Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
|
|
|
|
Called a "twofer" by media analysts. A cast member or show participant which represents two Token Minority groups at once. More stark when most other participants on a show are white males.
Many news broadcasting teams have a white male, and a female minority member (usually black or asian). This allows them to have a diverse appearing team even though the number of people on their crew is small.
The "twofer" is a practice that is common in the industry, and is commonly criticized by media watchdogs and minority interest groups. In particular, the complaint that comes up frequently is that it limits the roles and jobs available to black men. This complaint is usually levelled towards news broadcast shows more than standard dramatic fare, however.
And considering there are more females than males out there, what does it say that female counts?
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Probably the most notable and obvious example is Uhura from Star Trek, who was black and female (and was almost the only recurring character with either of these characteristics).
- Another old example is Juan Epstein on Welcome Back, Kotter, a Puerto Rican Jew.
- "Carter" from Spin City (black and gay). Lampshaded in an episode where Carter refers to himself as a minority and a character sarcastically reamrks "What do you mean, a "minority"? You're black and you're gay. You cover up two thirds of the Earth's surface. You're like water."
- Marianne Jean-Baptiste's character on Without A Trace (black and female).
- Lisa Gay Hamilton on The Practice (black and female).
- Just so we're clear, we're talking about a show whose main cast, initially, was the aforementioned black female, an overweight white woman, a black guy, a white woman, a skinny white woman, and one staunchly Catholic, impliedly Irish white guy, shortly joined by an chubby Italian guy?
- Lt. Van Buren on Law And Order (black and female). This is lampshaded in one episode, where she notes that people probably think she got the job (as police lieutenant, not actress in a hit legal drama) for diversity reasons.
- Cambridge on Pie In The Sky (black and female) -- may not count, since the series has multiple female recurring characters, but worth mentioning because she's a Twofer Token Minority in-story, picked by her Pointy Haired Boss as an efficient way of demonstrating his equal-opportunity-employer credentials.
- Marissa on Early Edition takes this one step further: She's black, female, and blind.
- Toshiko Sato would count on most shows, being Asian and apparently bisexual, but in Torchwood, the latter actually puts her in the majority.
- On Doctor Who itself, companion Martha Jones was female and black, leading the Master to comment (on the Doctor travelling with Martha and the bisexual Captain Jack) "they tick every demographic box"
- Djaq on the current BBC Robin Hood, female and Arab.
- Stevie from Malcolm In The Middle lampshades this, noting that as a black man in a wheelchair, he can get pretty much any job he wants because people love to have a two-in-one minority member around.
- Det Kima Greggs from The Wire is a fourfer (female, black/Korean mixed-race lesbian). Omar Little is a black gay man; his boyfriends have been Jewish, Hispanic and black. Their status as Twofer Token Minorities is debatable, however--the cast of The Wire is at least two thirds black, and neither character was tokenized.
- James Spurlock from 30 Rock is actually called "Toofer" because as one character says "with him you get a two-for-one; he's a black guy and a Harvard guy."
- The cast actually calls him Toofer so often that some of them cannot even remember his real name.
- This is Lampshaded in a later episode. Floyd interviews for a high-level job; Jack thinks he's a shoo-in until they see that the other candidate for the job is a handicapped black man. "You're not beating that."
- "Original Cindy" from Dark Angel is a black lesbian.
- Willow from Buffy, who describes herself in Season 8 as a "gay Wiccan Jewess."
- Anthony on Designing Women is the only regular who is either black or male (all the other regulars are white women).
- In one episode of Sit Com Rachel Gunn, R.N the main characters were debating how only the white Male Doctor wasn't a minority or discrimnated against. There were two female nurses, a native American nurse and a black orderly. The final member was a black nun who when filling out a form had to tick "Other: explain"
Literature
- Susannah Dean of Stephen King's The Dark Tower is black, female, and disabled; notably, every other member of her ka-tet is a white male, except for Oy, who is a billy-bumbler (but Oy is male as well).
- Catti-Brie, of RA Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden series of novels, is human and female. Among the six Companions of the Hall (as Drizzt and his friends are called), she is one of only two females (the other being a magical panther who's only available 8 hours out of 24) and two humans (or one, depending on whether or not Wulfgar's around).
- Considering the Companions of the Hall consist of one drow, one dwarf, one halfling, one panther and two humans, I don't really think Catti-brie's race makes her a minority. Guenhwyvar, on the other hand, is the only nonhumanoid in the group, so she might count.
- Angua in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, at least in the first book. Later, other women (mostly dwarves) join the force.
Western Animation
- Foxxy Love on Drawn Together is also a threefer: black, female, and bisexual (though it appears Everyone Is Bi according to the Rule Of Funny.
- Elisa Maza from Gargoyles; female, African-American, Native American, and human, in a cast that is overwhelmingly none of these. Fourfer FTW!
- When Dale on King Of The Hill is being opposed for Gun Club President, he states that his opponent has "already got the black vote -- Earl -- and the gay vote -- Earl."
- Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa on Family Guy. (Asian and female) But that is, of course, part of the point.
Video Games
- Woozie Mu in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is a blind Asian. Not so much tokenism, as being necessary for the jokes.
- Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2 is a woman of black and Asian descent... which would make her a three-fer.
- The Demoman of Team Fortress 2 is a black Scottish cyclops.
Comic Books
- Dr. Cecilia Reyes from X Men is a fourfer: black, Hispanic, female, and mutant, though it's X-Men so me might have to bump it down to threefer because of that last one..
- And let's not forget Ororo Munroe, aka. Storm. At one point in the comics, another character actually points out that she seems to have an even mix of African, Asian, and Caucasian features.
- Magdelena Marie aka Veda from the Order is half German, half Mexican, as well as female. This is somewhat lampshaded with her dropping her last name (Neuntauben) for the media because people had trouble pronouncing it.
- Connor Hawke, son of DC's Green Arrow is a mix of White, Black and Korean. Artists and colorists sometimes have trouble reflecting this in his depiction.
- Mia Dearden, the current Speedy, is a Twofer: female and HIV positive.
- In the Bat-Family, Cassandra Cain is a Threefer: female, Asian, and has a learning disability due to her torturous childhood. The family also has Oracle (female, handicapped). Nightwing might count in the context of the Bats: not only is he Roma, but also relatively sane.
- Claremont's Gen13 run had a threefer - a wheelchair-bound black Muslim.
Anime
- Kaname Tousen on Bleach, both black and blind. Aside from the blindness, it's never really focused on, since he fights so well he might as well be seeing anyway. Chad might count too, as he's Mexican and the biggest jobber in the series, which very well may be considered a disability.
- The thankfully-aborted SD Gundam adaptation for Western Audiences, Doozy Bots, would have had the black guy in a wheelchair.
Film
- The Family Stone had a deaf, gay son who was dating a black man. Or So I Heard.
|
|
