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One of these things is not like the other...
At one point, there were far more Acceptable Targets than there are today. Back then, an easy source of humor was to select someone with a different appearance to oneself and make fun of their race and culture.
Times have changed, but sometimes to the extent of Political Correctness Gone Mad: fear of offending any minority can result in rather bland fare if the writers are lazy, particularly for comedy. Some series make a character part of a minority, or invent an entirely new minority character simply for the sake of not offending that minority. (In most cases, people that belong to the minority are allowed to make jokes about them.) Shows based on Dead Baby Comedy will laugh at these people as much as possible with the express purpose of causing such reactions.
Examples
- Women: In Greek mythology, Pandora opened her eponymous box just to sate her curiosity, and unleashed all the horrors of the world upon mankind. In Japanese mythology, Izanami brought death into the world because her husband Izanagi rejected her after seeing what her stay in Hell had done to her (though in her defense, that was a dick move). And there are countless other examples like this from mythology, demonstrating the primitive belief that women were powerful but dangerous creatures who couldn't control their emotions. As a result of this, for much of history women have been alternately feared, ridiculed, and oppressed, and still are in many countries. On TV, this manifested as women being inherently less intelligent and capable at anything they try than men, an attitude which was used as a rich source of laughs. Today, this attitude is a very effective way to quickly get a series canceled.
- Black People: When white Europeans carved out worldwide empires in the 15th to 19th centuries, they ended up conquering the comparatively less advanced Africans. Many were brought to the English, Spanish, French, Dutch, or Portuguese settlements in the Americas when supplies of Native American slaves began to dwindle. Due to lack of education, blacks have for a long time been portrayed as either big, dumb brutes or Uncle Tomfoolery. Today, treatment varies with the setting. If the story is set in Darkest Africa, the black natives will usually be of the Noble Savage variety. In North America and Europe, a black person is generally portrayed as an ordinary person, albeit somewhat more streetwise than a white person, and with somewhat higher mortality. There's still the risk of a "gangsta" or Jive Turkey showing up, though. As a Positive Discrimination backlash against all this, the Magical Negro was created, but now he's a cliche, too.
- American Indians: For a long time, portrayed as either deadly savages or pathetic fools. (Last of the Mohicans was an early aversion, but it didn't exactly take.) Today, if American Indians feature in a story set in the past, they will usually be noble savages; in a modern setting, they will tend to yearn for the old days, and often deliver An Aesop on environmentalism. Either that, or they'll be connected to the spirits and the ways of the world. Or they're poor and live in a trailer.
- Indians: For a long time, Indians (the ones actually from India) were portrayed in basically the same way as Native Americans, but with worse accents. However, the popularity of Bollywood productions have caused a shift in attitudes. Modern Indian characters are often either medical doctors or skilled hackers, reflecting India's strong software development industry; whether this is a positive portrayal or a perpetuation of stereotypes is an occasional source of debate. Still occasionally put behind the counter at 7-11, though.
- Back in the '70s, Johnny Quest tried to avert this, by giving the Indian Hadji tremendous computer skills. Oops.
- The phenomenon of call centres is arguably skewing Indians back into Acceptable Target territory.
- Mainly because call centres themselves have long been Acceptable Targets on their own.
- Indians and Pakistanis owning convenience stores is probably the longest lasting Indian stereotype in America.
- In much of the US, convenience stores are somewhat crudely known as "Haji-Marts".
- [Citation Needed], big time. (This Troper is a 38-year-old US native, and has never heard this term, ever.)
- When I was in the Army, the term "Hajji-mart" usually referred to the markets that the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan would set up off post when we were deployed. Very occasionally, someone would refer to a convenience store stateside this way, but that was the exception.
- When I was in Kirkuk, there was an actual store called, by its owner, "Imid's Haji Bazaar"...
- It's disturbingly acceptable in some British communities to talk about "the Paki shop". My naive younger self refused to believe this was anything more than a mishearing of "'baccy
 shop".
- At least in the Northeastern U.S., "Packy" can just refer to a package store, and is usually used in that context.
- Similarly, in Sweden tobacco shops are often referred to as "Turk kiosks" because they are often run by middle eastern immigrants, among them Turks.
- In Germany, eating at a foreign restaurant can be referred to as going to "the Italian" or "the Chinese".
- ... or "the Greek", "the Japanese", "the Australian", depending upon what national cuisine they actually serve. What else should one call it? It can't possibly get more politically correct than that.
- Apart from when you call it, as they do round here, 'the chinky'. Which always makes this troper cringe when she hears it.
- In Poland, marketplaces are sometimes, depending on the kind of wares, referred to as "Ruskie's".
- Indians have actually made great strides within the entertainment industry within the last few years. There are successful Indian comedians such as Aziz Ansari and Aasif Mandvi (a current correspondent of The Daily Show) as well as actors such as Kal Penn and Dev Patel. Mindy Kaling is an Indian-American who writes for and stars in the US version on The Office and her character of Kelly has to be the least stereotypical Indian character on television.
- However, this can be (Partially) attributed to the fact that they're all only vaguely Indian, and, in the comedy circuit at least, have fairly impressive routines built almost solely on lambasting Indian culture. See Russell Peters.
- Um... how do Mindy Kaling◊ and Kal Penn◊ come off as "only vaguely Indian"? Is it because they have American accents? Methinks that last troper might have misinterpreted what the previous troper was trying to get across. I'll give you Russell Peters though.
- Because they're only Indian in the sense of ethnicity. They're not actually belonging to Indian culture at all.
- Irish: Something of a Cyclic Trope. Until The Nineties, whenever an Irish person appeared in a British Series, they would either a drunk, a fool, or both. Later, as many Irish people became rich, they are now often lumped in with WASPs (or WCCs, as the case may be) and have started drifting back into the realm of Acceptable Targets. In the US, the Irish were a longtime acceptable target, with this peaking in the mid to late 19th century and early 20th. Stereotypes of the time usually depicted the Irish as drunken, lawless, buffoonish, and lazy. Stores hiring employees might often hang signs saying things like "Irish need not apply". Combined with the fact that many Irish were also Catholic, (see details below) didn't help either. This is now mostly forgotten in the US, (with occasional exception, such as in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, where the racist locals at one point reluctantly agree to find some land for the black and chinese workers aiding them against an army of thugs, but firmly state "But we don't want the Irish!") although stereotypes about drunkeness and such persist. Also a rich source of Western Terrorists, see also The Troubles. Furthermore, no matter what time period it is, Irish people are Fiery Redheads about 80% of the time, especially in non-UK media, despite red hair being rare amoung Irish people.
- And now we are all poor and emigrating once again. Woo-bleedin-hoo.
- Sometimes played as N Word Privileges by white Americans, since many of us are partly or largely Irish (as is This Troper). The humor writing of P.J. O'Rourke is a good example.
- Jews: Ever since Seti I enslaved them, the Jews have suffered from negative portrayals in the media; and in particular, Jews have been Acceptable Targets in Christianity for longer than it's been known as Christianity. However, since a lot of screenwriters and pioneering Comic Book authors were Jewish, Jews have pretty much become ordinary people on TV; indeed, most shows will have at some point have one character revealing their Jewishness to show how racially sensitive the writers are.
- Technically Pharaoh is never referred to as anything but Pharaoh (weird given the usually obsessive attention to detail and names in the Torah), and has been associated with every pharaoh from Ahkenaton to Ramses II by different people and groups.
- Those Wacky Nazis, of course, also affected the development of this trope.
- This may be the reason it's easier to generate uncomfortable humor around anti-Semitism than other forms of racism — South Park plays up Cartman insulting Kyle for being Jewish more than it does his other offensive opinions.
- This troper remembers being told while studying Shakespeare (The Merchant Of Venice) that William didn't actually want to write a 'villainous Jew gets their comeuppance' play, but was essentially forced to because it was the fashion at the time. Even so, unlike the other playwrights who jumped on the bandwagon, Shakespeare tried to make Shylock at least a somewhat sympathetic character rather than being pure evil simply through not being Christian.
- Compared to contemporary Jewish characters in English literature, Shylock is a very sympathetic character. In "The Jew of Malta" by Marlowe, Barabas the Jewish merchant kills and betrays just about every character, and even he was considered a well-thought-out character. Most portrayals of the time had Jews drinking blood and killing children. So comparatively, Shylock is pretty good.
- Since the play is a comedy, Shylock is intended to elicit sympathy. He was written as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, something new for a Jewish character at the time.
- Somehow on the Internet people are not afraid to use the word "Jew" as an insult.
- Internet? At this troper's old high school, it was quite common to hear people comment that they had been "Jewed" (ripped off, etc.). The moderate anti-semitism is one of the reasons this troper hated his high school days, and he's not even Jewish.
- This troper is still in high school and being called a "Jew" happens all the time. Although it is not always due to racism, somtimes it is, just that everyone watches South Park and Cartman always uses it as an insult. I'm not jewish but I just don't think it's that offensive.
- Any time someone non-jewish uses Jew as an insult, it makes me want to kill them. Jewish history is mostly "These two peoples fought, and then created a peace based on the idea that Jews should be killed" or "These guys inspired themselves by killing Jews", so as a result any racism makes us kinda touchy. The reason it's OK when Cartman makes fun of Jews is because Cartman is a thoroughly despicable example of mankind who almost everyone agrees should be shot. Your school suffers from Misaimed Fandom, or if they realize that Cartman is an ass, they just suck as people.
- Louann Miller said it: "For some reason, Jews are a little wary of assuming that this 1900 year history of constant low-grade harrassment with occasional bursts of mass murder is gone forever. They just aren't going to toss all that out and assume that the last 50 or so years of Christians generously describing themselves as part of the 'Judeo-Christian tradition; will now continue until the end of time."
- I had a Jewish friend in high school who referred to getting ripped off as "being Jewed". (He was also Polish and told "dumb Polack" jokes.)
- File that one under N Word Privileges.
- Jewish jokes are incredibly commonplace because they're an easy target. After all, they've been getting shit on for about 2000 years now, so everyone can do it without fear of reprisal.
- It's coming back, in the new days Jews are usually depicted as perma-offensed and perma-bitching which may have some point in it, but yet it takes overhand especially in some tv shows.
- That is, if they're not Israelis. Then they tend to be sneaky, suspicious, paranoid, but completely badass IDF or Mossad-types.
- Even though, technically speaking, Israel has more film schools than all of Europe combined (18 compared to, I think, 15), and WAY too many lawyers, so it kinda does fit the whole Jewish sterotype (Doctors & Lawyers, they control the media). But the Israeli army is so badass that it defies imagination. It's kinda scary.
- The problem being, its hard to tell these days what is actual Anti-Semitism and what is pre-emptive destruction of critics. This Troper was once labeled an Anti-Semite for criticizing a political action made by the political body known as Israel. I did not criticize Jews or Judaism. What I specifically criticized was Israel's government, and one of the actions thereof. And I was tarred with the Anti-Semitism brush. So Yeah...
- 'Pre-emptive destruction of critics' is becoming an overshadowing aim of the Anti-Defamation League. Though they have taken on worthy crusades, their litigious methods and motives are becoming more and more Scientologist, so they appear less a "Watch Dog" than an "Attack Dog" organization. And need it be mentioned how they passed out a list of their known and perceived rivals as a list of known terrorist networks to the FBI and Homeland Security?
- East Asians: While they probably stayed Acceptable Targets longer than other races, they are certainly treated with much more kindness these days. In the late 19th century/early 20th century Asians were the victim of Yellow Peril stereotypes, and often made fun of for their exotic clothing and strange language, often portrayed as buck-toothed, bespectacled and with banana-yellow skin. Then WWII and the bombing of Pearl Harbor happened and all bets were off. It was especially vicious for the Japanese. You'll notice in WWII-era propaganda such as Wartime cartoons, Germany will be portrayed as simply having a ruthless and evil leader forcing its citizen to commit terrible acts, but the Japanese were portrayed as an entire race of violent devils who wanted to kill everybody. All because the Japanese had the nerve to not be white. Asians are treated more kindly these days, and Asians are seen as very intelligent and excel in academics, though of course this leads to the supposedly "positive" stereotype of nerds. These days Asian men are portrayed as staunch businessmen and Asian women are portrayed as exotic beauties.
- However, Asian actors (at least the males) still have a hard time getting cast in Western media, even in things like Firefly and the projected live-action version of Avatar The Last Airbender, in which Asian influences are an integral part of the fictional world. Even in fictionalised versions of real events that involved real Asian people, such as 21 (the film version of Bringing Down the House) they lose out to white actors.
- Well, you forgot that Asian women are seen in two opposite spectres: the threatening seductresses, and the extremely submissive and willing doormat. This actually has more to do with Asian cultures than Western stereotypes though.
- Homosexuals: Until fairly recently, gay men were considered the same as pedophiles, and lesbians were viewed as evil succubi who tempt pure women away from their God-given duty to be sexually available to men, if they were even acknowledged to exist at all. Changing times have resulted in more out-and-out gay people in media. Don't expect to see any bisexuals, though, unless Everyone Is Bi.
- For the record, homosexuality was not wholly removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental illnesses until 1986, and it remains a criminal offence in lots of places. Still Acceptable Targets indeed, sadly.
- This troper has noticed, however, that really good television has more gay people than straight people. Six Feet Under, Angels In America, and others (The L Word comes to mind, but I didn't really get the point of it, so I'm not mentioning it), so the times definitely are changing on that perception. Even though a friend of mine still considers homosexuality to be a dangerous illness. I asked him once if it was a venereal disease, and if he was worried about catching it.
- Sadly, Camp Gays, Drag Queens, and Butch Lesbians are usually seen as exceptions to this, even (sometimes especially) among other gay people, who are increasingly obsessed with being seen as "straight-acting."
- Catholics: The US has a strong Protestant tradition, from the Mayflower onwards, and for much of American history Catholics were a small minority which was viewed with great suspicion. It didn't help, either, that most American Catholics were either Irish (see above) or natives of non-English speaking European countries, tossing xenophobia into the mix. Anti-Catholic sentiment peaked in the 19th century, when it was widely believed in many Protestant circles, and claimed in many pamphlets and "true confession" novels, that the Catholic church was a secretive Satanic cabal which practiced human sacrifice and was plotting to destroy American democracy. These sentiments have waned enough over the years that John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, was able to narrowly win the 1960 presidential election, for John Kerry to come within a hair's breadth of doing the same in 2004, and for Joe Biden to be elected vice president in 2008, not to mention 6 of the current 9 Supreme Court justices, but even today there are a few holdouts convinced that the Church of Rome is evil. Jack Chick is probably the best known, but recent pedophilia-and-coverup scandals have pushed the Catholic church back towards an Acceptable Target in some eyes.
- In British history, discrimination switched between Catholics and Protestants depending on the religion of the ruler at the time. The current royal family is descended from Germans, because the Catholic James II was driven from the throne in 1688, and the nearest Protestant relative was George, the Prince of Hanover (later part of Germany). The Act Of Settlement of 1701 remains in force, barring any Roman Catholic, or person married to one, from succession to the throne, and requiring any monarch to be a member of the Church Of England.
- The recent history of the Royal Family means that when William takes the throne, he will be have the most English blood of any king since 1066. Even the so-called "English" kings that came before James II were mainly of Norman French, Scots, and Welsh heritage.
- Protestants: Essentially the reverse of the above, while Catholics were acceptable targets for Protestants, Protestants were at the same time acceptable targets for Catholics in countries with Catholic majorities.
- Russians: Cold War anyone? For an extended period of recent history there was a disproportionate number of evil Russian masterminds. Regardless of the fact that the Cold War was a bloodless war (not counting things like 'Nam or Korea), if you see a Russian on screen in a film more than 20 years old, he will be bloodthirsty, cunning, and likely a Magnificent Bastard . After all, if the Russians weren't incredibly cunning and evil, an argument could be made that the US didn't gain anything from the cold war (save Nukes). In any film made within the last 20 years, Russians will probably be brilliant scientists, drinking vodka, or still pretty damn evil. And often mobsters.
- Russia has been a pretty much universally acceptable target for centuries. The Cold War just made it worse.
- There was a brief window during World War II where Russians were America's Heroic Allies. Thus Casablanca is even more notable for including what may have been the last depiction of an even vaguely sympathetic Russian character for over twenty years. Although he's a Leisure Suit Larry-type bartender.
- Doctor Zhivago doesn't have this trope, despite being filmed in 1965, at the height of the Cold War. All the characters are Russians, and only two or three of them can be argued to be negatively portrayed.
- Doctor Zhivago was also an anti-communist book, which helped a lot with its portrayal is the middle of the Cold War.
- Doctor Zhivago was also written by a Russian.
- Also, KGB agents are always hilariously incompetent, when they were actually fairly more effective than the CIA and their Western European counter-parts. That includes serious movies (and it is still hilarious).
- Lampshaded in Destroy All Humans 2 by the KGB's ridiculous incompetence and Russian accents. In one level, an Englishman with a musket made from an umbrella can kill dozens of KGB agents if given enough time.
- What about The Fourth Protocol, which featured a pre-007 Pierce Brosnan working for the KGB?
- In Telefon KGB officer Charles Bronson is very competent and the good guy.
- In The Presidents Analyst a KGB agent is one of many spies from every country after the title character. He's charming and quite competent (he has the sense to dress like a farmer out in the country while every spy around him is in a black suit) and actually does capture him. He's also good buddies with his CIA counterpart, even making friendly wagers over the outcome of their assignments.
- Chekov in the original Star Trek was written as a aversion of this trope.
- But didn't do too well at it. With a truly ridiculous fake accent and an absurd habit of attributing everything in history to the USSR, he didn't exactly flatter Russia.
- Also, Illya Kuryakin of The Man From UNCLE fame qualifies.
- Moon Zero Two, a piece of late-60s-lunar-craze fluff from Hammer Studios, has an American main character, a moon ferry pilot, with a Russian co-pilot. However, in keeping with the film's message of a borderless new frontier ("We're all foreigners up here"), neither characters' nationality is ever explicitly mentioned, but are pretty obvious to guess from their respective accents. An anvil wrapped in a muffler, perhaps, but an anvil nonetheless.
- In Turkey this is subverted by the Russians not being evil, but prostitutes. It was Truth In Television for Russian women living in Turkey for a while, apparently.
- This used to be an often encountered situation for not only Russian women, but also Eastern European women in general, who were considered something "exotic" in Turkey, due to most of them being natural blondes, with fair skin and blue eyes. Most of the time, these women were from poor families, and came to Turkey to find work. Unfortunately, prostitution was often their only choice once they got there...
- A variant of this is for the Russian to be weird, such as the cosmonaut in Armageddon.
- Of course what defines an (un)acceptable target is prone at any moment...
- Arguably, Russians are still acceptable, as every near-future war video game features the Russians as antagonists to some extent. It's even gotten to the point where some writers don't even bother with the Renegade Russian pretext anymore.
- This trope is at least played for laughs thanks to Vladimir Putin, who is often affectionately described as 'A real life Bond villain'.
- The fact that he nearly qualifies as a real-life example of a popular trope contributes to this.
- Although, many would disagree, So Yeah.
- The Russian bride scams stoke stereotypes, playing on general acceptance of Russian men as irredeemably abusive vodka-drunkards for sympathy to the beautiful and gentle Russian women. Of course they avert any association with the cunning Femme Fatale spy in their correspondence, but it's somewhat telling that one particular province has such an infamously frequency of Russian scammers that it's even noted in their article in The Other Wiki.
- The left-handed were once invariably portrayed as evil, careless, misguided, or any combination of the three. Examples this (left-handed) troper can think of off the top of her head from what she's read are Edgar Allan Poe's story "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" and this charming little story from a 19th-century children's magazine about a careless and stubborn left-handed boy.
- Not to mention "Sinister" is Latin for left, or left-handed.
- To be exact, "sinister" is the masculine nominative singular form of the Latin word for "left." Because the Latin word for "hand" is feminine, people are more familiar with the feminine "sinistra."
- The whole left handedness connection goes way back. Older Than Feudalism. (It helps that in plenty of places, the right hand is what you eat, gesture, and write with, while the left is for... more specialised functions.)
- This still appears to be in effect in the Arab world, presumably because of certain Muslim beliefs regarding the left hand.
- In reality, it's not an exclusive issue to Europeans and Mid-Easterns. Many East Asian cultures look (or looked, depends a lot on the country) down at left-handed people, too.
- There is an Older Than Feudalism aversion in Judges 3 of the Biblical Old Testament, in which a left-handed Benjamite saves Israel. But then, differential hand use was not a part of the Old Testament law, and thus not an article of religious faith for the ancient Israelites.
- Ehud, and most Benjaminite males, were trained from their youth to be ambidextrous to give them an advantage in battle. If I recall correctly it was done by wrapping the unfavored hand at a young age for a period of time until they learned to use the off-hand equally well.
- The origin appears to be, of all things, castles. Staircases in particular. Castles are meant to defend, and their tower staircases were counter-clockwise spirals because the majority of people are right-handed. Left-handers had an advantage while sword-fighting on such a staircase as an attacker, and so was responsible for some part of the discrimination.
- Not really. Castles were just built with the fact that most people are righties in mind. We lefties just gained an advantage as a result. Like in tennis.
- And baseball. To the point where some coaches/parents actually teach their right-handed children how to bat/throw left-handed hoping it gives them a competitive advantage. Cy Young winner Barry Zito comes to mind, but there are many others. And every switch-hitting batter can not be born ambidextrous, it's just not statistically possible.
- Left handed children were often forced to write right handed in school (at least in the USA). This troper's father was one of them.
- This has been, in most of the USA anyway, fixed in schools. Left-handed children are now taught to write with their natural hands, and some schools even have tutors specifically for left-handed children.
- For a while there during the switch, left handed kids were taught to use right and left, allowing people like this troper's cousin to develop ambidextrosity. Her tennis teacher became quite frustrated when he tried getting her to hit backhand.
- This Troper had a crazy elementary school teacher in the 90s who insisted on reading bible verses every morning (when no other teacher in Sweden had done this for the last 50 years). She tried to force said troper to write with his right hand despite being left-handed, and seemed to be in denial about there being such a thing as left-handedness in the first place. She was a huge exception though.
- A number of firearm designs assume the operator is right handed, or will be trained to shoot right handed. Particularly aggravating with some "bullpup" configured weapons, such as the British SA80 and Chinese QBZ designs, which can send hot brass, or worse the recoiling cocking handle, directly into a left handed operator's face.
- Atheists have often been portrayed very negatively. This is Older Than Feudalism, going back at least to the Ancient Greece, and during the Cold War atheism was stigmatized by association with Communism. Atheists are sometimes portrayed more positively today, but in American media atheists are often seen as Acceptable Targets, frankly mirroring real world attitudes in a country where atheists are regarded with considerable suspicion and mistrust. This tendency is much less common in Europe, where overt religiosity is less widespread.
- Orthodox Christians. For a very long time, members of the various Orthodox Christian churches were seen as evil by Catholics. This is another one that is Older Than Print.
- Roma. More commonly known as "Gypsies" (meaningless word to everyone else; extremely offensive to them). Probably the only people in history who have had a run of luck as bad as the Jews. Up until the 20th Century, virtually hated by every other religion and ethnicity in the world.
- The more This Troper thinks about it, life for the Roma still hasn't gotten any easier. He cannot think of one positive portrayal of them in popular culture.
See also Acceptable Targets, Double Standard, Positive Discrimination, Values Dissonance, Villain By Default.
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