"Silence, assorted stereotypes."
— The Omnipotent Voice addressing the cast of The Strangerhood
A cast where every (or almost every) member represents a stereotype of some sort. These stereotypes can include:
- National/ethnic/religious stereotypes.
- Occupational stereotypes (doctor, soldier, pirate, artist, etc), usually wearing Stock Costume Traits.
- Subculture or lifestyle stereotypes (Surfer Dude, Valley Girl, Goth, etc).
- Ms Fanservicesnote representing "sexy" versions of certain job/subculture/nation/etc. identities (sexy cop, sexy nurse, sexy librarian, etc.).
- Expies of well-known historical or fictional characters (Bruce Lee Clone, Joan Of Archetype, Classical Movie Vampire, etc), usually representing their respective nations/ethnicities.
If an All-Stereotype Cast contains a couple of non-stereotypical characters, they tend to be:
- "Normal Guys/Girls" who are much less stereotypical, but also much more "generic" than the rest. They're usually the main hero and Audience Surrogate.note
- Wacky gimmick characters.
- If it's a video game that features bosses/mid-bosses, they're also quite often non-stereotypical.note
This trope could be used for different reasons. Maybe the creators had a limited time or budget to create a cast of fully fleshed but recognizable humorous characters, and turned to this trope as an easier shorthand. Maybe they just didn't care. Or maybe this was done intentionally, for example to parody or deconstruct the stereotypes, or just play them straight and revel in the ensuing campy silliness. Note: This trope isn't necessarily a symptom of a bad or lazy creative process; if done right, it might result in an enjoyable if campy cast of characters.
Though in Long-Runners, they'll eventually gain Character Development beyond their initial roles.
This trope was surprisingly prominent in fighting/racing/vehicular combat video games, but can also be encountered elsewhere. If like characters band together and compete with other groups of likes, you've entered Gang of Hats territory. A somewhat common subspecies of this trope is to use a bunch of national stereotypes to fill out a "global" cast.
Compare Five-Token Band, which doesn't necessarily consist of stereotypes, and is always multiethnic.note See also Captain Ethnic; a superhero team consisting of Captain Ethnics will result in an All-Stereotype Cast.
Subtrope of Taste the Rainbow.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You uses this trope intentionally, both to deconstruct said stereotypes and to keep the ridiculously large cast from becoming too overwhelming.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers is a pretty well-known example, where this is done deliberately and usually Played for Laughs. The characters represent various countries of the world, and are intentionally portrayed in a stereotypical manner: Japan is overly reserved, Italy is obsessed with pasta, America only wants to be the hero, etc.
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam revels in this trope. Nearly every Gundam pilot is a walking national stereotype. To list a few: Japanese Domon (The Hero) is a martial artist trying to restore his family honor, Spaniard Carlos Andalusia dresses like a matador and his Gundam is shaped like a bull's head, Chibodee Crockett fits every EagleLand stereotype you can think of, and Indian Chandra Sijiema is an evil snake charmer.
- Tiger & Bunny: The superhero identities of the supporting cast rely heavily on stereotypes: sexy Ms. Fanservice superheroine Karina, bull-themed Dashing Hispanic Antonio, dragon-themed Bruce Lee Clone Anime Chinese Girl Pao-Lin, ditzy, nice All-American Face Keith, and flamboyant note Nathan play this trope straight; Ivan plays with it by having his identity being a stereotypical ninja/samurai but instead he's a Russian Japanophile.
- Re:CREATORS features a group of Anime Character Types as the main cast, considering all of them were actually pulled from the realm of fiction. Celesia is a female Stock Light-Novel Hero, Mamika is the naive Stock Shoujo Heroine of a Magical Girl series, Yuuya is the arrogant Stock Shōnen Rival, Rui is the Classic Anti Hero Big Eater mech protagonist, Alicetaria the fantasy lead, and Blitz is the gruff Action Hero. We even get some video game stereotypes in Meteora, resident Mr. Exposition tutorial girl. From the latecomers' side: Stock Shōnen Hero Syo, brooding Stock Light-Novel Hero Charon, and Hikayu, Naïve Everygirl visual novel lead.
Comic Books
- Kunskapens Korridorer: The class of 8C consists of all the different personality types, which you'd expect from any work about a school: an Alpha Bitch, The Bully, Token Minority, etc.
Films — Live-Action
- The Breakfast Club: A sort of Deconstruction. Each of the students in detention fulfills a high school stereotype of The '80s: specifically, jocks, brainiacs, princesses, criminals, and basket cases — and yet is about showing how they're much more than those stereotypes.
Brian: You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.
- Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines: The Prussians/Germans are uptight efficiency freaks, the French guy is as interested in skirt-chasing and having fun as he is in piloting (if not more), the Italians are devout Catholics and have a lot of kids, the American is a cowboy, the British are stuffy and formal, and so forth. But as one YouTube review
points out, the facts that all the actors are the appropriate nationalities and "insults" are applied evenly to all concerned helps mitigate the offensiveness.
- Also interestingly not the case for the Japanese pilot, who is presented as intelligent and articulate, speaks very good English and has a taste for Scotch whisky to boot.
- District 13: Ultimatum: Everyone. From the gangster alliance (Black Rastafarians who look like rejects from the Lord's Resistance Army, robe-clad bearded Arabs, Trigger-Happy Portuguese used-car salesmen, tattooed Asian martial artists, and white Neo-Nazi skinheads), to the bad guys (a PR-obsessed French President and his Evil Chancellor), to the heroes (Cowboy Cop Damien and Neighborhood Friendly Gangster Leito). It manages to be quite hilarious because of how straight it plays the whole thing.
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has a stereotypical quartet of high school comedy movie characters in the "real world" a stereotypical quartet of action comedy characters in the "Jumanji world"... and the juxtaposition is flipped when the high school teens get put into the player characters that are their diametric opposites in the Jumanji game. The closeted video game nerd ends up in the muscular hero character, the jock ends up as a glorified backpack, the Alpha Bitch ends up in a frumpy portly guy, and the Shrinking Violet girl ends up in a bare-midriff short-shorts Kick Chick Action Girl.
- The poster for Not Another Teen Movie helpfully points them all out for us.◊
Live-Action TV
- Sense8: Due to having to introduce eight storylines all at once, the global cast comprises National Stereotypes so the audience doesn't have to fill in the blanks as much. The protagonists are a serious, possibly sociopathic German; a queer San Franciscan intellectual; a quiet, stoic Korean who is a champion kickboxer; a macho Telenovela actor from Mexico; a cool Nordic DJ; a nice all-American cop; a woman from India nervous about her upcoming wedding (complete with a Bollywood dance number early in the first season), and a poor Kenyan man with a mother dying of AIDS. The characters are fleshed out and allowed to be more than these stereotypes, however, even playing with some of them (e.g., the macho Mexican actor is closeted, and the Indian woman is a religious scientist).
- 'Allo 'Allo!: This show made fun of everyone. Rene is a cowardly French Jerk with a passionate love life; his waitresses are sexy French women; Those Wacky Nazis include: two bumbling enlisted officers, a Camp Gay lieutenant, and a stoic bespectacled Gestapo officer; the English pilots speak with an exaggerated English accent and are both very polite and stuffy, Captain Bertorelli is a Miles Gloriosus who talks with his hands, etc.
- Played with on The Ranganation, where Romesh's focus group are identified only by stereotype-esque descriptors, such as "Metalhead", "Ex-Banker", "Never Voted", and "Glam Gran".
Music
- The Village People's gimmick was that each dressed as a different stereotype of American masculinity.
Professional Wrestling
- This was the defining trait of Vincent J McMahon's WWWF, as he wanted at least one wrestler for every ethnic group in New York to have a program a year and would take wrestlers from other territories if he had too. Not only are Tropes Not Bad, but over the years people found this preferable to Vince Jr's inflammatory race baiting and territory killing star poaching(Vince Sr was at least nice enough to send someone he considered equally "exotic" in to fill the vacancy)
- Women Of Wrestling's first run in the early 2000s attempted a more realistic take on this trope by showing wrestlers in their downtime trying to fit into the "new" culture and or explaining how all these people got on the roster to begin with. But when you have a six foot black woman named Slam Dunk, a Persian Belly Dancer, a South American Jungle Grrl and a Tongan named Paradise you're nonetheless using this trope. The 2012 revival a little less so, as it scouted more wrestlers as opposed to training new ones and changed fewer of those wrestlers' established gimmicks.
- Deliberately avoided with Lucha Liga Elite, as while it did go out of its way to get as many wrestlers/luchadores from as many different parts of the world as possible it made a point of having them keep their original gimmicks, which often didn't hint at anything in particular. The Argentina native is Hip Hop Man rather than the black US national. The "Chicano" is openly Puerto Rican. The man from Cameroon does have a lion theme but not as much as The Lion Brothers, who are Mexican.
Tabletop Games
- The special beans in Bohnanza spin-off Bohn to be Wild! rely heavily on stereotypes. For instance, the China bean is a yellow bean with a sedge hat and Asian Buck Teeth, and the Indian bean looks like a stereotypical Native American with a red face and a feather headdress.
Web Comics
- The whole premise of Scandinavia and the World is that the characters representing the countries are National Stereotypes.
- Polandball, also known as Countryballs is basically a webcomic born in 4chan about Polandball and his relationship with the other countryballs, all of them represent National Stereotypes based on actual conducts of every country translated into a personality. First based only on Europe and US, there's already the whole world pictured as countryball (also, not just limited to countries, there're also countyballs and even planetballs).
- Total Trauma deconstructs the Total Drama series' usage of this trope. All of the contestants were pigeonholed by the producers into their stereotypes and were so deeply affected by it that it started to harmfully influence their behaviour, particularly with Heather feeling guilt over her role as an Alpha Bitch and Duncan getting arrested because he was so desperate to prove he was still a tough delinquent. When they're all adults after the end of the show, many have had their lives irreparably damaged by it, with some even completely changing their identities to get away from their past selves.
- The premise of Boyfriends. is the characters representing teen movie stereotypes in polyamorous relationship.
Western Animation
- Wacky Races might be one of the oldest examples of this trope. It features a couple of stereotypical cavemen, a Red-plica Baron, a couple of army stereotypes, a mob of stereotypical gangsters, a super-genius scientist inventor, a lazy hillbilly with a pet bear, a stereotype lumberjack with a pet beaver, a macho hero with a Lantern Jaw of Justice, a Girly Girl obsessed with her looks, and a Dastardly Whiplash-style villain.
- Drawn Together characters represent (and parody) reality show stereotypes, combining them with cartoon genre archetypes. Captain Hero, for example, parodies the macho jock stereotype and the confident, powerful superhero.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog is an incredibly extreme example of this; Eustace is a Grumpy Old Man, Muriel is a Scottish Kindhearted Simpleton that also becomes a Brave Scot in certain episodes, Le Quack is a French Jerk, Di Lung is an Asian Nouveau Riche Insufferable Genius, Mad Dog is (debatably) a Scary Black Man, Kitty (prior to her redemption at the end of "The Mask") is a Klan-robed Straw Feminist, the Flan King is a Dashing Hispanic Fat Bastard, Freaky Fred has British Teeth, Rumpled Kilt Skin is a Violent Glaswegian, Courage is a Southern-Fried Genius, Katz and the Perfectionist are Evil Brits, Courage's Computer is British Stuffiness incarnate, Maria Ladrones is a female Bandito, the General and the Lieutenant are Armed Farces, Dr. Zalost is a Mad Scientist / Herr Doktor, Dr. Vindaloo is a Bollywood Nerd, Cajun Fox and Big Bayou are Ragin' Cajuns...honestly, it would be easier to list the characters that aren't blatant caricatures in this show.
- Clone High subverts this. The cast initially looks like this trope, consisting of clones of various historical figures rather than their expies. However, the characters themselves don't want to be tied down with other people's preconceptions of the historical figures from whom they're cloned, so they tend to do a complete 180-degree turn in terms of personality: Abe Lincoln is a weak-willed wimp, Joan of Arc went goth, Gandhi is a wacky party animal, and so on.
- The first generation of contestants of Total Drama provides the current page image. The entire cast represent and parody teenage stereotypes. Some play their stereotypes straight (Duncan is a delinquent, Heather is an Alpha Bitch, Geoff is a party animal, Lindsay is a dumb cheerleader, Harold/Cody/Noah are nerds/geeks, etc.), while some subvert expectations (Gwen is a Perky Goth, Tyler is a jock who sucks at sports, DJ is also a jock but is a timid Mama's Boy, etc.).
- The Loud House. While Lincoln himself is a pretty normal boy, his sisters seem to each embody a stereotype (bossy oldest sister, dumb fashionista, musician, comedian, athlete, goth, pageant princess, outdoors/wildlife lover, genius, and baby).
