Pretty Fly For A White Guy - Television Tropes & Idioms

Officer, you only pulled me over because I think I'm black.

— Mad Magazine spoof of 8 Mile

... Is it because I is black?

— Ali G. Who isn't.

Unless you are xenophobic or ethnocentric, you might find parts of other cultures to be interesting or cool. So you might have the urge to at least once in a while try to imitate part of that culture, like the dialect, slang, or accent. Now the problem is that you don't need a deep understanding of the culture's origins and meanings, so you should at least pay close attention to what you are about to imitate, preferably with some practice beforehand.

If you don't, you will look silly at the very least. Worse, in fiction, wars have started that way.

The most common form of this is likely just trying to imitate an accent. The most notorious form is likely middle class white kids imitating the urban black culture. Note that it's the middle class culture, not the race, that determines whether someone's a poser. You can be Asian, Native American, Latino, or even African American, and still not be able to imitate the urban culture (with that said, many people don't realize how the term "acting black" is chock full of Unfortunate Implications).

The end result of this usually sounds Totally Radical to natives of said culture.

Examples

Named for the song "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" by The Offspring. It looks as though it's about race, but looking closer, it's clear the kid is just middle class, and has no idea of the actual hip-hop and ghetto culture. Thus he looks like an ass.
Friends sayin' he's trying too hard / and he's not quite hip,
But in his own mind, he's the / He's the dopest trip!!
Almost got a couple of kids beat up in Can't Hardly Wait, when they say in public, "What's up with my niggers!"
- A one-off white man nearly got his ass kicked by calling a couple of black men "My Homies" in Gran Torino (Good thing for him that Clint Eastwood showed up)
Not Another Teen Movie made fun of that, but with a white kid trying to be Chinese.
Jon Stewart mocks this in one of his more recent standup routines. He says that middle-class people shouldn't try to talk like inner-city gangsters, because they have no connection to that culture aside from what they see on TV. It would make as much sense for them to talk like a pirate.
- Well, some people do that. At least once a year.
  - Not to mention that random people talking like pirates without warning and for no apparent reason would be awesome.
- But only because pirates of the Caribbean variety are no more around. A Somalian kid imitating the behaviour of Somalian pirates would be a better example of this trope.
- Unfortunately Jon Stewart also tries to play this for laughs during his 'anchor' monologues. Probably because if he tried to play it off of Larry Wilmore or Wyatt Cenac, they'd have to tell him how far from funny it is.
Neil Humphreys, who spent ten years in Singapore and learnt his Singlish well, loves to mock other ang moh, especially pretentious expats, for poor use of the local language flavor.
When actors play another culture, nationality or race that they don't understand. Even taking Unfortunate Implications out of this equation, they just look ridiculous. For example, the "How, White Man," portrayal of Native Americans in old movies, usually played by white people. Graham Greene tore that a new one in the 1994 film adaptation of Maverick.
The specific type of Japanophile who believes that watching anime is enough introduction to Japanese culture that they can "act Japanese"; never mind that real Japanese are very unfond of this. This is the root of the insult "weeaboo" and its variants. And why Something Positive advises you to spay or neuter your catgirl.
- Of course, there are Japanese people that do this in reverse in regards to western culture, too. Engrish, anyone? Japan and the US have had a very weird relationship for the past 15 years where the youth of each nation desperately wants to grow up in the opposite country.
  - Not all of the youth... some look at people who want that and just roll their eyes.
The Pulp song "Common People" is about the "slumming" phenomenon where upper class people try to live a working class lifestyle as a kind of "holiday". Some of the lyrics are particularly relevant:
Laugh along with the common people,
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
And the stupid things that you do,
Because you think that poor is cool.
- This could also be seen as an attack on the band Blur and Damon Albarn in particular because they tried to come off as working class even though they were very much middle class. Albarn's accent has been known to wobble about the place, depending on who he's talking to.
Zits does this a number of times as well.
Walt: "What? Don't people say Wazzup Dawg anymore?"
Jeremy: "Dad, do us all a favor and talk like the middle aged white guy you are."
In Ralph Macchio's (NOT Britney Spears') movie Crossroads, the lead character idolizes blues music, but he looks at it as purely an art form. It only penetrates that the blues is a state of mind and heart when the love interest abandons him without even saying goodbye.
Ali G is a Jewish guy acting the part of a stereotypical white middle class wannabe who actually expects people to believe he's a black man from the ghetto. Ta-daa!
- Ali G acts just like a sterotypical Indian /Pakistani teenager from the Staines/Slough area where he is supposed to be from.
WWE wrestler John Cena was Pretty Fly For A White Guy as a Heel. Then, he had a Heel Face Turn, and we were suddenly supposed to take his hip-hop posturing seriously. (It didn't help that he stopped actually rapping after his album was released and just made a lot of gay jokes in a "ghetto" accent.) Needless to say, the Narm thus created has led to massive amounts of X Pac Heat whenever WWE hits any place that has an actual urban hip-hop culture. Thankfully, these days, he's toned down the hip-hop allusions in favor of becoming, essentially, an Ascended Fanboy, but the X Pac Heat among Smart Marks may never completely subside.
- Too Cool. Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor as wannabe rappers dancing to hip hop beats and later adding former Wild Samoan Rikishi to their act ended being one of the more surprising hits of the Attitude era in the then-WWF. Of course, the fans were never expected to take them seriously, particularly since they were known for dancing in the ring with their opponents after their matches.
Collins in Idiocracy. Interestingly, he seems to hit it off pretty well with Upgrayedd ("With two D's for a 'double dose' of his pimping"), if his slide show is anything to go by.
- Part of the reason that the plot happens, furthermore, is that Collins ends up getting arrested by military police. It's implied that he took to the pimping lifestyle a little too closely...
This happens to Dr. Joel Fleischman in the Northern Exposure episode "The Mystery of the Old Curio Shop", when Fleischman tries to connect with the "Hebrew Heritage" of Cicely, Alaska. This is slightly subverted by the fact that Fleischman is himself Jewish, yet is still berated for trying to "act Jewish".
J.D.'s attempts in Scrubs at acting black usually fall disastrously short. Turk is generally more successful but is nonetheless called on this behavior when Dr Cox claims Turk isn't really black. Some of Dr. Cox's evidence is that Turk has a geeky white best friend, listens to Neil Diamond and acts like a black guy, which are traits only seen in white guys.
The earlier Adrian Mole books contained the character of Adrian's classmate Danny: a white kid who had dreadlocks, wrote reggae music and spoke in a poor imitation of Jamaican patois.
- He even referred to Adrian as a "honky". Adrian's response: "What a cheek, he's twice as white as I am!"
The 2007 Transformers brings us Jazz, an alien robot who deliberately takes on Jive Turkey mannerisms. Nevertheless, some people got offended.
- The fact Jazz was originally played by 'Scatman' Crothers seems to have been lost on people, 'Scat' being a very jive-turkey like manner of speech perfected in Vaudeville.
- Jazz has always been voiced by a black voice actor though.
- When Sam Witwicky is being questioned by the police, he sees one of the cop's guns, and that cop says, "You eyein' my piece, 50 cent?" Even though he was evidently mocking the urban wannabes, all This Troper could think of was, "Please don't say that. You're whiter than Sam is."
  - Sam even lampshades that line: "Are you on drugs?"
- In the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, the Twins are meant to be this according to Word Of God. Unfortunately, since their ~~skin~~ paint colors are orange and green rather than a recognizably human color, and one is voiced by an actual black person, it comes across as simple racist caricature rather than the intended "white kids acting black" joke.
  - Would they be any less offensive if they were white humans?
  - This troper must be the only person on the planet who heard "rednecks using 'ghetto' slang" instead of "terrible black charicatures." Then again, this troper lives in a very paradoxical, redneck-populated city where this trope is somehow a sad fact of life.
- Uh, guys, didn't you notice the ape-like facial features and the one gold tooth within his really bad snaggletooth-grin?!
Skins plays with this a little. Jal's two brothers have a white friend who fits this perfectly. Somewhat subverted, in that the brothers' own attempts at being "street" are shown to be just as ludicrous.
The Sparks song Suburban Homeboy is all about this idea. "I'm a suburban homeboy, and I say Yo Dog to my pool cleaner guy..."
Parodied in Gran Torino, where a young white man's pretending to be black first just pisses off three actual black youths, and then earns him a scathing assessment from Walt (Clint Eastwood). Especially funny in that the white youth in question is played by Eastwood's son.
Parodied in Chappelles Show, when a blind black Klan leader (long story — he doesn't know he's black, story over) encounters a group of (white) teenagers in a convertible listening to gangsta rap, assumes they're black, and yells racial abuse at them. Far from being offended, the teens are psyched that he thinks that they're street.
In one episode of Family Guy, Chris becomes the towel boy for the high school basketball team and picks up some slang and mannerisms from the black players. His father Peter investigates their heritage, with the intention of familiarizing Chris with their Irish roots, and discovers a black slave among his ancestors. Then Peter starts trying to act like a black man, and goes entirely too far; wearing a dashiki, insisting that he be called Kichwa Tembo, and demanding reparations from his father-in-law. Hilariously, he discards his new identity the moment Carter whips out his checkbook:
Carter: Okay, how do you spell "Kichwa?"
Peter: Y'know what? Screw "Kichwa;" the name's Peter. P-E-T-E...
The Onion Movie has a young white man who goes around pretending he's black... who later gets arrested by two racist cops and jailed for crime he didn't commit based on the 'colour of his skin'.
Like the Trope Namer, Weird Al Yankovic's "White and Nerdy" focuses on a white dork who wants to be gangsta.
- Specifically, he wants to roll with the gangstas, but rather than imitating them, he spends most of the song describing just how nerdy he is.
  - It's irrelevant to the trope, but it should be mentioned Weird Al has actually covered the Trope Namer (as Pretty Fly For A Rabbi).
J-Roc from Trailer Park Boys does this and sometimes forgets he is white.
Real life example: Tim "the Big Dawg" Westwood. Bizarrely, some people seem to think he actually pulls it off.
Another real life example: Vanilla Ice.
This type is rather common among the miscreants seen on TruTV's Speeders or The Smoking Gun Presents (probably also on other shows on that channel, but the troper typing this only regularly watches those two).
An interesting variety of this is Willy from Stranger than Paradise, a Hungarian immigrant to the United States who considers himself assimilated into American culture... which he apparently defines as acting like a 1950s beatnik.
Was it I Know What You Did Last Summer that had a pair of such guys?
In The Allen And Craig Show's two part Episode 8, Allen gets his very white, but maybe not so white, friend Lars, who he calls "the coolest guy I know" to keep Craig from becoming totally lame.