Unfortunate Implications - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Unfortunate Implication

Let's just say that Vogue managed to get itself into some trouble

"Horrific implications time!" [porn music]

—The Nostalgia Chick, "Mulan

The media to which this wiki is devoted generally exhibit greater sensitivity to racial, sexual, and cultural diversity now than in the past, but sometimes something appears that... raises eyebrows. This is a subjective trope, and some tropers believe concerns about such matters simply relate to political correctness rather than anything substantive. See also Values Dissonance.

A few of the more prominent examples are listed below. If you came here looking for unfortunate implications of the Nightmare Fuel variety, rather than the hopefully accidental offences with which this trope concerns itself, see Fridge Horror.

Tropes susceptible to this include:

Abhorrent Admirer: How dare this hideous woman be attracted to a handsome man!
Ancient Astronauts: Apparently, ancient civilizations needed a little help from aliens creating those myths and monuments.
Arab Oil Sheikh: If you're young, Arab and rich (not to mention male), you must have some investments in the oil industry.
All Gays Are Pedophiles: Gay men pray on children in hopes of recruiting them to homosexuality. Because that's how "gay" works.
All Gays Are Promiscuous: Gay men have no sense of monogamy and have multiple sex partners.
All Germans Are Nazis: If you're German, you must have Nazi sympathies.
Always Chaotic Evil: There can't be any such thing as an entire race of people being completely evil.
Be A Whore To Get Your Man: A very Family Unfriendly Aesop that suggests that women need to act slutty in order to get a man to even notice them.
Beautiful All Along: Wow, a new hairdo and contacts can instantly transform an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Now they're appropriate for dating!
Black Dude Dies First: "Okay, we put a black guy in our horror film. Now let's quickly kill him off so we can get to the more interesting white main characters."
Bury Your Gays: Gays aren't allowed happy endings in media.
But Not Too Black: If you're Black, go back. If you're Brown, stick around. If you're damn near white, you're alright.
Cargo Cult: Primitive cultures treat you like a god if you look similar to their religious figure...or you have have a lot of techy doodads.
Christianity Is Catholic: Catholicism is the most visible form of Christianity in media, despite other denominations.
Club Kid: If you're gay, you must be a flaming club-hopping scenester.
Depraved Bisexual: Bisexuals often are portrayed of cold-blooded, depraved psychotics.
Depraved Homosexual: Sociopathic gay characters.
Discount Lesbians: They're like gay human couple!...only not really gay. Or human.
Dumb Is Good: Dumb people are better than those egotistical intellectuals.
Ethnic Magician: A minority is usually the spell caster/wizard/sorcerer in fantasy series.
Female Success Is Family: It doesn't matter what a woman does in a group, she was either brought in by a male family member or the men around her are more important.
Happiness In Slavery: A person who is in servitude to another and doesn't want to be freed. This trope was often used to justify slavery in real life.
Hide Your Lesbians: Homosexuals and homosexual couples are often relegated to subtext, especially in media aimed toward kids and teenagers.
Hollywood Atheist: Atheists in fiction require a tragic backstory. Or they're complete Jerk Asses. And they can never be happy, they just need someone to show them the light!
- Faith Heel Turn: If someone loses faith in their religion, they become a complete monster! Religion was the one thing holding them back!
Hysterical Woman: Women are prone to insanity and hysterics, they need men to ~~snap~~ slap them out of it.
Lady Land: If women ruled the word...luckily they don't since it would just be a man-hating paradise filled with Amazons.
Least Common Skin Tone: There's a lot of people and races in space, but only one black guy.
Me Love You Long Time: The Western white guy gets the Asian girl every single time. Never mind the other Asian men.
No Womans Land: Non-Western countries are a complete Hell for women in fiction.
Pass Fail: An individual living their life as someone of the other race, class, gender or sexual orientation...Unfortunate Implications doesn't even being to describe it.
Planet Of Hats: A planet full of people with one defining characteristic, which can be rife with Unfortunate Implications when drawn parallels to human society.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: A bloodthirsty culture with one member excelling in battle.
Psycho Lesbian: Hysterical Woman + Lesbian + Psychotic + = Unfortunate Implication.
Rape As Redemption: All that bad girl needs is some sex in order to set her straight...whether she wants it or not.
Rape Is Love: It's not rape, it's surprise sex you didn't know you wanted.
Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Anything related to femininity or "traditional" female roles is a weakness.
The Red Sonja: Kick my ass, my heart is yours!
Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Aliens that seem awfully familiar to certain political groups and with awfully familiar ideology...
Sissy Villain: Effeminate actions by men = BAD. They MUST be regulated to villianhood.
Space Jews: Negative racial stereotypes IN SPACE!
Uncle Tomfoolery: When the token black guy is annoying, incompetent, and comical.
What Measure Is A Mook: Hey, don't those red shirts you're indiscriminately killing have families?
Women In Refrigerators: The (usually female) victim is killed just to piss the hero off.
You No Take Candle: If your English isn't good, you're not as good as those superior races that speak it well.

Important Note: Just because a work has Unfortunate Implications does not mean the author was thinking of it that way. So, please, no Justifying Edits about "what the authors really meant." Whether the creator meant it that way or not is a moot point.