with the word showing up in public, and some people even tried to remove the word from her car (Davies even had to re-paint the word "fag" back onto her window before her trip). She also discovered she couldn't get vanity license plates with the word "[=FagBug=]" on them, so she had to settle for "FG BUG". After a year she got the paint removed... and got her car detailed so it's now rainbow colored and has the word "Fag Bug" emblazoned on its side. Davies now uses the car as an instructional tool for her talks about homophobia and prejudice. |
| 178 | * Cree Canadian filmmaker Neil Diamond opens the narration of his 2009 documentary film ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reel_Injun Reel Injun]]'' thusly: "I am an Injun", the last word of which is currently considered a heavily racist slur (he's not a BoomerangBigot; the movie then does an excellent job picking apart Hollywood's depiction of the indigenous people of North America, who have historically been called 'Indians' or 'Injuns'). |
| 179 | * Played with in ''Film/CabinFever'' when a very redneck-looking man says his gun is "for niggers". The main characters are all thoroughly shocked and want to get away from him as soon as possible. Turns into a BrickJoke at the end of the movie when a bunch of Black guys show up and it is revealed that the white guy was just holding the gun for them and he really does have [=N-Word=] Privileges with them, since they're his friends. |
| 180 | * One of the things that escalates the tragic situation at the end of ''Film/FruitvaleStation'' is that a white BART cop mockingly repeats the phrase "Bitch ass nigger" after Oscar says it. When Oscar tells the cop that he doesn't get to say that, the cop repeats it again just to rub it in. |
| 181 | * {{Inverted}} by Creator/GregoryPeck in ''Film/GentlemansAgreement'' to his Jewish secretary since he thinks it's wrong to be using those words — even when you're referring to yourself, as she did when she called herself a "kike" — when he says, "I find it offensive when someone calls another person, or even themselves, a kike, a spic, a wop, a nigger, a dago, or a gook, because, whether you realize it or not, it's meant to demean and to degrade them." |
| 182 | * ''[[Film/{{Gridlockd}} Gridlock'd]]'': Stretch, a white man, is TrueCompanions with Spoon and Cookie, a black man and woman. Consequently, he has [=N-Word=] Privileges with them. However, he manages to enrage a black drug dealer by using the word on him. Spoon has to pull Stretch aside and remind him that he can't use the word around other black people, but Stretch stubbornly insists that it's a "term of endearment". |
| 183 | * ''Cleaver Family Reunion'' has the black family members using the term quite extensively, especially [[spoiler:Grandma Cleaver]]. When it turns out that [[spoiler:Grandma Cleaver]] is actually biologically white, her right to use the word is questioned, but she reasserts it by using it several more times in the next sentence. |
| 184 | * ''Film/BoyzNTheHood'': Subverted. The black police officer Coffey uses the N-word freely... because he's a terrifying BoomerangBigot who hates other blacks. When he uses it, it's with genuine mal intent. |
| 185 | * In ''Film/{{Dope}}'', Will comments that it doesn't seem fair that the main three can call him the word but he can't use it. He questions if [[AmbiguouslyBrown Jib]] can say it, to which Jib cites that his DNA test says he's part African. |
| 186 | * {{Defied|Trope}} in ''Film/CoachCarter'': |
| 187 | -->'''Carter:''' "Nigger" is a derogatory term used to insult our ancestors. See, if a white man used it, you'd be ready to fight. Your using it teaches him to use it. You're saying it's cool. Well, it's not cool, and when you're around me, I don't want to hear that shit! Are we clear? |
| 188 | * Discussed, parodied, and deconstructed in ''Film/ClerksII''. Randal and Dante get into a debate about the term "porch monkey". Dante feels it's a racist term aimed at black people while Randal feels it can just be used as a general term for people being lazy with no relation to race. Dante tries to argue that only black people can use the word because of its origins, only for Randal to point out that dictating what people are allowed to say based on their skin color is just as racist as using the word to begin with. Randal's subsequent attempt to "reclaim" the term (complete with a jacket that has "PORCH MONKEY 4 LIFE" stenciled on the back) goes as poorly as you'd expect. |
| 189 | -->'''[Black] Cop:''' 'Porch Monkey'?! You son of a bitch!\ |
| 190 | '''Randal:''' Nah, it's cool; I'm takin' it back! |
| 191 | * ''Film/TheGreenInferno'': When a passerby gives Kaycee a look after hearing her say something disparaging about Jews, she says "I'm Jewish" and shows her a Star of David pendant she wears. |
| 192 | * ''Film/DeepCover'': Played with. Lt. Carver interviews three different black police officers to see if they can be recruited for his undercover program by bluntly asking each of them "What's the difference between a black man and a nigger?". The first one tries to awkwardly answer the question thus showing that he's too docile, the second one flies into a rage which shows that he's too easily provoked, but the third calmly tells him "only a nigger would answer that question" to show him as more cunning and diplomatic than the previous two. At the end of the film, he does [[IronicEcho repeat the question]] and punches Carver in the stomach. |
| 193 | * ''Film/UndercoverBrother''. Conspiracy Brother (who is black) uses the N-word when talking to Conspiracy Brother, who is also black. None of the members of The Man's white supremacist organization (Mr. Feather, The Man himself, White She-Devil etc.) ever use the word, even though, being out-and-out racists, they logically would. |
| 194 | * In ''Film/ValdezIsComing'', Valdez does not like the various racial epithets that Tanner and his men casually hurl around ('nigger', 'coon', 'greaser', etc.), but he and his friend Diego have no problems in referring to themselves as 'greasers' when there are no Anglos about. |
| 195 | * ''Film/TheKentuckyFriedMovie'' has a spoofed aversion with the sketch "Rex Kramer, Danger Seeker". Rex, a (white) part-time daredevil, walks up to a group of African-American men playing dice in the street and plants himself in the middle of them. Once he has their full attention, he screams "NIGGERS!" at the top of his lungs and takes off running. After a collective [[BigWhat "Say WHAT?"]], the African-American men chase after him. |
| 196 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/ArmyOfTheDead''. During the planning for the heist, Tanaka tells the crew that the job should be "easy, peasy, Japanesey". When Dieter (the dorky German safecracker) objects and insists on the more politically-correct "lemon-squeezy", Tanaka awkwardly points out that he is, in fact, Japanesey and so he can use that line. Eventually Tanaka acquiesces and uses "lemon-squeezy", deciding it's not an argument worth having. |
| 197 | * Played with in ''Film/TheBoondockSaints''. StraightGay detective Smecker acts like this in place and casually drops in homophobic slurs in conversation (including calling a one night stand a fag for cuddling), but the other gay men in the movie are clearly offended by it. |
| 198 | * ''Film/HaroldAndKumarGoToWhiteCastle'': In one scene, when Harold (Korean-American) and Kumar (Indian-American) encounter the extreme sports punks at a gas station, one punk taunts Kumar with [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "Thank you, come again!"]]. Later, when Harold and Kumar steal their truck, [[IronicEcho Kumar says it back to them as they're driving away]]. |
| 199 | * ''Film/Devotion2022'': Despite the film being set in 1950, the black protagonist Jesse Brown is the only character to use the N-word in the film. While this is in the context of him repeating past insults from white men as a SurvivalMantra, no other character ever uses the word, including the racist Marine officer he tangles with a couple of times. |
| 200 | * Subverted in ''Film/TheAmericanSocietyOfMagicalNegroes''; Aren the protagonist is black, but is uncomfortable saying the society's full name out loud. |
| 201 | * In ''Film/DirtyGrandpa'', Creator/RobertDeNiro's character sings "It Was a Good Day" on Karaoke. When he gets to the n-word in the song he asks for permission from the black people in the audience, who all cheer him on. |
| 202 | [[/folder]] |
| 203 | |
| 204 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 205 | * In ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'', Foaly notes that it is only acceptable to call a fairy by their species name if the speaker is a close friend. This presumably glances off the real-world use of "fairy" as an insulting term for homosexual males. (There are no concerted attempts by gay men to reclaim '''that''' word.) |
| 206 | %%* In Creator/MichaelChabon's ''Literature/TheYiddishPolicemensUnion'', the Jews of Sitka have come to use "yid" as a catch-all term for a Jewish person, like "dude" or "guy". This would be understandable for an all-Jewish metropolis even if "yid" in Yiddish, the language they're speaking, didn't already mean exactly that. |
| 207 | %%* Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory titled his autobiography ''Nigger''. The dedication page reads: |
| 208 | %%-->To Mama: Wherever you are, remember, when you hear the word "nigger", they are advertising my book. |
| 209 | * Subverted in Literature/BlackMan. When Carl (a Brit of African decent) spends some time in a Florida jail he doesn't appreciate when his fellow black inmates uses their privilege. |
| 210 | * A RunningGag in one of Creator/RobertRankin's Brentford novels is a character using a derogatory word and when called on it, saying "It's not racist if you're <minority group>". Eventually subverted when the police inspector says this after calling O'Malley a "mick". A constable points out he's ''not'' Irish and gets the response "No lad, I'm a policeman." |
| 211 | * Nonverbal: In ''Literature/TheChemoKid'', the titular kid shows up to the school Halloween party wearing a grotesque mask that parodies someone undergoing chemotherapy. The coach is incensed, until the kid takes the mask off. |
| 212 | * ''Literature/DanShambleZombiePI'': Dan finds the off-color monster jokes of his [=BHF=] (Best Human Friend) [=McGoo=] objectionable, but has no problem with the vampire jokes in Tiffany's open-mike comedy routine. When [=McGoo=] complains about the inconsistency, Dan points out that, being a vampire herself, Tiffany is "allowed" to tell jokes like that. |
| 213 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 214 | ** The equivalent 'n-word' for Dwarfs is "lawn ornament" which is considered a capital insult for non-dwarfs but is used by one Dwarf boss to his crew in ''Literature/MovingPictures''. In ''Literature/WyrdSisters'' Hwel allows Vitoller to call him that, because they're old friends, but not anyone else ("Some things you earn"). |
| 215 | ** For trolls, the equivalent slur is "rock". In ''Literature/SoulMusic'', Lias Bluestone explains to Imp y Celyn that humans should be rather careful about how they use the term. Imp, being an outsider, naively said "I don't like rocks" in reference to actual stones, so Lias gives him a pass for being InnocentlyInsensitive rather than, as would usually be the case, making him go a few blocks away to look for his head. |
| 216 | ** In ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'', Captain Carrot has entered a crime scene surreptitiously by pretending he's renting the flat, and then let Angua (a werewolf) through the window. When the landlady approaches, Carrot reminds Angua he was told he wasn't allowed women in his room, and Angua replies, "Or pets, so she's got me coming and going. Don't look at me like that, it's only bad taste if somebody else says it." |
| 217 | ** Throughout the series, being called a monkey is the Librarian's BerserkButton (orangutans are ''apes'', thank you very much). Even ''saying'' the word monkey, regardless of the context, will get his dander up. However, he has used the word monkey himself several times. In ''Literature/TheScienceOfDiscworld'', he uses the phrase "Monkey see, monkey do" after teaching Roundworld's proto-humans to use tools. Rincewind replies, "I'm glad it was ''you'' who said it." |
| 218 | *** The Librarian grants at least one person a temporary M-Word Pass; a couple of upperclassmen had told a new student that "Monkey" was an affectionate nickname for the librarian. The Librarian pats the kid gently on the head and takes out his wrath on the upperclassmen instead. |
| 219 | ** It's a deadly insult to abbreviate a goblin's NameThatUnfoldsLikeLotusBlossom, and goblins have little patience for human ignorance on the subject, given the horrible FantasticRacism goblins regularly suffer. There's one example of a goblin who allows a trusted human friend to call him by a nickname -- they're both cops, and the goblin reasons that in a fight it's easier for the human to call him the shortened name than the full name -- and other goblins are mildly scandalized by it. |
| 220 | * ''Literature/DragonsTeeth'': Lanny talks on the phone with a friend of his, Italian-American journalist Pietro "Pete" Corsatti. He remembers with amazement Corsatti's habit of referring to his fellow Italian-Americans as "wops." |
| 221 | * ''Literature/DresdenFiles'': |
| 222 | ** Ebeneezer [=McCoy=] is friends with a Native American member of the White Council and refers to him as "Injun Joe". Joe makes it clear that [=McCoy=] is the only person allowed to call him that because they've been friends for several lifetimes. He also gets in his own zingers, responding that [=McCoy=] is too much of a backwoods hick to realize that the modern, politically correct term is "Native American Joe". |
| 223 | ** Karrin Murphy is a vehement feminist who reacts badly to any man saying sexist things...yet has no problem calling Harry a "pussy" when he refuses to jump into a lake. Harry totally accepts this. |
| 224 | * Used and discussed in ''Literature/TheFifthSeason'' with "rogga", the FantasticSlur for people born "cursed" with the FunctionalMagic of orogeny. Essun is very uncomfortable with fellow orogenes who call themselves roggas -- one to destigmatize the word, another to emphasize how utterly nightmarish TheEmpire's {{Dehumanization}} of orogenes really is -- but coldly tells a non-orogene newcomer not to say "rogga" because she hasn't earned that level of trust yet. |
| 225 | * In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', 'Mudblood' is a deeply offensive term for Muggle-born wizards. Hermione reclaims the term to refer to herself. |
| 226 | * Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{IT}}'' has a variant on this in that the Loser's club all have "N-word privileges" with respect to each other. Thus, it's okay for a member of the club to make fun of Stan for being Jewish or Ben for being fat or Bill for his stutter, but God help any outsider who does the same thing. |
| 227 | %%* Deconstructed in [[http://www.deanatta.co.uk/home Dean Atta]]'s poem "I am Nobody's Nigger", and his subsequent [[Creator/TheBBC Radio 4]] documentary ... which was called "Nobody's N-Word". |
| 228 | * The novel ''Literature/NiggerHeaven''. Blacks can call themselves the N-Word as a form of self identity, but as soon as a white uses it, it becomes derogatory. And the term "Negress" isn't allowed at ALL. |
| 229 | * In ''Literature/TheSantarogaBarrier'' by Creator/FrankHerbert, there's a black guy who's in a relationship with a white girl and is called a "damn nigger" by her father. He claims it was done in an affectionate way and wasn't worse for him than someone using the words "blondie" or "redhead", but adds that you may have to be black to understand this reasoning. (The story is set in a kinda {{utopia}}n community, which is also a TownWithADarkSecret.) |
| 230 | %%* [[SpellMyNameWithAThe The Lopen]] in ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' apparently has Roshar's biggest collection of one-armed Herdazian jokes. Herdazians being an ethnic group often looked down upon by others. |
| 231 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', especially in the ''Literature/{{Eisenhorn}}'' novels, uses a FantasticRacism variant. In the Imperium, the word "twist" is used as a derogatory term for mutants; the mutants themselves have reclaimed this word, wearing it as a badge of pride, and Inquisitor Eisenhorn notes that "a slur stops being a slur when you use it to describe yourself". Similarly, it's entirely acceptable for psykers to refer to themselves as "brainjobs" and for non-psykers to call themselves "blunts", but for either group to use the other's term is highly offensive. |
| 232 | [[/folder]] |
| 233 | |
| 234 | [[folder:Live-Action TV ]] |
| 235 | %%* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Tara Maclay in this cut scene from "Dead Things". |
| 236 | %%--> '''Tara:''' Sweetie, I'm a fag. I've been there. |
| 237 | %%* ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'': The word "nigger" was used in at least three episodes, all dealing with racism. These include: |
| 238 | %%* ''Series/FamilyTies'': At least two episodes: |
| 239 | %%** In the two-part episode from 1988 called "Read it and Weep", Jennifer refuses to review another mundane Yogi Berra book, instead choosing ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', which had been banned for its repeated use of the word "nigger". The discussion on the suitability of "Huck Finn" in an educational setting includes Steven, the father, saying the word "nigger" (referring to the character "Nigger Jim") at least once. |
| 240 | %%** One of the final episodes was "All in the Neighborhood", which saw an African-American family's house heavily vandalized, and the n-word is spray-painted several times on the walls. The Keatons and their neighbors are forced to confront their deep-seated feelings of racism. |
| 241 | %%* ''Series/FamilyMatters'': In "Fight the Good Fight", Laura's locker is spray-painted with the word "nigger" (this in response to efforts by Laura and Urkel to begin a Black History Month unit at their school). The original episode was intact in terrestrial syndication prints and ABC Family, but in [=TVLand=]/[=NickAtNite=] airings the scene quickly fades to a commercial before Laura discovers the offending word. |
| 242 | %%* ''Series/TheJeffersons'': |
| 243 | %%** George got away with using the word "honky" -- the derisive word for whites, often used by blacks -- many times, but (much like Norman Lear's other comedies) rarely was the n-word uttered. One notable exception was "Sorry, Wrong Meeting", where the Jeffersons, the Willises (a racially mixed couple), Florence and Mr. Bentley have an all-too-close encounter with the Klu Klux Klan. The Supreme Leader, Herbert Purcell (veteran stage and TV actor James Karen) and his son, Dwayne, have organized a meeting that Tom thinks is one to deal with burglaries inside the high-rise, but it isn't until George arrives and the meeting gets underway that George, Tom and Mr. Bentley see that Purcell's meeting is a KKK meeting to run blacks out of Manhattan. Purcell uses the word "nigger" several times, incensing the main characters many times. When the elder Purcell suddenly falls ill with a heart attack, he must rely on George -- an African-American and the very type of person he despises -- to save his life ... and when he does, nobody is prepared for Purcell's show of "gratitude". [[spoiler:He tells his son "you should have let me die."]] |
| 244 | %%** In another episode Tom Willis finally confronts George about calling him a honky, asking how George would feel if he called him a nigger. |
| 245 | %%* Donald Trump once fired a guy in the reality show ''Series/TheApprentice'' for using the term "White Trash" to describe himself during a Boardroom session. |
| 246 | * ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': |
| 247 | ** Charlie is MistakenForRacist in one episode because he repeats something said by Dee's black friend, which happened to include a use of the N-word. He's apparently unaware white guys aren't supposed to say it. |
| 248 | ** Lampooned in another episode, where Dennis, Charlie and Mac get into a heated discussion about whether or not the word "Jew" is offensive. At one point, Mac argues that [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything it's only okay to say if you're actually Jewish and surrounded by other people of the Jewish faith]]. |
| 249 | ** This is the point of the episode "Hero or Hate Crime". In it, Frank calls Mac a "faggot" to save him from a falling piano, which results in them going to an arbiter to find out who gets a lottery ticket that each believe they have a claim to that they found during the incident. When Mac asks why Frank called him a slur, Frank claims he needed a word that would "cut right through", prompting Mac to ask what word that does that would he have used in the same situation to call to the arbiter, a black woman. After some stalling, Charlie suggests the N-word, but claims it's not hate speech because he was just suggesting it. They eventually conclude some words just should not be used, but proceed to argue over which words these are. |
| 250 | ** During an episode where the characters perform a FreakyFridayFlip and all turn into black people, Frank is excited at the opportunity to finally say the n-word without repercussion and even [[MusicalEpisode sings a song about it]], despite Dee repeatedly telling him not to. |
| 251 | * The introduction to Turk in the first episode of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' featured him and JD having a conversation about whether JD could say the "N word" if it comes up in a rap song to which they're singing along. (For the record, Turk said no.) |
| 252 | * The UK series of ''Series/BigBrother 2007'' ejected a housemate named Emily Parr because she had used the N-Bomb in conversation with fellow housemate Charley...who had also used it. Yet, Emily Parr was ejected, Charley remained. Charley was black, which is probably why she was allowed to get away with it. Of course similar controversies arose because she had also used the word and had used it several times throughout the series. (The incident in question happened early on.) |
| 253 | * ''Series/TheOfficeUS'': In the episode "Diversity Day", the second episode of the series and the first to not be a remake of an episode of the British version, the plot begins after Michael does a Chris Rock routine resulting in the office undergoing diversity training. He at one point asks whether the reason the comedian can do it and he can't is because he is white and Chris Rock is black, but ignores this revelation and proceeds to make things worse. |
| 254 | * ''Series/BostonPublic'': |
| 255 | ** An episode featured a white teacher using the standard slur when teaching a history class of mostly black students in order to start talking about Afrophobia and language, with the subsequent uproar. He was actually teaching them about the cultural impact about it because of two students — one black, one white. The black one referred to the white one as "his nigga", and in turn, let the white one refer to him as such. Both were completely comfortable with this situation. Enter third party, skin color black, plot ensues. |
| 256 | ** The old Jewish teacher gets away with it because he's not only very very old (in his 80's) but he has a black son, grandson, and great-grandson. |
| 257 | * ''Series/ThirtyRock'': |
| 258 | ** Played with when Tracy calls Toofer by the "n" word. The square Toofer didn't know about how the term had been reappropriated, and he makes an official complaint about it to Jack, who gives a pretty good summary for why this trope is in play: "You see Toofer, the African-American community has adopted that word for everyday use, in an attempt to rob it of its meaning." This is made even funnier when Toofer then starts to come around to the idea and attempts to use the N-Word in the same way, only for everyone to react with offense that he has just "dropped the N-bomb", and ''Tracy'' wants to make a complaint - the joke being that although black, Toofer is so "[[TheWhitestBlackGuy whitefied]]" that it sounds like a slur coming from him. Interestingly, both of the N-words have to be obscured with sound effects. N-Word Privileges don't cut it with the censors. |
| 259 | ** Jack and Liz are also under the impression that "Puerto Rican" works like this. |
| 260 | --->'''Jack:''' No, I know that's what ''you'' call you, but what do ''I'' call you? |
| 261 | ** In another episode, Liz refers to herself as a "sister" during a phone conversation with a black woman, only to quickly claim she meant it in the "feminist" way. [[DiggingYourselfDeeper She then tries to claim it's okay for her to use "sister" while talking to black people because she too is black, but ends up admitting she isn't when she realizes she's going to meet the woman in person anyway]]. |
| 262 | ** And another example in "Argus", where Liz reads aloud from a note given to her by Grizz. |
| 263 | --->'''Liz''': "And if you care about me, you'll respect my decision. I will always be your..." Oh no, I'm white. I can't say that word. Um... "Friend from the neighborhood. Grizz." |
| 264 | * In an episode of the black sitcom ''Girlfriends'', Joan and Toni are irritated by Lynn's sister (via adoption), a Caucasian so deeply immersed in black culture that she acts "blacker" than the main cast, but Lynn and Maya defend her... until [[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jayz/izzohova.html a Jay-Z song]] comes on the radio and she makes the mistake of singing along. |
| 265 | * ''Series/{{Angel}}'' provides a FantasticRacism example in electric-powered mutant Gwen: "What I don't appreciate, Elliot, is being called a freak. That's my word, and I get cranky when people like you use it." |
| 266 | * ''Series/TheDailyShow'': |
| 267 | ** Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore, discussing Barack Obama's potential choice of running mates, explained that he needed to choose someone who wouldn't turn him into a {{sidekick}} or the MagicalNegro. |
| 268 | ---> '''Jon Stewart:''' The magical...?\ |
| 269 | '''Larry Wilmore:''' You can say it.\ |
| 270 | '''Jon Stewart:''' The magical... I'd rather not.\ |
| 271 | '''Larry Wilmore:''' Good, that was a test. |
| 272 | ** Also spoofed on a segment specifically on the N word, where one of the (white) correspondents dragged Larry around with him on interviews for the sole purpose of saying it. (Members of other minorities made very brief cameo appearances to provide their own examples of slurs.) |
| 273 | ** Spoofed in a RunningGag involving a minor controversy over a hunting camp with an unfortunate name regularly used by Rick Perry. Perry keeps avoiding saying its name for obvious reasons, and none of the ''Daily Show'' staff want to either, so whenever it comes up they replay a clip of Herman Cain explaining that "the place is called Niggerhead". |
| 274 | ** For the "Wilmore Awards", one of the categories was "White people who think it's okay to use the N-word". Wilmore uses it to make a point, and then makes clear that no, adopting a black kid does not give you N-Word Privileges. |
| 275 | %%** A 2012 episode had one of the black correspondents use it twice to a PETA advocate, who was stunned speechless. |
| 276 | * ''Series/TheColbertReport'' |
| 277 | ** Colbert has a RunningGag of "I don't see race. My friends tell me I'm white, and I believe them because of (insert reason here)". One of the reasons was his not being allowed to say the "N" word. |
| 278 | ** There is also Colbert's interview with Jabari Asim, author of ''The N-Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why'': |
| 279 | --->'''Colbert''': First question. Did you want to name the book ''The N-Word'' and they said, "No, you have to call it ''The N-Word''"? Or, did you say, "I want to name this book ''The N-Word''", and they assumed you meant, you know, ''The N-Word'', when in fact you meant ''The N-Word''?\ |
| 280 | '''Asim:''' I think I suggested calling it ''The N-Word'' and they thought it was a good idea to play it safe and call it ''The N-Word''.\ |
| 281 | '''Colbert''': OK, this actually, this raises another interesting subject to me, is that ''the N-word'' has become so anonymous [sic] with ''the N-word'', uh, is saying ''the N-word'' pretty much like saying ''the N-word''? Because I would never say ''the N-word'', but I don't want somebody to think I'm saying ''the N-word'' by saying ''the N-word''. You know what I mean? Because I would never say that word that begins with the letter after M. |
| 282 | %%** The show did a skit where Colbert talked about people using the word "negro" to a point where any more use would make it acceptable in any context. He then kept repeating the word, soon getting the audience to join in and one of his stage hands. He then asked ''Creator/MorganFreeman'' to join in. Freeman slowly shook his head "no", prompting Colbert to end the segment. |
| 283 | %%** Then, on July 26, 2011 Stephen parodied this by using Reagan in place of the n-word, after Obama quoted Reagan in his calls to raise taxes on the rich. |
| 284 | %%** He also had an idea for Southerners who are offended by the word "slaveowner" to do the same thing that black people did with the N-word. He then starts calling everybody "slayvah" (e.g. "slayvah, please"). |
| 285 | %%* There were issues with this word in regard to ExecutiveMeddling over ''Series/ChappellesShow,'' and apparently this is one of the reasons Dave abandoned it. On the show itself, parodied with the "Niggar Family" sketch. |
| 286 | * ''Series/Girls5eva'': Dawn (who is white) is hesitant to say the drink negroni in front of the black Wickie. Gets a CallBack in "Catskills" when she says she looked it up and she can say it because it was named for a real person (Count Camillo Negroni). |
| 287 | -->'''Wickie:''' Why are you whispering?\ |
| 288 | '''Dawn:''' I'm aware of the history of the word, okay? |
| 289 | * A running gag of a ''Series/MindOfMencia'' sketch involves Carlos Mencia attempting to get a license plate with some permutation of letters similar to the N-word. (Claiming his family is Indian and their family name is Neega, etc.) Finally, he asks for a plate with the word "wetback" (an equivalent word, but used to attack Mexicans) and is immediately approved. |
| 290 | * ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'': Spoofed on an episode where Jerry suspects a dentist converted to Judaism just so that he could make Jewish jokes without causing offense. He also still tells Catholic jokes, justifying it by saying he used to be Catholic. Jerry theorizes that he's after "total joke-telling immunity" and is afraid that "if he ever gets Polish citizenship, there'll be no stopping him!". Later Jerry visits the dentist's former Catholic priest and tells him about this. |
| 291 | -->'''Priest:''' And this offends you as a Jewish person?\ |
| 292 | '''Jerry:''' No, it offends me as a ''comedian''! |
| 293 | * On ''Series/TheMuppetShow'', pigs are particularly sensitive to non-pigs who make reference to the meat of pigs, even the mention of Sir Francis Bacon as part of a panel discussion on whether he was the true author of works attributed to William Shakespeare. Pigs, on the other hand, can make such jokes freely. This is also seen ''Film/TheMuppetMovie'', where Miss Piggy twice reacts visibly to pig jokes. First, a MadScientist threatens Kermit in front of her, which is already a bad idea in and of itself, but then he compounds the offense by claiming that soon Kermit wouldn't be able to tell her apart from "kosher bacon". Later, when Dr. Teeth is mentioning numerous policeman euphemisms, when he gets to the P-word, Miss Piggy crossly cuts him off before he can completely spell it out. |
| 294 | * A variation on this appears on ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'' when Matt writes a sketch in which Jesus Christ rises from the dead to become the president of network Standards and Practices. The result is that everyone in the scene ends up saying "Jesus Christ" a bunch of times--something standards would not ordinarily allow--and the ACTUAL Standards and Practices people would have had a hard time stopping him. |
| 295 | %%* There was a similar skit on Conan O'Brien's ''Series/LateNight''. Two priests are berating Conan for questioning the doctrines of Catholicism (Conan's faith). In the midst of this, Jesus himself walks out onto the stage, causing a shocked Conan to yell, "''JESUS CHRIST''". |
| 296 | * Used for a BaitAndSwitch gag on ''Series/TheGoodies''. The eponymous trio takes possession of a racing horse who is [[Literature/BlackBeauty black and a great beauty]]. Tim suggests the n-word as a name, before realising that it might not be the best name. |
| 297 | * Andy Sipowicz of ''Series/NYPDBlue'' is a fairly mild - but still straight-up - racist in the show's early years (from a combination of his father's racist attitude influencing him, and his distaste at being placed undercover to infiltrate a left-leaning militant black group just after his return from Vietnam). He begins to get over it when he arrests a black man who taunts Sipowicz by saying that he is "dealing with a nigger who knows how the system works", causing Sipowicz to respond that he's "dealing with a nigger who's too dumb to know when someone's trying to help him." After the man's death, which Andy feels responsible for, Sipowicz apologizes to the man's young daughter for referring to her father with "that word". The man's wife coldly tells her daughter to remember that Sipowicz was "the man that called your daddy a nigger", causing Sipowicz to later emotionally lament the woman "telling that little girl to hate me", and also realize that his attitude is helping perpetuate the cycle. No one, apparently, objects to the man's original self-applied use of the word. |
| 298 | * In the ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' episode "Third Wheel", Alex and her new wizard friend make fun of media portrayals of wizards by donning pointy hats and beards. When Harper tries to join in the fun by holding her hair in front of her face and pretending it's a beard, both Alex and Justin tell her it's offensive. |
| 299 | * In one episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' Marshall says 'something' that offends his travel buddy Daphne, and she is shown yelling "''You don't get to call us that! Only '''we're''' allowed to call ourselves that!''" To which he responds [[SubvertedTrope "...I'm sorry I called you a Trekkie."]] |
| 300 | %%* ''Series/ThisHourHas22Minutes'' has a sketch parodying Michael Richards' infamous use of the word "nigger" where Gavin Crawford interrupts a co-anchor's report to apologize for saying "the n-word". We then see a clip of him shouting "Newfies!" a couple of times. Search "Gavin Crawford says the n-word" on Youtube to find. This Hour Has 22 Minutes is filmed in Halifax (Nova Scotia) and has had a predominately Atlantic Canadian cast, although Crawford is from the Prairies. He's also been in several sketches as a fish out of water around Newfoundlanders. There's one where he's an military officer doing rescue work in Newfoundland and people keep trying to help him unnecessarily, even when they're ridiculously injured. Then the Newfoundlanders talk behind their backs about him not being a good guest and letting them fuss over him. The other one is a spoof of a crime drama where he has no idea what anyone is saying to him - accidentally letting a suspect go and not realizing a woman is hitting on him as a result. |
| 301 | %%* ''Series/RescueMe'' subverts this to hell and back. More specifically the scene where the crew is forced into SensitivityTraining. Damn near every racial slur in the book gets brought up in the five-minute scene. |
| 302 | %%* There is a whole episode of ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'' that revolves around Larry getting into trouble for telling a story and quoting someone saying "nigger" and then avoiding usage of the word when telling people what happened when a black person is present. |
| 303 | * The second episode of ''Series/{{Louie}}'' opens with Louie and his comedian friends discussing whether it's okay to say "faggot" (one of these friends being gay) on stage or not. Said gay friend says that he personally is not very affected, but for any other gay people who would be in the audience, the word's very powerful, as they've most likely had it hurled at them repeatedly, or said while they were being beaten. The gay friend also says while he has no problem with Louie using it because "he knows he's joking", he would not let another card buddy (who has a habit of always having to have the last word) use it, because "you really mean it". After an uncomfortable silence, said card buddy breaks the ice with a "faggot" joke, which causes all of them (including the gay friend) to burst into laughter. |
| 304 | * In the episode of ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' where Joy's affair with Darnell comes out in the form of a ChocolateBaby, Earl is (rightly) questioning Joy and how this could have happened. She doesn't want to admit she cheated, so she tells him that he might have "a repressed black gene", going on about how "his great great grandmother must have let a slave get in a few licks of his own." A black nurse in the room looks at her and says, "Excuse me?" to which Joy replies, "Oh, it's OK, I just had a black baby. I can say it." The nurse just rolls her eyes. |
| 305 | ** In another episode, Earl and Randy are in Shady Grove, which is populated by members of a carnival FreakShow. Earl cautions Randy not to call them "freaks", even though they call each other that, saying that "It's like when black guys call each other...you know." |
| 306 | --->'''Randy''': Brother-man? |
| 307 | * {{Averted|Trope}} in the RealityShow ''Black and White'', which featured an African-American family and a White family switching places with each other (by the use of body paint) in order to experience what it was like to be the other race. The son in the black family explicitly did not care who used the N-word in his presence, whether they were black or white. The rest of his family felt that he should take the matter more seriously than he did and, most interestingly, a white girl with whom he was acquainted objected to his use of the word. |
| 308 | * ''Series/{{Treme}}'': Delmond is offended by New Yorkers criticizing New Orleans, despite often saying the same things himself. "I get to say that. They don't!" |
| 309 | * ''Series/KeyAndPeele'' has a sketch which is an advertisement for a smartphone app called the "negraph", which examines the darkness or lightness of the user's skin and determines whether they have N-word privileges. Dark-skinned individuals and families cheerfully announce, "We can say it!" while a white man in a suit and tie announces, just as cheerfully, "Not a chance! I'd like to, but now I know I can't." |
| 310 | * The hosts of ''Series/QueerEye'' routinely call themselves and each other "fag", "queen" and so on, while the straight guys they make over stick with "gay". (Even the title was a bit edgy at the time the show premiered, since positive uses of "queer" weren't much heard in the straight world outside of academia.) |
| 311 | * The creators of ''Series/HogansHeroes'' cast Jewish actors for many of the characters (particularly the German ones) to dispel any potential complaints that the show's lightheartedness was a disservice to the victims of the Holocaust. |
| 312 | %%* In ''Series/FreshOffTheBoat'', a black kid calls Taiwanese Eddie a "chink" in a school cafeteria with no repercussions from the school. Eddie's parents were aghast at this discrepancy. |
| 313 | %%* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'' faces real world controversy over its use of transgender slurs "she-male" and "tranny". Many in the trans community feel that it's improper for cisgender drag queens to use such language, viewing them as crossdressing performers who don't have to live with the everyday baggage of the trans identity. Their side was bolstered by a few former contestants from the show who had come out as trans. [=RuPaul=] and the producers eventually agreed to stop using those words. |
| 314 | * ''Series/BlackIsh'': One episode revolves around this discussion after Jack gets in trouble for saying the word while singing "[[Music/KanyeWest Gold Digger]]" (uncensored) at a school talent show. Whether or not it was okay for him to use the word in public even though he's black is debated back and forth, as well as who else can say it (Dre angrily argues that white people are trying to punish his child because they're jealous of his N-Word Privileges. The school principal, who is also black, feels that the school's no tolerance for hate speech policy should apply to everyone). It's mentioned at one point that certain Latinos ''can'' say the word if they're street enough (Fat Joe is allowed, Music/RickyMartin is not). In the end, Dre comes to understand that the word has different meanings to other people (including other black people) and it's best that it not be used in mixed company while the school lets Jack off the hook since he clearly wasn't using the word with hateful intent. |
| 315 | * ''Series/AshVsEvilDead'': Ash's mean boss believes he's allowed to call Ash a "retard" because his "gardener is a huge one". |
| 316 | * ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything,'' in the episode "Adam Ruins Animals", two of the cats [[Theatre/{{Cats}} (represented by humans in costume)]] call each other "pussy". Adam claims it's OK when they say it, even though that's not the really true. |
| 317 | * PlayedForLaughs in an episode of ''Series/SchittsCreek'', where small town mechanic Bob cagily asks if he's allowed to call Johnny "Jewish", even saying that it sounds like a bad word. |
| 318 | * Averted in ''Series/LukeCage2016''. The title character gets pissed at hearing this word, even and ''especially'' if another black person uses it. His reactions range from going into a CharacterFilibuster or NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech or just plain kicking the user's ass. |
| 319 | * ''Series/LateNight with Creator/SethMeyers'' has a segment titled "Jokes Seth Can't Tell", where in an attempt to circumvent Seth's status as a straight white man, he is joined by two of his writers, Amber (an African-American woman) and Jenny (a lesbian). Seth will set up a news-based black or lesbian joke, and one of the women will deliver the punchline in his stead. At the end of the segment, the two invariably pressure him to tell one joke, promising he won't get in trouble. When he tells the joke they call him out on his prejudice, and he calls them out [[ILied for lying to him]]. |
| 320 | * ''Series/DearWhitePeople'': This is the cause of Reggie's fight with a white student, the latter having said the word in repeating the lyrics of a rap song. Sam later also tells Gabe she'll say it, but he can't, though light-heartedly. |
| 321 | * ''Series/{{Atlanta}}'': Alfred explicitly asks the AmbiguouslyBrown Zan "Are you even black?" when Zan casually uses the word. Zan says that yes, he is. |
| 322 | * On the ''Series/ModernFamily'' episode "Farm Strong", Clare tells Cam, given that he's from a farm in Missouri, that his sister was weird for bringing a pig to a party, which he takes offense to. |
| 323 | -->'''Cam:''' You know, we all have to protect my sister in my family because she's such a disaster. I mean, you can see it, right?\ |
| 324 | '''Clare:''' I think it was a little weird she brought a pig to a party.\ |
| 325 | '''Cam:''' Hey! I can say it. |
| 326 | * On ''Series/MadTV1995'', a sketch called "Reality Check with Tova [=McQueen=] & Velma Buttons", Senator Trent Lott attempts to apologize to Velma and Tova for making offensive remarks toward the African-American community to which Velma refers to Senator Lott as a "Re-nigger", much to the shock of her co-host Tova, Velma justifies by pointing out that she has the right to say it because ''she's'' black. |
| 327 | * ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': Celestial entities from the Bad Place are annoyed whenever humans refer to them as demons, but they use that word to refer to themselves all the time. They also call entities from the Good Place angels without blinking, but it's a little unclear how the "angels" feel about that. Since the demons pretty much [[EvilIsPetty only do things to annoy people]], they probably don't like it. |
| 328 | * On ''Series/RealTimeWithBillMaher'', Maher faced heavy criticism for joking about being a “house nigger” during an interview with Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE). The following week, both [[Creator/IceCube rapper Ice Cube]] and Bernie Sanders advisor Symone Sanders were guests on the show and explained why Maher could not use the word, even during a comedy routine. Ice Cube in particular deconstructed the logic by which many white people believe they can use but still cannot. A clip of his comments is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnwiYdFaRfk linked here]] and is quoted [[Quotes/NWordPrivileges here]]. |
| 329 | -->'''Ice Cube:''' It's in the lexicon... but that's our word now. That's our word now, and you can't have it back. |
| 330 | * ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' had an episode where [[CreepyDoll Rex]] called himself a puppet. Robbie is confused, as he was told never to use that word around him. Rex responds by saying he can use it as he's a puppet. |
| 331 | * ''Series/KimsConvenience'': Jung and Shannon go to a burger place run by Chinese staff, and they witness a funny conversation between the cashier and the cook. Jung recounts this to his co-workers and imitates their accents, which everyone laughs at. Then Shannon joins in and also imitates their accents, which everyone cringes at. She has to be told afterward that it's only okay for Jung to copy their accents because he's Asian like the burger staff, whereas it just sounds racist when coming out of Shannon who is white. |
| 332 | * ''Series/SpittingImage'' portrays a political version of this as one of Home Secretary Priti Patel's main purposes in UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's government: as a woman of color, she can promote Tory policies that disproportionately hurt women and minorities, as well as voice a large amount of reactionary rhetoric on everything from immigration to single mothers to trans rights to [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Morris dancing]], without the blowback that a white male politician would. In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfddokPIu8Q a sketch]] where Michael Gove visits "[[{{Dominatrix}} Mistress Patel]]'s Boudoir", his kink is listening to Patel discuss "unpopular conservative opinions only [she] can get away with". |
| 333 | * ''Series/RutherfordFalls'' has a scene where a group of people of several different races and ethnicities discuss whether or not it's possible to truly seperate art from the artist, and how much an artist's identity and actions matter in the context of their work. A white man asks why it's unacceptable for him to say the n-word when rappers say it on the radio, and everyone there immediately shuts him down, with Nathan (also a white man) asking him why he'd even ''want'' to say it. |
| 334 | -->'''White Guy:''' I thought this was a safe space!\ |
| 335 | '''Reagan:''' Not ''that'' safe! |
| 336 | * ''Series/ShesGottaHaveIt'': {{Discussed}} at one point very seriously, as Jamie's son releases a song on Youtube that has the word in the title. He thinks it's okay because he has Black ancestry. Jamie makes it clear that in his opinion, that isn't appropriate even for Black people to say. |
| 337 | * In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' the girls are having a jewelry night and Howard comes saying "Look who's here to put the 'Jew' in 'Jewelry night.'" His wife Bernadette then complains that it is fine when he, a Jew, says it. |
| 338 | * ''Series/CobraKai'': Discussed. |
| 339 | --> '''Mitch:''' Okay, you can't call me Penis Breath. Only they can call me Penis Breath!\ |
| 340 | '''Chris:''' Why are you okay with ''anyone'' calling you Penis Breath? |
| 341 | * ''Series/TheMick'': Sabrina gets a lot of flack in one episode over reciting a rap song by Biggie Smalls, as this includes the n word. |
| 342 | * ''Series/HellsKitchen'': Bret calls himself an "emotional ass n-word". Many fans were shocked at this to say the least. |
| 343 | * ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'' had Virgil White doing several jokes about Native American stereotypes ("We wanted you to come back with us. That's why we came all this way in the great iron eagle. I'm kidding. I know what planes are. I was in the Air Force."). |
| 344 | * ''Series/{{Blindspotting}}'': Ashley and Miles have a serious talk with their son Sean in Season 2 about this. Even though he has black ancestry, they tell Sean not to say it until he's 14 (and then only affectionately with other black people) as he won't understand fully until then. They explain that, due to the US' history of racism, other uses just aren't acceptable (even by Miles, who's white). |
| 345 | * ''Series/TheGoodFight'' has a scene where Adrian Boseman, a black lawyer appearing on a news show, is in a debate with a white panelist over whether there is racism against whites in America. When the newscaster overseeing the debate points out that black people can say the N-word in songs but he can't, Boseman just says, "So say it. Say the word you want to say." A ''lot'' of backtracking ensues. |
| 346 | * On ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', the recurring French ArmsDealer Rene Benoit calls himself ''La Grenouille'', which means "The Frog". Only a Frenchman could name himself that without it being a horrible insult - and Benoit does ''not'' like to hear his nickname translated into English. |
| 347 | [[/folder]] |
| 348 | |
| 349 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 350 | * Music/{{Eminem}} (a white rapper) refuses to follow his (almost entirely black) rap peers and use the N-word in his hits.[[note]]He used the derogatory term on a tape he recorded as a teenager, but has repeatedly apologized for the slip-up, which was recorded when he was 16.[[/note]] He says, "It's just a word I don't feel comfortable with. It wouldn't sound right coming out of my mouth. If a white kid came up to me and said it, I probably would look at him funny. And if given the time to sit down with him I'd say, 'Look, just don't say the word. It's not meant to be used by us.'" The implication being that he'd have less objection to a black kid using it. |
| 351 | ** Eminem will use a SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion to make fun of his own lack of a right to say the word - like rhyming "Schwarzenegger" with "sort of ''these motherfuckers''" in "Who Knew". In "Criminal", he leaves the word silent, "''I got more liquor to fuck me up quicker than you'd want to fuck me up for saying the word...(...)''" |
| 352 | ** Eminem also won't use non-obscene variations of the N-word, except the one that targets him. When imitating Music/SnoopDogg's voice on "'Till I Collapse", he instead says, "''fo' shizzle, my wizzle!''" - implying "wigger" (which he's used in non-Snoopified form in "The Way I Am" - "''...these cocky Caucasians who think I'm some wigger who just tries to be black 'cause I talk with an accent...''") |
| 353 | ** On "What If I Was White", a voice that sounds like exactly like Eminem's says the N-word in a post-line adlib (voicing a racist character). The voice was actually provided by (the black) Sticky Fingaz imitating Eminem's voice. At least, that's what Fingaz says - some suspect he's covering for his collaborator. |
| 354 | ** Similarly, Eminem likes to substitute white slurs when quoting black artists using the word. In "Quitter", Eminem interpolates [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]]'s "Hit 'Em Up Style", rapping "''Honkey, I hit 'em up!''". In "Lucky You", where his verse is a mirror/paraphrase of Creator/JoynerLucas's, Joyner says "''I'm that nigga''", and Eminem's verse says "''I'm that cracker''". In "Rhyme or Reason", he suggests that if hip-hop is the Devil's music, that means it belongs to him, because he's a "''white honkey devil''". |
| 355 | ** He ''has'' used the word when given a "pass" by a black artist: |
| 356 | *** On "Biterphobia", he mentions "my nig Proof", which his best friend Proof personally approved as acceptable. |
| 357 | *** In live performances of "Bitch Please II", he provides backing vocals for the chorus, originally written for Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg and including the lyric "the only nigga that I trust is me". |
| 358 | *** In the 2000 ''Up In Smoke'' tour, he was recorded rapping the word several times in a [[https://youtu.be/uU16mJI6vhQ?t=115 freestyled adlib]]. |
| 359 | * StylisticSuck hip-hop artist Music/{{gmcfosho}} [[PlayedForLaughs parodies this trope]] in "Miss My Ni". |
| 360 | -->[[NoFourthWall White people you can sing it too]]\ |
| 361 | Just change that N to a W\ |
| 362 | Miss my wigga |
| 363 | %%* Demonstrated by the Music/{{NOFX}} album ''White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean'', referring of course to the members of the band. |
| 364 | %%** Speaking of the term ''heeb'', that's an in-group reclamation of the anti-Jewish slur "hebe" (from "Hebrew"). Its original and most notable use is in the title of the counter cultural magazine ''Heeb: The New Jew Review''. The founding editor, Jennifer Bleyer, claimed that the staff chose the new spelling for "design purposes", but it seems more likely that they wanted to avoid misplaced protests from Jewish advocacy groups ([[CantGetAwayWithNuthin which they've gotten anyway]]). |
| 365 | %%* Music/{{NOFX}} exhibited this trope during a live show recently. Fat Mike, the Jewish lead singer, told this joke: "Why do German shower heads have eleven holes? Because Jews have ten fingers." Ouch. |
| 366 | %%** Similarly, dc Talk had an interlude on their "Free at Last" CD that said they were "just two Honks and a Negro, serving the Lord". |
| 367 | %%** Also, the interracial R&B band Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers was originally named "Four Niggers and a Chink", referring to the fact that four of its members were black, and one was Chinese. The "Chink" in question was Tommy Chong, who would later become a comedian and half of Creator/CheechAndChong. |
| 368 | %%* Music/TimMinchin has a song a song about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1HXmYkxwSE prejudice and words that impart it]]. The first part of the song gives the letters "a couple of G's, an R and E, an I and an N..." [[spoiler:It then averts the "n-word" in favor of the word "ginger" (which Tim is), making this also a TWordEuphemism song.]] |
| 369 | %%* Music/DavidAllanCoe has come under fire for this. His 1977 single "If That Ain't Country" contains the line "workin' like a nigger". Furthermore, he released a pair of underground comedy albums through the back pages of a biker magazine, ''Nothing Sacred'' (1979) and ''Underground Album'' (1982), containing, in addition to a lot of sexually explicit humor, a couple of songs that have been slammed by critics as being racist, after Coe started selling the albums through his website, particularly the track Nigger Fucker (at the beginning of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm4MQyHepso DAVID ALLAN COE - 18 X-Rated Hits [1990]]]). It's noteworthy that Coe's drummer on these albums was African-American and married to a white woman, and Coe himself also said in defense of the albums that he has long, dreadlocked hair and dresses like "a New York pimp". "Nigger Fucker" arguably comes across most clearly as satire because of its raunchy sex jokes, but Coe's ''other'' controversial underground song, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3LD0zc5jzc Rails]]", is pretty unnerving due to containing the lyrics "niggers made me vote for segregation" and "the Ku Klux Klan is bigger, so take the sheets off of your bed and let's go hang a nigger". The fact that Coe had a black drummer on that song doesn't help. |
| 370 | * Z-Flo, who is African-American, acknowledges the right to use the N-word in "The Black People Song". |
| 371 | -->Now, there's a line between discriminating and not in different places.\ |
| 372 | You are if you use the N-word, but if you're black then you're not racist. |
| 373 | %%* Public Enemy's [[http://www.publicenemy.com/index.php?page=page5&item=4&num=93 "I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo Niga"]]. |
| 374 | %%* In Music/BlazeYaDeadHomie's "{{UsefulNotes/Juggalo}} Anthem": "Niggas kick the anthem like this / Juggalos up in this bitch". |
| 375 | %%** Also Twiztid. In Blaze's "Here I Am" (which featured Madrox and Monoxide), they got in on the fun. Here's a piece of the chorus: "Here I Am / I'm right here, dawg. Well here I am / Right here, nigga!" And let's not even get into "Old School Pervert". |
| 376 | %%* The Music/DeadKennedys song "Holiday in Cambodia" uses the word, though it's mocking the type of rich, spoiled kids, who would brag that they "know how the niggers feel cold and the slums have so much soul". Also worth noting, that the Dead Kennedys had a black drummer for a period of time. |
| 377 | %%** Though when Serj Tankian and the Music/FooFighters covered this song live, they opted for the word "Brothers" instead. |
| 378 | %%* Music/PinkFloyd used the word "coon" in "In The Flesh" and "Waiting for the Worms" to represent a stereotypical neo-Nazi viewpoint. No huge controversy ensued, largely because ''Music/TheWall'''s second half is a pretty obvious TakeThat at neo-Nazis. |
| 379 | %%* Music/RandyNewman's "Rednecks" and "Christmas in Cape Town", both sung from the viewpoint of racist characters, feature the n-word among other slurs. |
| 380 | %%* X used several such slurs to describe the thoughts of the racist protagonist of "Los Angeles". |
| 381 | %%* Phil Lynott of Music/ThinLizzy avoided the trope, but occasionally wrote lines such as "down in Skid Row, where only black men can go", that would be considered inappropriate if sung by a white man. |
| 382 | %%* One notable and controversial violation can be found in the ''Murder Remix'' version of the Jennifer Lopez song ''I'm Real'', where Jennifer drops an N-bomb completely out of nowhere and unprovoked. Her excuse was the fact that the song itself was written by Ja Rule. |
| 383 | %%* Music/TheOffspring's song "LAPD" from their album ''Ignition''. It's actually part of the chorus, "Beat all the niggers, beat whoever you see. Don't need a reason. LAPD!" This song while using it in a derogatory sense is supposed to be from the point of view of the Los Angeles Police Department. |
| 384 | * Wale's song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp05cNnsR3I "The Kramer"]] addresses the issue of rappers saying "nigga" in songs they know are being listened to by white kids who repeat it and say it themselves and around their black friends. |
| 385 | %%* Music/{{Japan}} got away with it in "...Rhodesia", mostly because a line like "Oh, Nazis in full attack/Burning niggers in a cotton field" can't really be construed as ''endorsing'' Rhodesia's then-racist government. |
| 386 | %%* Kreayshawn, the (white) rapper who did "Gucci Gucci" is getting in roughly one shitstorm per week over this, thanks to her so-called "White Girl Mob". |
| 387 | * When Anya Marina (a white singer) covered T.I.'s "Whatever You Like", she changed some of the lyrics from "niggas" to "brothers", presumably because of this trope. |
| 388 | %%* Because of UnfortunateImplications, Nigga, a singer from Panama, is known as Flex in North America. |
| 389 | %%* Music/{{Nas}}' self-titled/untitled album was originally going to be titled ''Nigger''. |
| 390 | %%* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0itOCgJtNVU Nigga Nigga Nigga]] by Gangsta Rap. Every second line consists of the n-word repeated 8 times. |
| 391 | %%* The song ''Everyday Normal Crew'' by Canadian comedian Music/JonLajoie features the following exchange: |
| 392 | %%--> "''This is my nigga K.C.!''"\ |
| 393 | %%"''What the fuck you just call me?''"\ |
| 394 | %%"''Sorry... I'll say friend. This is my friend K.C., the only black friend in the group[...]''" |
| 395 | %%* When all-white rock group Dynamite Hack had a novelty hit with their [[LyricalDissonance calm, acoustic-guitar-based]] cover of Music/EazyE's "Boyz N The Hood", they kept the line "young niggas on the path throwin' up gang signs", although the version played on radio of course blanked it out along with other potentially offensive language. This didn't go without controversy, but the band defended it as an effort to not tone down the content of the original. |
| 396 | %%* The song "Elvis Ate America" off of the Passengers[[note]]basically Music/{{U2}} by another name[[/note]] album ''Original Soundtracks 1'', has Bono naming different things attributed to Music/ElvisPresley, and includes the line "Elvis, the white nigger". |
| 397 | %%* Sort of with ''Music/GreenDay'' lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, who is bisexual and frequently uses the word "fag". |
| 398 | %%* Cracker, a band led by Music/CamperVanBeethoven's Davide Lowery, are named after a racial slur aimed at whites because he admitted that their country rock sound was "totally white". It's a subtle example, since the word can mean other things. |
| 399 | %%* In [[http://www.last.fm/music/Doria+Roberts/_/Iguana Iguana]], ''Music/DoriaRoberts'' is "a pissed-off rock'n'roll dyke nigga bitch", so she thinks "you'd better start to run". |
| 400 | %%* And then there are minstrel songs which are so old that they even predate N-word-as-slur times, and happily use it. "Johnny Come Down To Hilo" is a well known example. [[http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=52717 History&some discussion]] |
| 401 | * Music/EdSheeran performed a cover of OT Genesis' "[=CoCo=]", which features a few instances of the N-word, when he visited Trevor Nelson's radio show on BBC Radio 1 Xtra in 2015. He replaced the ones in the refrain with "man" and "and" respectively, and changed the line "niggas thinkin' that I'm solo" to "'''''if ya''''' thinkin' that I'm solo". |
| 402 | * When Sleeping With Sirens (which has a white singer) covered "Fuck You" by Music/CeeLoGreen they didn't include the n-word. The previous line was repeated instead. |
| 403 | * Music/JoeJackson's "Real Men", released in 1982, features the lines "You don't want to sound dumb, don't want to offend, so don't call me a faggot, not unless you are a friend." Jackson himself came out as bisexual nearly 20 years after the song's release and explained that the song was based on his frustrations with [[NoBisexuals people viewing sexuality as a straight/gay binary]]. |
| 404 | %% * Implicit by Raleigh, NC {{nerdcore}} outfit Music/SithClan: only the band's two black members use the n-word, the two white members avoid it. |
| 405 | * White and Jewish rapper Lil Dicky has had a tough relationship with the N-word. On his song "White Dude", he wonders why a Hispanic rapper could say it. He eventually finally gets to say it in full in "Freaky Friday"- the premise being that he engages in a FreakyFridayFlip with black singer Chris Brown, and gets to spout the N-word while in Chris Brown's body. |
| 406 | * Music/PattiSmith's "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger" from ''Music/{{Easter}}'' drew criticism, though generally not outrage, at the time. She explained to ''Rolling Stone'' that she had grown up in poverty with black neighbors and friends, and thus had N-word privileges. Most people understood (and the lyrics make abundantly clear) that Smith was trying to redefine the word as meaning anyone who is ostracized for exceeding perceived boundaries, especially in art, or those who "created art for the palace but had to come in the back door," or a boundary-breaking attempt at "taking a word that was specific and hurtful to people and obliterating it, blowing that apart and reinventing it so it was more like a badge of courage." But she didn't have the clout for the idea to gain traction, which it probably wouldn't have even if Music/BruceSpringsteen had recorded it and sent it to #1. The song was later covered by Music/MarilynManson. |
| 407 | ** Patti Smith pulled the song out at concerts until 2019, and it's still on her recordings, although it was removed from streaming services in the fall of 2022. |
| 408 | * Music/MarilynManson: The video ''Dead to the World'' covers his Antichrist Superstar tour, where he was threatened with incarceration if he said the dreaded N-word, or did anything else the cops didn't like, so he had a black man cover ''his'' cover of "Rock and Roll Nigger". During another performance of it, someone managed to bean him on the head with a glass bottle. |
| 409 | ** The word also appears in "Irresponsible Hate Anthem", where it was much less controversial, partially because the lyrics are borderline-incomprehensible anyway and partially because it was used in an obviously non-racial context. Whether this makes it okay or not is up for debate. |
| 410 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monteniggers Monteniggers]] is the name of a Montenegrin hip-hop group that was active in the 1990s. Two out of the three original members are now deceased; the third now performs under the name (wait for it!) Niggor. |
| 411 | * Music/KendrickLamar mentions this in his song "Auntie Diaries". |
| 412 | -->''To truly understand love, switch position''\ |
| 413 | ''"Faggot, faggot, faggot," we can say it together''\ |
| 414 | ''But only if you let a white girl say "Nigga"'' |
| 415 | * Music/IanDuryAndTheBlockheads' "Spasticus Autisticus", which satirizes the patronizingly ableist undertones of the International Year of Disabled Persons, plays on both the ableist slur "spastic" (originally referring to muscle spasms in cerebral palsy before becoming a catch-all insult) and the use of "autistic" as a generic synonym for "stupid" or "eccentric." Likewise, the lyrics feature over the top caricatures of various disabilities, including wobbly gaits and constant drooling. Ian Dury himself was paralyzed on one side as a result of a childhood polio infection, and it's for this reason that the song was eventually included in the opening ceremony for the 2012 Summer Paralympics. |
| 416 | * The Japanese SynthPop group Music/YellowMagicOrchestra incorporates the anti-Asian slur "yellow" in their name, tying in with their initial intent of satirizing Western stereotypes of east Asia. |
| 417 | * Stoney Edwards, one of the first Black singers to have a Top 20 hit on the ''Billboard'' CountryMusic chart (with "She's My Rock", later CoveredUp by Music/GeorgeJones), released "Blackbird (Hold Your Head High)" in 1975. A semi-biographical song about a Black country [[BandOfRelatives family band]] (but not written by him),[[note]]It was written by his white producer, SingerSongwriter Chip Taylor, the brother of Creator/JonVoight.[[/note]] the chorus had Edwards explicitly acknowledge his racial identity with the line "Just a couple of country niggas, stealin' the rodeo, from Georgia on up to Bangor, Maine." Justified or not, the use of the word scared off country radio stations from playing it (it stalled out at #41 on the ''Billboard'' Country chart). |
| 418 | [[/folder]] |
| 419 | |
| 420 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 421 | * ''Podcast/RandomAssault'': One of Matt's friends regardless of race said "Fucking Niggas in the butt", in which a Hispanic woman who overheard it looked shocked and afraid. Kate often claims that Tony has granted her The Privileges. In fact, Tony mailed N-Word Privileges cards to all the hosts. |
| 422 | %%* On ''Podcast/ChapoTrapHouse'', Felix often does skits, caricatures, and accents that are only acceptable coming from a Jewish man, and even then puts the other hosts on edge. |
| 423 | [[/folder]] |
| 424 | |
| 425 | [[folder:Pro Wrestling]] |
| 426 | * Wrestling/EddieGuerrero: "You wanna be Latino? If you're not cheating, you're not trying!" Basically, saying something bad about Latinos and or Mexicans would get the expected reaction, but Eddie, and later his nephew Wrestling/ChavoGuerreroJr, got to act out negative Mexican and Chicano stereotypes with impunity because Eddie was just that humorous and popular with the crowds. Turing Eddie {{heel}} was almost an exercise in futility unless he was facing El Hijo Del Santo or Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr. Chavo usually [[FaceHeelTurn turned heel]] almost immediately when his uncle was absent. |
| 427 | * A more literal example from Wrestling/BookerT. |
| 428 | -->"We take what we want! And after we take Wrestling/LexLuger and [[Wrestling/TheBigShow The Giant]], we want the gold sucka! Wrestling/HulkHogan, we're comin for you nigga." ''([[DidIJustSayThatOutLoud realizes what he just said]] and {{face palm}}s.) |
| 429 | ** Obviously this accidentally slipped out, as Booker T later confirmed in an interview on youtube. He also mentioned he never used the N word again, but not long after that interview it slipped out again when he yelled it at Jonathan Coachman. This didn't get nearly as much notice because unlike Hulk Hogan, Coachman is black. |
| 430 | ** Booker's promo took the #2 spot in the Kayfabe Commentaries "Wrestling's Most Botched" poll[[note]][[Wrestling/FredOttman The Shockmaster]] was #1, obviously[[/note]], in the video Wrestling/NewJack [[https://youtu.be/r91YhRpOT8k?t=435 tells a funny story]] about dropping the n-bomb in a promo while working for Wrestling/{{SMW}}. |
| 431 | -->"We're The Gangstas and we're the wrong niggas to be messing with!" |
| 432 | * Starting in Ultimate Pro Wrestling in 1999 was a wrestler who called himself "Lil' Cholo" (Wrestling/LuchaUnderground viewers may know him as Mr. Cisco). While not anywhere near as strong as the "N Word", imagine a black wrestler calling themselves "Mulatto" or "Lil' Darkie". South of the border he has a [[AlternateCompanyEquivalent contemporary]] who goes by "Cholo Azteca". |
| 433 | * Wrestling/{{WWE}} Diva Wrestling/AshleyMassaro once said in an interview that Wrestling/KellyKelly, who is reportedly Jewish [[PhenotypeStereotype (though with her blonde hair and light blue eyes]], [[AllJewsAreAshkenazi she doesn't look it)]], is a big fan of the movie ''Film/{{Borat}}'' - which is chock-full of anti-Semitic "humor" so vicious that even Creator/MelBrooks probably wouldn't touch it. |
| 434 | * "[[RedBaron The Beautiful Snow Bunny]]", [=SnowCal=] Chloe north of the Californian border and Wera Loca[[note]]crazy white girl[[/note]] Taya Valkyrie south of it. Similar to The Dirty White Boy, the wide reach of white people in the industry means being announced as such or wearing it on your tights raises no eyebrows . |
| 435 | * Wrestling/{{Montel Vontavious Porter}}'s song, ''Ghetto Strong Style'', which he and [[Wrestling/TheWorldsGreatestTagTeam Shelton Benjamin]] [[DoItYourselfThemeTune used as their tag team entrance music]] for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, makes liberal use of these privileges and includes a sampling of Booker T's infamous line. Also invoked and halfway defied in Wrestling/{{TNA}}, with his response to the inevitable, predictable criticism of his "[[PowerStable Almighty Beat Down Clan]]" |
| 436 | -->"Thug is the new nigga!" |
| 437 | * {{Subverted|Trope}} with Rich Swann's Back Flip Nika Kick. Nika, with a k, kay? The fact that he calls one of his finishing moves the "Fried Chicken Driver" might be a straight example though. He still takes the suggestion he eats too much of it as insult. |
| 438 | * {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Website/{{WrestleCrap}} writer Art O'Donnell in the site's induction of the 2014 [[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]] debut of Wrestling/BeckyLynch: |
| 439 | -->You only get one chance to make a first impression, and for Becky Lynch, even her wrestling debut at age 15, her global experience, and her year in WWE developmental couldn’t save her from bad ideas.\ |
| 440 | Bad ideas like making your wrestling persona the biggest mick this side of the Atlantic.\ |
| 441 | Hey, I'm an ''O'Donnell''. I can use the M-word. |
| 442 | * XPW had a tag team called the Westside NGZ, consisting of Big Rott and Chronic. |
| 443 | [[/folder]] |
| 444 | |
| 445 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 446 | * Radio/ChrisAndCiara replace it with "jigger" during their rap-offs, and get very nervous about accidentally having said it. |
| 447 | * DiscussedTrope in the ''Radio/JeremyHardySpeaksToTheNation'' episode "How to Speak": Jeremy (who's white) says that he was at a debate of the positive and negative effects of hip-hop, including the use of language such as the n-word: |
| 448 | -->'''Jeremy''': And there was this discussion about whether white people could ever use it. And I thought "Well, why would I ever ''want'' to use it?" It offends ''me'', as a human. I am offended by the n-word because I'm not a c-word. |
| 449 | * ''Radio/WaitWaitDontTellMe'': With the n-word in question being "nerd". That is, host Peter Sagal claims the right to make fun of nerds due to being one himself. He says the same of jokes about Jews and UsefulNotes/NewJersey. |
| 450 | [[/folder]] |
| 451 | |
| 452 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 453 | * In ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}' Underseas'', members of the Amphib race (humanoid mutants with fish- or frog-like features) are sometimes teased with names like "Froggy" or "Fish Face" as children. But since Amphibs have been accepted in Tritonian society since ''before'' the Great Cataclysm, it's treated as no big deal, and something that the kids eventually outgrow. In other words, Tritonia has ''F''-Word Privileges. |
| 454 | * In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', mutants refer to each other as "twists", however a non-mutant use of the word is considered an insult. |
| 455 | * In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', the word "trog" (short for "troglodyte," referring to orks and trolls) is used in much the same way as "nigger", including by certain orks and trolls who are trying to defang it. |
| 456 | [[/folder]] |
| 457 | |
| 458 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 459 | * In ''Theatre/FetchClayMakeMan'', [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit Stepin Fetchit]] liberally employs "negro". UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli vigorously objects to this. |
| 460 | -->'''Fetchit:''' If you are a negro, you are going down!\ |
| 461 | '''Ali:''' I'M NO NEGRO! I'M A [[PunctuatedForEmphasis BLACK! MAN!]] |
| 462 | * The original productions of ''Theatre/PorgyAndBess'' included at least twenty instances of the N-word, and all except one are used by Black characters to refer to each other. Though this was realistic for the setting of the piece, the use of the word eventually made audiences and performers uncomfortable enough that in the 1950s, Ira Gershwin, the sole surviving creator, replaced all mentions of it (for example, having a character sing of Porgy "I tell you that ''cripple'''s happy now" instead of what she originally sang). |
| 463 | [[/folder]] |
| 464 | |
| 465 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 466 | %%* In a old psone game called ''Bust a Groove'', two songs, Pinky's theme "I Know" and Hamm's theme "I luv Hamburgers. Both use the n-word. |
| 467 | * ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' employs this. The Beorc (humanlike folk) refer to themselves as "human" and the Laguz (beastmen) as "sub-humans", with the latter being an ethnic slur. The Laguz have turned that on its head towards the Beorc. Thanks to the racist member of the party giving him the wrong impression, [[TheHero Ike]] thinks that "sub-human" is the correct term for Laguz but after realizing its real connotations he stops using it and starts addressing both races by their proper terms. |
| 468 | %%* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', the term [[FantasticSlur spoon-bender]], an offensive term for psychics, is used by the psychics themselves. In their community, it implies the use of psychic powers in petty ways. |
| 469 | * In ''VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject'', after repeatedly referring to himself as a "loser underdog", Bizarro Frank gets very mad at Etranger when she does the same (because, unlike him, she isn't a loser underdog herself). |
| 470 | %%* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' you can find Joker talking with EDI about an old Rachni Wars joke (2,000 years old), dealing with a [[MotorMouth Salarian]] and a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Krogan]] and playing off racial stereotypes. The Salarian is twitchy and nervous while the Krogan is bloodthirsty and callous. EDI comments on how insensitive the joke is but Joker points out that the joke is one that is told equally by ''both'' Salarians and Krogan, commenting on the idea that being able to share a joke like that helps you get past your other issues. |
| 471 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}''; CatGirl Miss Fortune has this reaction when someone asks her if she [[WebOriginal/LOLCats can haz cheeseburger.]] She says it herself to (relatively-normal human) Filia without comment. |
| 472 | * In ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', you can [[WaxingLyrical quote]] Music/{{DMX}}'s "Where the Hood At?" at one point at your Shivers skill, and it will quote you right back, but uses "brother" instead of "nigga". [[note]] In-universe, this is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by most real-life slurs not existing in the game's ConstructedWorld setting, including the N-word; the Elysium equivalent would be "kipt", which wouldn't go along with the lyrical flow. [[/note]] |
| 473 | -->'''You:''' Where the hood, where the hood, where the hood at?\ |
| 474 | '''Shivers:''' HAVE THAT BROTHER IN THE CUT, WHERE THE WOOD AT? |
| 475 | * Every black character in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow1'', however important they are to the story, uses the n-word at least once. Later games in the series also use this trope, but only in songs on the radio. Actual characters don't use the word. |
| 476 | * Yusef from ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladofGayTony'' doesn't have this, but he still flings around the word anyway. |
| 477 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto5'': |
| 478 | ** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed briefly]] when Jimmy and Franklin hang out. |
| 479 | ** Lamar Davis is quite close to SirSwearsalot in privilege usage, even being a little musical in his usage at the end of his introductory mission. |
| 480 | [[/folder]] |
| 481 | |
| 482 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 483 | * ''WebAnimation/BeachedAz'' had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR93mxPxy7c the koalas]] that refer to everyone as "bear" but that's ''their'' word and the whale is not allowed to use it. |
| 484 | * ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'': During the rundown for ''Goro vs. Machamp'', Wiz brings up how the former managed to beat [[BlindWeaponmaster Kenshi]] despite missing all four of his arms, prompting Boomstick to remark that if they threw Professor X into the mix, it'd be "[[CrossesTheLineTwice the ultimate, and definitely most offensive, cripple threat match]]". After a period of awkward silence, Boomstick defends himself by pointing out he's only got one leg. |
| 485 | ** Later on during ''Stitch vs. Rocket'', Wiz tries to make a dig at Boomstick's ex-wife much like Boomstick himself frequently does, only for Boomstick and DUMMI to berate him for it, Boomstick even states that ''he'' can make those jokes because unlike Wiz, he pays her alimony. |
| 486 | * During the rising VirtualYoutuber trend of the 2020s, several streamers; most notably from ''WebAnimation/{{hololive}}'', ''WebAnimation/{{Nijisanji}}'' or other Japanese-based idol agencies had many of their talents stream ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''. Most of the idols, being Japanese and [[InnocentlyInsensitive wholly unaware of the slur]] inevitably end up repeating the N-word in an attempt to harmonize with Lamar during the ending cutscene of "Franklin & Lamar". Most viewers understand the streamer's innocence and often give them temporary N-word privileges. Notably averted after those idol agencies starts to recruit Western streamers who are ''much more'' aware of American culture as all of them actively avoid it, and presumably warn their less-informed collegues behind-the-scenes to avoid saying the N-word for future streams. |
| 487 | [[/folder]] |
| 488 | |
| 489 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 490 | %%* [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=191 This strip]] from ''Webcomic/VGCats'' is mocking a Platform/PlayStationPortable ad campaign involving squirrels talking in Ebonics. Yet one goes too far (relevant panels used as page pic). |
| 491 | * ''Webcomic/{{Baalbuddy}}'': "[[https://youtu.be/ZfsKsyXatZI Korone Don't Say It]]" has [[WebAnimation/{{Hololive}} Korone Inugami]] singing Music/{{NWA}}'s "Fuck the Police." [[WebVideo/VomsProject Pikamee]] is reacting in horror to Korone uttering the "gamer word" in the background. |
| 492 | * Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' when Squigley, an [[FunnyAnimal anthropomorphic pig]], berates the human Slick for calling him "[[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1552 pigga]]" as a term of endearment. He says that only pigs can call each other that (see the previous page). |
| 493 | %%** Then, played more straight when it's revealed that, no, Slick does ''[[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3323 not]]'' have N-word privileges. |
| 494 | * Parodied in ''Webcomic/KeychainOfCreation'', when a Dragon-Blooded (one of the Exalted who currently rule creation) tries to greet a Solar, Lunar, and Abyssal (Exalted who they currently describe as hated demonic Anathema whou must be slaughtered) with "sup, my [[http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0003.html 'nathema]]"; Marena, a Lunar Exalt, responds with an irritated "that's ''our'' word." |
| 495 | * Polkster from ''Webcomic/PolkOut'' makes Jewish jokes and can get away with it because he's Jewish. |
| 496 | %%* Any guesses on the sexual preferences you would need to get away with writing ''Webcomic/IWasKidnappedByLesbianPiratesFromOuterSpace''? |
| 497 | * Leslie of ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'' only lets people call her "the lesbian" if they sleep with her. This backfires the one time she invokes it against a woman she ''did'' just have a sexual encounter with. |
| 498 | %%* Apparently, 'herbivore' was Domain's version of the N-word in ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell''. |
| 499 | %%-->'''Rudy:''' Kevin, in these old magazines and texts I keep seeing references to "the H-word". What ''is'' that?\ |
| 500 | %%'''Kevin:''' "Herbivore".\ |
| 501 | %%'''Rudy:''' "Herbivore" used to be a '''slur'''?! \ |
| 502 | %%'''Kevin:''' We took it back as our own. |
| 503 | * ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': |
| 504 | ** Gorillas have been [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted]] to human level sapience, and since then a lot of primate-related phrases have been deemed as being racist. [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-11-18 Unless you're a gorilla yourself, apparently.]] |
| 505 | ** Same thing for elephant related jokes. Tagon makes one to a crowd of new recruits without realizing one of them is an elephant and they get into an argument about it. |
| 506 | %%* In [[http://amultiverse.com/comic/2013/11/20/synthoid-please/ this episode]] of ''Webcomic/ScenesFromAMultiverse'', robots would rather not be called ''synthoids''. |
| 507 | %%* In a ''Webcomic/{{BiterComics}}'' [[http://www.bitercomics.com/comic/our-word/ strip]], a white guy's black friend explains to him why it's not okay for him to say the n-word. |
| 508 | * In ''The Hero Business'' storyline "The All-New Bravado", ComicBook/{{Superman}} expy Bravado goes through a series of revamps to make him more relatable. During a brief "Hipper and Edgier" stint, he addresses a team of ComicBook/XMen stand-ins as "muties", which causes outrage because he's not a mutant and that is their word. |
| 509 | %%* A My Little Pony Comic (properly labeled ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Inappropriate Comic]]'') has Rainbow Dash truth-or-daring (ultimately daring) Twilight to do something inappropriate, then shifts her eyebrows suggestively. Twilight complies (to Dash's delight)...but instead of doing what RD thought she was going to do ([[HoYay which is kind of obvious]]), Twilight walks offscreen for a few seconds and pops back into frame dressed as an 80's black human saying the word in question. |
| 510 | * Parodied in ''Webcomic/MuhPhoenix'', with "mugga" being said freely by mutant characters. ComicBook/CaptainAmerica says it too, and the only one to call him out on it is the milquetoast ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}, though he relents in hopes of still being his [[TokenBlackFriend Token Mutant Friend]]. [[{{Metaphorgotten}} Cap also says the actual n-word at one point]]. |
| 511 | * One ''Webcomic/{{Polandball}}'' [[http://i.imgur.com/fXGRwFJ.png comic]] parodied this trope by having UsefulNotes/{{India}} disguise himself as UsefulNotes/{{Niger}} for the purpose of repeatedly rapping the word "Niger". |
| 512 | * ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'': Maxima is telling Sydney to get her ClusterFBomb tendencies under control, using her stubbing her toe and insulting every Irish person on camera as an example. Sydeny then asks if that means she shouldn't say stuff like "potato deficient famine jockeys", causing Maxima give a BigNo, and Harem to laugh, with a box saying Harem is allowed to laugh because she's part Irish. |
| 513 | * ''Webcomic/DoesNotPlayWellWithOthers'': Naga's Platform/{{Twitch}} stream gets flagged and demonitized due a complaint she was using a slur: "Naga". The person who made the inital complaint turned out to be another naga streamer, intentionally abusing the system to harm a competitor. |
| 514 | * ''Webcomic/TransGirlNextDoor'': Kylie, a trans woman, gets mad at a waiter who misgenders her friend, another trans woman. While discussing the matter, Kylie playfully calls her friend "bro", and the two girls laugh about it. |
| 515 | * A subtle one: in ''Webcomic/RealLifeComics'', Mae's daughter Harper continues to call Mae "Daddy" well after Mae comes out as a trans woman, with no one commenting on it. Since [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the comic is based on real life]], it's likely that the real Mae and Harper have the same interactions and Mae is fine with it. Mae herself has stated that she doesn't consider "daddy" a particularly gendered word. |
| 516 | [[/folder]] |
| 517 | |
| 518 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 519 | * Website/FourChan [[DefiedTrope defies]] this trope, using the word "fag" to refer to ''everyone''. Anonymous who draw are "drawfags", writers are "writefags", and there are even a few Christians on the board who refer to themselves as "Christfags". They also like to use the word "nigger" to refer to everyone, and in its absence they'll use an equivalent ethnic slur when talking about other countries. Interestingly, some Anons have forsaken the "-fag" suffix in favor of "-friend" or "-person" (probably as a joke over political correctness or to be able to use said words on sites where they are restricted). In threads about sexuality, you'll see "[[OxymoronicBeing straightfags]]", and yes — [[ShapedLikeItself "gayfags" and "fagfags"!]] |
| 520 | ** Other internet communities see 4chan's use of the terms as a meta-version of the trope; in short, it's okay to use them on 4chan since being offensive in general is part of the culture. Saying the same things on sites like Facebook, however, will net you looks. |
| 521 | * LetsPlay/MarioPartyTV has the Shadow Stars/Ztars/Z-Stars/Dark Stars nicknamed as "N-word stars" by the group and are constantly referred to as such. Lampshaded during Boo's Haunted Bash prior to the LP Every Mario Party project, where they take pains to point out the guy making the most jokes of that nature is black, and again during the first playthrough of 9. |
| 522 | * LetsPlay/{{Chuggaaconroy}} has claimed several times that he's allowed to make fun of the French because he's part French himself. In his ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' LP, he then goes on to say that [[FrenchJerk pretty much]] [[GayParee all the stereotypes]] are true. |
| 523 | * ''Website/{{Tumblr}}'' has a meme stemming from someone anonymous asking a black person's blog if a child suffering from cancer would be allowed to say the n-word as their dying wish. The "Racist Cancer Child" was mocked site-wide for being such a ridiculous attempt at {{Rules Lawyer}}ing. |
| 524 | * ''WebVideo/CJDachamp'': Everybody in the [[MidReviewSketchShow mid-review sketches that CJ does]] throws around the N-word, but all of it is done as a term of endearment. CJ himself is black, as shown in every avatar of himself that he uses. It's played with in that everyone (including CJ) refers to everyone else with the N-word, even if they're not black, and nobody bats an eye. |
| 525 | * There are several webforums with names like Nwordmania and Chimpout that exist solely to dehumanize and bash Black people in the most over-the-top manner imaginable. Not only are Black people not allowed to post on these sites, but users who don’t use the n-word often ''enough'' can get banned. Even using the term “Black ''people''” is frowned upon, because it implies humanity. |
| 526 | ** Many users of these sites got their start on Usenet, which during the 1990s was home to several groups devoted to flaming (i.e., ranting about) Black people. That’s where many of the slang terms used on the sites originate. |
| 527 | ** Notably, these are not white nationalist sites; actual white nationalists dislike sites like these, partly because they ban negative comments about any nonblack group (particularly Jews) and partly due to their overly coarse, trollish tone. On at least one occasion (which appeared on Fundies Say The Darnedest Things), one of these forums put in its rules that Jew-hating was banned: "This forum is for bashing (n-words) and (n-words) ''only.'' If you want to bash Jews, go to Stormfront." |
| 528 | ** In the early 2010s, [[https://www.gawker.com/how-reddit-became-a-worse-black-hole-of-violent-racism-1690505395 Reddit used to have]] a lot of subs with a very similar userbase, which were collectively referred to as the “Chimpire”. One of them was specifically for pictures and videos of Black people dying. Reddit has since banned most of them. |
| 529 | * LetsPlay/VanossGamingAndCompany: This comes up a lot in their ''Cards Against Humanity'' videos, as [=BasicallyIDoWrk=] (Marcel) is the only black member of the crew. This leads to a few moments of the n-word privileges being raised: |
| 530 | ** In one round, Tyler was reading out all the cards. When he came across one that said "I'M 100% NIGGA!", Marcel told him "I got you, Tyler". Marcel was saying that he would read the card himself, but Tyler thought that he was getting the all clear and went full speed ahead with it; during the resulting laughing fit, Marcel told the audience that Tyler gets a pass with the "Black stamp of approval". |
| 531 | ** In another round, [=SMii7Y=] actually had Marcel join a game he wasn't originally in just so that he could get Marcel's written permission to say an n-word written on a card. He did get the permission before saying it, but Kryoz cut that part out of his own recording to make it look like he said it with no go-ahead. |
| 532 | [[/folder]] |
| 533 | |
| 534 | [[folder:Web Videos]] |
| 535 | * WebVideo/CountDankula is of Irish Catholic descent and on a few occasions had referred to himself as a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian Fenian]], a sectarian slur. He invokes this when talking about the notorious Irish kingpin known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cahill Martin Cahill]], when mentioning that the latter's father had fifteen children. |
| 536 | -->'''Dankula''': Catholics, man. I can make that joke! I can make that joke! I can say Fenian, I can say Taig. Those are ''our'' words! |
| 537 | * In ''WebVideo/FinalFantasyInANutshell'''s episodes of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', parody this as Hyurbert does not have P-Word (potato) privileges, getting a [[GroinAttack nut punch]] from Lalafellon. One scene with [[CorruptPolitician Teledji Adeledji]] has him say the same word and show he has p-word privileges. Hyurbert doesn't learn the lesson and gets another punch. |
| 538 | %%* Taken literally on ''WebVideo/{{Immersion}}'' where one of the insults shouted in ''Online Gaming Distractions'' actually is "N-Word!" (by a white man to a white man). |
| 539 | %%* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK9VqO6aQfc Ninjaology]]" concerns the privileges of a ''different'' N-Word altogether. |
| 540 | * WebVideo/DiamandaHagan, despite being portrayed as ([[EvenEvilHasStandards almost]]) utterly evil, still doesn't have these privileges, as she found out when trying to review a film with the n-word in the title. In that same video she is pissed when the censor machine goes haywire and it lets pass many other racial slurs, but one word is censored that she ''does'' have privilege to say (possibly "mick", as Diamanda is Irish). |
| 541 | -->'''Diamanda:''' I can't say *BLEEP*? I ''am'' a lesbian *BLEEP*! Who built that damn thing?!?\ |
| 542 | '''Minion:''' You did, mistress! I think you were drunk! |
| 543 | %%* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick, a self-admitted bigot who likes to thinks she's a SassyBlackWoman, threw a bit of a sulk when Nella turned the hoover on just as she was about to say the N word. |
| 544 | %%* Homophobic slurs get dropped from time to time in ''WebVideo/WhereTheBearsAre'', but from the gay cast members. |
| 545 | %%* In [[Creator/BenCroshaw Yahtzee]]'s "Let's Drown Out" series of videos, his co-host Gabriel has used his own past history dealing with severe clinical depression as a basis for taking "reactionary" positions on "culture of victimhood" issues. |
| 546 | * Ride/DisneyThemeParks reviewer WebVideo/SomeJerkWithACamera is Jewish. So he has multiple jokes about Jews, Jewish stereotypes, Michael Eisner being a GreedyJew, and a few jokes about the Holocaust. His N-Word Privileges are {{lampshade|hanging}}d in a {{crossover}} review with ''WebVideo/AnimatedAnalysis'' on ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron''. |
| 547 | -->'''Jerk:''' You're just jealous because I'm allowed to make Holocaust jokes!\ |
| 548 | '''Stephan:''' That doesn't matter!\ |
| 549 | '''Jerk:''' Hey everyone! Stephan just said the Holocaust doesn't matter! |
| 550 | %%* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' {{Platform/YouTube}}r WebVideo/{{Muselk}} enjoys taunting Snipers about being a "dirty Australian", being Australian himself. |
| 551 | %%* Racist Mario has the beloved Nintendo icon dusting off any characters that he deems non-Nintendo. Eventually, he [[SanitySlippage loses it and sets his sights on Luigi.]] When he gets the Banzai Bill powerup... |
| 552 | %%--> '''Mario:''' ''Luigi!'' (''turns into a Banzai Bill'') I'm coming for you, nigga! |
| 553 | * ''WebVideo/TwoBestFriendsPlay'' tend to do a lot of racist jokes and all of them have said nigga or nigger, especially when they play gangsta games from the early 2000s or quote rap lyrics. One of their members, Woolie, is black and the other joked that he empowered them. |
| 554 | -->'''Woolie:''' Someone on Reddit called me a young [[WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks Uncle Ruckus]]. |
| 555 | * The ''LetsPlay/YoVideogames'' crew has two black members, Kenny and Steve, who use the term "ninja" as an alternative; however, they do slip up on occasion, as seen when the group played ''Overcooked'' and Steve's antics made Kenny drop half an N-bomb before he stopped himself. Then we have the incident where Max accidentally said the word (he combined "ninja" and "ginger" via slip of the tongue). Rather than permission, Max was more concerned with forgiveness, especially after a few {{Troll}}s tried to smear him as racist, which really got to him; Kenny and Steve both said it wasn't a big deal because they know he's a genuinely NiceGuy who'd never use any kind of ethnic slur intentionally. |
| 556 | * WebVideo/{{Sidemen}}: Only the two black members, Creator/{{KSI}} and WebVideo/{{TBJZL}}, are allowed to say the N-word. This is apparent whenever they play ''TabletopGame/CardsAgainstHumanity'', as whenever there's a card that contains the N-word, they will let any of the two who is participating in the session to say the word regardless of who the current Card Czar is. Should neither JJ nor Tobi participate in the session, then the others will censor the N-word as "Nigel" instead. |
| 557 | ** In one non-Sidemen video, [[WebVideo/{{Miniminter}} Simon]] decided to work around this by [[{{Blackface}} smearing Nutella on his face]], going up to JJ, and saying the N-word to his face (which got bleeped out). [[ActuallyPrettyFunny JJ promptly broke down laughing.]] (They are lifelong best friends, by the way.) |
| 558 | %%** In one of Josh's ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV GTA Online]]'' episodes, [[https://youtu.be/vTVF8R03jdw?t=4m25s Ethan casually said something that sounded like "niggas",]] causing every Sideman playing (white or black) to flip their shit. Ethan then defended himself by stating that he was merely saying "negos" after the race creator's name ([=XxnegoskxX=]), and also gave a ridiculous description of what said name meant that caused everyone to laugh out loud. |
| 559 | %%--->'''Ethan''': It's Toys/{{Lego}} for black people. |
| 560 | * ''WebVideo/IISuperwomanII'': Lilly is proudly Indian, but that doesn't stop her from cracking jokes about her culture and heritage quite frequently. It's practically a RunningGag for her to make a snarky comment about an Indian stereotype, but preface it with, "I can say this because I'm Indian." |
| 561 | * Twice in the WebVideo/RealTimeFandub of the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Sock Opera", on-screen text points out that Sammi as Mabel can crack Nazi jokes to the "Aryan" Gabe since she's Jewish. |
| 562 | * ''WebVideo/IDubbbzTV'' {{avert|edTrope}}s as he freely admits that his style of humor is supposed to be offensive in nature and he finds himself desensitized to offensive words in general, saying them without missing a beat. He also doesn't judge the people in his ''WebVideo/ContentCop'' videos for using words that others would find offensive spoken outside of certain groups, unless [[{{Hypocrite}} they attempt to judge him for said words first]]. |
| 563 | * The premise of ''WebVideo/ThePenguinsOfMadagascarOperationNWord'' is that the Penguins try to stop UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump from saying the N-word, as that's racist. At the end, UsefulNotes/BarackObama awards Skipper with an N-word pass for stopping racism, granting him N-word privileges despite not being black. |
| 564 | * Parodied by ''WebVideo/LoadingReadyRun'' in [[https://youtu.be/-4Rho1zqKtQ this CrapShot]] where Cam's character will let you know in uncertain terms that "racist" is "our word" and that he comes "from a long line of racists". |
| 565 | * Discussed and given the FantasticRacism treatment in ''WebVideo/Dimension20'''s "Magic and Misfits" campaign, which is a DeconstructiveParody of ''Literature/HarryPotter''. The four player characters are American teenagers who are informed they're wizards and are whisked away to a magical boarding school in England. Naturally, they [[ExpyCoexistence draw comparisons to a certain fantasy franchise]], and refer to their non-magical parents as {{Muggles}}, only to be scolded by the headmistress, who informs them that in magical society, "muggle" is a ''very'' serious slur towards people without magic. The PC term is "non-magical person", or "namps" for short. The kids immediately agree that "namps" somehow feels ''more'' offensive, and question if ''they'' can use "muggle", since they were raised in their world and thought ''they'' were non-magical until about a week ago. They're told "no" and are glared at and reprimended for using it in public, but quietly agree that it's fine to use it amongst themselves, just not in "mixed company". They're all downright gleeful when the headmistress ''almost'' says it during a speech, but catches herself at the last second. |
| 566 | * WebVideo/TrapLoreRoss used to substitute the N word with "Nigel" when quoting lyrics, but later just left the word out fully. |
| 567 | * PlayedForLaughs when it comes to WebVideo/{{Lythero}}'s videos with ''VideoGame/DragonBallFighterZ'' as Goku Black-Who-Is-Actually-Black (a modded Super Saiyan Rose Goku Black to give him brown skin) and Fused Zamasu are the only ones allowed to say "N[[spoiler:ingen]]". Shadow Frieza (a modded Frieza to be completely jet black) claims he can say the N-word and the Shenanigoons race to beat him before he can say it. However, it's played straight with the players themselves as Gary is the only one who is black, thus all instances of him saying the word is replaced in subtitles with "friend". |
| 568 | [[/folder]] |
| 569 | |
| 570 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 571 | * Played with in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', episode "White Rice". Francine has a budding stand-up comic career based on her experiences growing up... as a white girl adopted by a Chinese family (she performs under her unmarried name, "Francine Ling"). Her catchphrase is "I can say it; you can't!". [[spoiler:Her privileges are later revoked, however, as her sitcom is pulled after one Asian joke.]] |
| 572 | * Discussed in ''WesternAnimation/BigMouth'' when mixed-race Missy visits her Black family in Atlanta. Missy’s cousins try to get her to say "nigga", asserting that she’s allowed to. Missy, at that time still voiced by a white actress, then looks at the camera and insists "It is definitely not okay for ME to say that word". |
| 573 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' throws around "nigga" and "nigger" like no tomorrow, the episode "Granddad's Fight" using it a [[ClusterFBomb whopping 54 times]] alone. The appropriateness of its use (such as between blacks and whites) has been lampshaded a few times: |
| 574 | ** In "The Garden Party", after [[BoomerangBigot Uncle Ruckus]] sings an incredibly racist song entitled "Don't Trust Them New Niggas Over There" for a bunch of rich white guests, the audience is shocked until one woman comments that she thinks it's okay for "them" (black people) to use the N-word. The audience then applauds politely. |
| 575 | ** An entire episode called "The S-Word" parodies and deconstructs this trope. Riley and Granddad try to sue the school district, after a white teacher reflexively calls Riley "nigga". When Huey points out that they both use the word all the time, Granddad first denies doing so, then attempts to {{invoke|d trope}} N-Word Privileges and AppropriatedAppellation as a justification. |
| 576 | --->'''Granddad:''' Well, that's different. See, it's okay between us behind closed doors. We flipped the word into a term of endearment. That's what I call my homies. You feel me, my nigga? |
| 577 | * Referenced in a ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow'' episode: When Rallo accuses Cleveland of breaking his leg, eating all his fish sticks and tater tots, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking sitting in his chair]], and calling him the N-word, Cleveland shrugs and says "I'm allowed to, right?" In another episode Lester, mistaking every black person he sees in New York as Cleveland, uses [[CallBack "that word you call Rallo all the time"]] off screen. He is going to be killed until Cleveland turns up to rescue him and invokes an apparently well-known rule to the crowd that he gets one free pass on use of the word if he has one black friend. And in the event that anyone sought to take advice on race relations from a cartoon, a helpful caption is placed onscreen reading "Warning: Results may vary." |
| 578 | ** In a non-verbal example, one episode features a situation where Cleveland has disguised himself as Lester, complete with whiteface; Holt enters dressed as Cleveland in blackface, to which Cleveland angrily responds "We may dress up as you, but you may NEVER dress up as us!" |
| 579 | ** In another episode, Cleveland, having been recently crowned "the whitest black person in America", responds with horror to the word "cracker" that "that word is just as offensive to ''them'' as the N-word is to ''us''!" [[TokenMinority Token White Guy]] Federline corrects him that it's "not even close". |
| 580 | ** In the "Pins, Spins and Fins! (Shark Story Cut for Time)" episode, Lester reacts this way to Cleveland calling him a "crumb bum". |
| 581 | --->'''Lester''': Only my people can use that word. |
| 582 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 583 | ** Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball'' where Lois and Peter's recreation of Leia and Han's sniping from the start of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' ends with Lois calling Peter a "nerf herder"... at which point Peter punches her in the face and yells, "You can't use that word! Only ''we'' can use that word!" Shortly after that, we see Peter and Brian are playfully calling each other "my nerf herder". |
| 584 | ** In the "April in Quahog" episode, everyone thinks the world is ending so they're living for the moment. Peter tells Lois that he's going to go to a majority black neighborhood and shout "the you-know-what word"[[note]]In the DVD version, he outright says "the N-word" and shows him arriving in said black neighborhood about to say it.[[/note]] to see what happens. [[spoiler:He returns wearing RequisiteRoyalRegalia and a sash that reads "King of the Black People", informing Lois "They respected me for saying it".]] |
| 585 | ** In one episode, there's a cutaway gag referencing ''Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'', wherein Jim chastises him for saying "our word". Peter apologizes, saying he thought it was his name. He then asks, "Can you pass me that oar, N-Word Jim?" Jim politely thanks him and hands him the oar without fuss. |
| 586 | * Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' with ShowWithinAShow ''Duck-Tective'', where the eponymous duck detective shares a BondOneLiner with his penguin partner: |
| 587 | -->'''Steve''': No harm...\ |
| 588 | '''Duck-Tective''': No "fowl".\ |
| 589 | '''Human constable''': I thought you always hated those jokes.\ |
| 590 | '''Duck-Tective''': ''(pointing to himself and Steve)'' '''We''' can make those jokes. |
| 591 | * "Nightwalkers" in ''WesternAnimation/MaryShelleysFrankenhole'' is considered a derogatory slur for vampires. Only vampires are allowed to say it, and even then they pronounce it "nightwalk''as''". |
| 592 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 593 | ** Inverted when Homer complains about a gay character using "queer". "That's ''our'' word for making fun of ''you''. We ''need'' it!" |
| 594 | ** Parodied in the "The Haw-Hawed Couple" with the word bully, which only bullies are allowed to use. |
| 595 | * Spoofed in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' in quite a few episodes. |
| 596 | ** Although one episode has an aversion, Butters is confronted by the ghost of Biggie Smalls. Smalls threatens to shoot Butters unless he takes him to a party Satan is throwing. When Biggie tells him what to do, Butters just repeats what Biggie says, including the N word. Biggie looks at him askance but doesn't call him on it, implicitly extending him Privileges (at least in the context of a direct quote). |
| 597 | ** ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' spoofs this in the episode "It Hits The Fan" (also known as the "shit" episode because they say shit 162 times), with Mr. Garrison explaining that even though they could all say "shit" without getting bleeped, he was the only one who could say "fag", since he is gay. Uncle Jimbo then inadvertently outed himself by saying "fag" without getting bleeped. (In a later episode, everyone can say "fag" without being bleeped as long as they're only using it as a generic insult and not a homophobic slur.) |
| 598 | ** "With Apologies To Jessie Jackson" proposes a theoretical {{double standard}} of this concept, that if there was a word as offensive to white people as "nigger" is to black people, it'd be outlawed without question. After blurting out the word on national TV, Randy earns the derogatory nickname of "the 'nigger' guy", which offends him enough to lobby for a law to be passed that the title "'nigger' guy" be made illegal. |
| 599 | ** "Holiday Special", which mocks ancestry tests, has a commercial for one called DNA and Me where a white man starts using the word because he found out that he's 2.1% African. |
| 600 | ** There's also an episode where the boys are given permission by the gay community to redefine the F-slur (you know the one) to mean "guys who make too much noise on their Harleys." Let us say such an effort would be extremely contentious in real life and leave it at that. |
| 601 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'': In the episode "The Inamorata Consequence", during the 2nd Summit of The Treaty of Tolerance Between [[GovernmentAgencyOfFiction OSI]] and [[WeirdTradeUnion The Guild of Calamitous Intent]], one of the OSI representatives brings up "good guys and bad guys", which infuriates The Phantom Limb, causing him to retort "Bad guys?! How DARE you!" The next episode, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch comfortably tells Watch & Ward "[[CardCarryingVillain We're the bad guys. Let's own it, gentlemen]]", showing only the villains are put off by someone else calling them "bad guys". The In-universe preferred terms are "protagonists" and "antagonists". |
| 602 | [[/folder]] |
| 603 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Main / NWordPrivileges
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
