History Film / WhiteMansBurden

* StereotypeFlip: The entire movie has blacks and whites reversing stereotypes. The white Louis' form of speech is very street-wise, whereas the black Thaddeus is much more articulate. One minor difference is that the music of white youth is heavy metal instead of rap.

Not to be confused [[Main/WhiteMansBurden with the trope]] with the [[NamesTheSame same name]], which does not play a major role in the film.

* AngryBlackMan: But fitting with the theme of the film, it's actually a StereotypeFlip. Louis is white instead of black, but the stereotype is played in the exact same way.

%%* PersecutionFlip
* NotSoAboveItAll: Megan shames Thaddeus throughout the movie for his casual racism, but she seems visibly uncomfortable when their child brings home a white date.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Thaddeus gives Louis this after he almost escapes him. Ignorant of what Louis has gone through up until his kidnapping, he insists that all of his short-comings are his fault, and his fault alone.

* AngryBlackMan: But fitting with the theme of the film, it's actually a StereotypeFlip, with Louis being white instead of black in this film but it's played in the exact same way.

* PersecutionFlip

* TooDumbToLive [[spoiler: Surrendering while still holding your gun isn't the best of ideas Louis.]]

''White Man's Burden'' is a 1995 film starring Creator/JohnTravolta and Harry Belafonte in an [[AlternateUniverse alternate]] [[DifferentStatesOfAmerica America]] in which blacks are the racial majority, and whites are a minority group. Travolta plays as Louis Pinnock, a factory worker, and Belafonte plays as Thaddeus Thomas, the owner of the factory. One day, Louis is asked to deliver a package to Thaddeus' house. However, he accidentally walks by the bedroom window where Thaddeus' wife is undressing. Thaddeus sees him, and reports him to Louis' supervisor, who fires him the next day. Shortly afterwards, Louis is beaten by cops on the way home, evicted from his house, and lands in a sore spot with his family. Unable to find a stable job, Louis kidnaps Thaddeus in order to gain money for his family. A series of events follow that change both of their lives forever.

Not to be confused (and it's not related to) [[Main/WhiteMansBurden with the trope]] with the [[NamesTheSame same name]].

* WhiteMansBurden: This film is about an alternate America with a StereotypeFlip where whites and blacks switch places in the social-economic ladder. It doesn't feature this trope (or rather, its inversion) particularly much since the well-off black deuteragonist Thaddeus regards lower class whites such as protagonist Louis with contempt and racial prejudice, but his wife does support a charity to help poor white youths from the inner cities.

''White Man's Burden'' is a 1995 film starring JohnTravolta and Harry Belafonte in an [[AlternateUniverse alternate]] America in which blacks are the racial majority, and whites are a minority group. Travolta plays as Louis Pinnock, a factory worker, and Belafonte plays as Thaddeus Thomas, the owner of the factory. One day, Louis is asked to deliver a package to Thaddeus' house. However, he accidentally walks by the bedroom window where Thaddeus' wife is undressing. Thaddeus sees him, and reports him to Louis' supervisor, who fires him the next day. Shortly afterwards, Louis is beaten by cops on the way home, evicted from his house, and lands in a sore spot with his family. Unable to find a stable job, Louis kidnaps Thaddeus in order to gain money for his family. A series of events follow that change both of their lives forever.

* TooDumbToLive [[spoiler: Surrendering while still holding your gun isn't the best of ideas Louis.]]

* NeverTrustATrailer: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaX41DhH870 The trailer]] makes the movie look like an action thriller where Louis is a {{Badass}} AntiHero. In actuality, the action moments in the trailer are practically ''all'' of the action moments in the entire film. Also, Thaddeus is made to look more villainous. For example, his line "white people are genetically inferior" is taken out of context so that it sounds like he's stating his own opinion.[[note]]The opinion he was stating in that scene was still racist, but not quite that racist.[[/note]]

* TooDumbToLive [[spoiler: Surrendering while still holding your gun isn't the best of ideas Louis.]]

* PoliceBrutality: Louis becomes a victim of this when two cops mistake him for a perp with a similar appearance (i.e. white).

* StereotypeFlip: The entire movie has blacks and whites reversing stereotypes. The white Louis' form of speech is very street-wise, whereas the black Thaddus is much more articulate. One minor difference is that the music of white youth is heavy metal instead of rap.

* [[spoiler: BittersweetEnding / DownerEnding: Thaddeus comes to see the error of his ways, but Louis is shot and killed by police, his surviving family now lives in a run-down hotel, and it is implied that Louis' son is likely heading down a bad path.]]

* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies: Louis is shot dead by police when they see him holding a gun, even though he is trying to give up.]]

* GlorifiedSpermDonor: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] when Thaddeus makes a reference to this when his wife is discussing an event she was at that had impoverished white children there. She is not amused.
* InSpiteOfANail: Despite the cultural reversal, America turned out pretty much the same, just with blacks in traditionally white roles, and vice versa. One slight cultural change that is shown is that heavy metal is the music of ghetto youth, instead of rap.