Unfortunate Implications - Television Tropes & Idioms

This turns up a lot in ad-generators based on page content, such as the ones at the top and side of this page. For instance, the Religion Of Evil page will sometimes turn up an ad for...a Muslim dating site. If The Advertisement Server has become sentient, one hopes this is Dead Baby Comedy.
- A similar case happened to this troper with the Hijacked By Jesus page displaying ads for Christian dating sites.
- That's one of the reasons why many LiveJournal users hate new rules that enforce such thing over their texts. Of course, for viewers with AdBlock this point is moot.
This advertisement for Intel.
Many old commercials for the PlayStation Portable are almost painful to watch due to their obnoxious dustball and squirrel mascots who act like thinly veiled racist stereotypes of Mexicans and blacks, respectively.
- Squirrel please.
A recent Trix Yogurt commercial had the mascot rabbit protest that "dinosaurs aren't real." While the probable intent was to protest that dinosaurs are not currently extant, it comes across as denouncing evolutionary biology.
- And even if we cut them that slack, they're STILL wrong, as it's widely accepted (except among a select group of crazed ornithologists) that birds are, in phylogenetic terms, dinosaurs.
Snickers. "Quick, do something manly!"
- It Got Worse when the original ad was tied to a webpage where pro football players reacted negatively to the ad, mainly because it had two dudes kissing. Because we all know that it's manly to find homosexuality utterly disgusting! Go to hell, Snickers.
It was common up until very recently to see black advertising characters who sang or danced, while their white counterparts in ads for the same products actually got to speak. I'm looking at you, Burger King and McDonalds.
There is a local restuarant chain in the Philippines known as the "Adobo Republic" (adobo referes to a local type of cuisine). Said restaurant chain has a rather unfotunately◊ designed logo◊. This troper wonders how many tourists it unwittingly offended.
Any ad that features weight loss and swimsuits. Of recent note, the Valerie Bertinelli Nutri-System ads and a spot for Kellogg's "Special-K Challenge". They probably mean to say "With our products, you'll have the confidence to sport that skimpy bikini", but in practice, they scream "One-piece suits are for fatties." Or if you're feeling more charitiable, "One piece swimsuits are for those with something to hide."
The mascot for the Transformers toy company Takara was a black skinned creature called "Dakko-chan". It was retired in 1990.

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Black people aren't prevalent in Japan, so when a character has black skin and thick red lips not too many people complain. Importing these characters tends to cause a stir in the US until essays are written on Jim Crow stereotypes forcing character's skin to be changed to purple, which makes much more sense. Jynx from Pokémon (ironically enough, Jynx was not intended to be black, but to be a ganguro, but was eventually changed to purple anyway), Mr. Popo from Dragonball and the unfortunately named Oil Man from Mega Man Powered Up are some examples. There was also a side-character in One Piece who was made white.
- In Viz's release of Dr Slump, there's an gag in which Arale, playing baseball, knocks the ball an astounding distance. In the US version, it lands on a couple of fanged, pointy-eared aliens. However, in the original, it actually landed in Papua New Guinea, beaning a stereotypical Polynesian who is wearing camo fatigues, bearing an AK-47 (with a stone axe-head attached), and wearing a ring of shrunken skulls around his neck. Yes, it is exactly as cringe-inducing as it sounds.
- In Cyborg009, 008 was at first partially this- while being the most battle-ready and serious of the team, he was portrayed at first in blackface style, however this was only due to that being the popular portrayal in Japan back then.
Bafflingly, quite a few anti-4kids YouTube videos suggested that 4kids was being racist for editing out a black person, rather than seeing said minor character as a racist stereotype.
The Code Geass Hatedom might scream this every time something bad happens to a non-white and/or female character or anytime a white and/or male character is in any way better than a non-white or female character, but there's really nothing defending the fact that the only indisputably black character who shows up in the series dies in two seconds.
- Ogle at the first episodes of Code Geass in disbelief, then shock, at the mere fact that an anime that flagrantly made Britain (and, by allegory, the West) out to be the political Big Bad has made it across the pond. The presence of other Unfortunate Implications isn't that surprising. Upon first hearing about the premise, one might assume it's a nationalist revisionist allegory for World War II and the resulting occupation, portraying Britain as the racist aggressors and the Japanese as the victims. While textually, Brittania's supposed to be the Alternate History-British Empire, blatantly placing it on the American continent◊ seems an extremely meaningful choice.
  - Given Japan's imperialistic past and the atrocities commited during World War II, all this was enough for a tropper to give up watching the series, despite liking the animation, characters, fight scenes, mechs...
  - Yeah, Japan was so outstanding... Well, obviously Japanese has their reasons to feel annoyance, so its sort of gives vent to it. Add a strange stance toward UK (again, there are reasons) and ye got what ye see. What "implications" blatant Take That can have?
- The heroes fighting it by forming the United States of Japan is a subtle hint of which event in Western history the series is mimicking, except in a different time and place, with more random drama and giant robots.
- The English dub managed to add in some Unfortunate Implications in the infamous cat-chase episode. When Milly announces that the prize for catching the errant cat running about campus is a kiss from a Student Council member, we get a shot of a group of girls Squeeing at the thought of a kiss from Lelouch. Then one girl quietly remarks, "I think I'd prefer Miss Milly...". In the original Japanese, she's chastized with "Hey now, is this the best time to come out?"; unfortunately, the dub replaced this with "Why do you have to be so different?" Whoopsie.
  - The fansub this troper watched translated it closer to the dub than the original Japanese, but seriously. Were we honestly expecting the xenophobic students of the evil racist Darwinist Holy Britannian Empire to be accepting of homosexuality? Let's face it, it was probably intentional, what with prejudice being Britannia's bloody hat. (Fun side note, this line planted my Epileptic Tree that internalized homophobia is why Nina Einstein's such a mentally unstable introvert. Doesn't make her racism less irritating, though.)
The evil Hollows in Bleach all have a Spanish theme to their names and abilities. Add in the fact that the only Mexican describes his powers as "being similar to a Hollow's", and you have some interesting implications if you think about it too much. It gets worse, if you do think about it too much. Much worse.
- Regular hollows are animals. The Spanish ones are those who have become mostly human, Arrancar. So they are Spanish Beast-people who become more beastlike to fight. Oh, they are led by a tea-drinking Japanese man who is near-worshipped by many, doubly so by the black Arrancar. Then you have the Quincy, heavily German themed. While the Good Guys "purify" Hollows and Arrancar, the German characters completely destroy them beyond salvation. The Good Guys are almost all Japanese. Mostly, except for the Hispanic Chad. To be fair, the leadership has shown tendencies to kill on the slightest sign of disobedience, and complete masochism. Chad's ethnicity only came up because of a flashback involving his grandfather in Mexico (and let's face it, despite his name Kyoraku looks as Japanese as lasagna).
- And so do Kaname Tousen, he's the blind black guy. But then again, if you have read all the way through the manga/watched the whole anime, it has so much unfortunate implications...
Rumiko Takahashi's works. For works that can be fairly progressive in regards to gender (boys can like tomboyish girls, some of the heroines absolutely do not fit the Damsel In Distress mold, both sexes are allowed to somewhat act outside of conventional gender roles), her treatment of homosexuality, whether intentional or not, is disheartening.
In Ranma 1/2, girls who like other girls (it would seem to be lesbians due to No Bisexuals existing) are perverts. At least according to Akane, who appears to have... issues. When female Ranma and Akane are trying to show kindness to the transvestite Tsubasa, the former assures "her" that she'll find a boyfriend soon enough despite Tsubasa clearly stating he liked Ukyo because Ukyo was a girl. The latter, when having tea with Tsubasa, said they needed to focus on finding "her" someone more normal (in other words, a boy). And then there's the matter of Ranma going on a date with Tsubasa in boy form, in an attempt to "lead her onto the correct path".
- Akane might have derived her issues from Shampoo deliberately egging her on: the first time Ranma was stuck as a girl, Shampoo offered a cure; Akane, reasonably wary of whatever Shampoo and Cologne had to offer, cautioned Ranma about it. Shampoo then stated right out that Akane was a pervert for wanting Ranma to stay as girl.
- Let's not forget: at least three Fighting Games based on the series have Ranma's girl form as an explicitly powered-down version of the male form (either for Cherry Tapping, or as an in-game Nonstandard Status Effect). Which is generally not how it worked in the story...
- Actually, that is exactly how it worked in the manga. Ranma was explicitly de-powered when locked in his female form by Herb. Herb himself turned out to be another Gender Bender locked in female form, and his ki attacks (y'know, the type of attacks that really don't have much to do with bodily strength?) were so much stronger in male form that they were visible despite being invisible in his female form. Although there was some justification for this, as Ranma has shorter limbs as a girl and loses both reach and practiced skill.
Choco of Shaman King. The good news? He's got a well-thought out backstory, a cool powerset, no stupid accent and an interesting philosophy for a character in a fighting manga. The bad news? Um... his name, for one thing, and the fact that he's the only character drawn with lips for another.
- Chocolove, if I recall. It isn't better. At all.
- (In the manga only), at least he's the most powerful shaman in the group, more than the freaking main character, but it doesn't help either that he was in a gang, killed a guy and his oversoul is called Jaguarman. He's not the only character drawn with lips, though, but the others who have them clearly do so to achieve a Gonk look.
After Kurogane/Sven is injured in Voltron (killed in the original Go Lion ), Farla/Allura takes over. Her guardians refuse to let her, but the message seems to be that women shouldn't do dangerous things like that. It doesn't go over so well with today's audience.
- To be somewhat fair to Raible/Coran and Hys/Nanny, it is less her gender that drives them than her position as planetary ruler, which is a fair point. Her continued life and well-being is part of the besieged Altea/Arus's lifeblood morale in facing down Daibazzal/Zarkon. That said, their methods of trying to stop her are extremely sexist, as is their obliviousness to the fact that hanging with this team of rough-hewn boys is one of the only joys in what has been a very sad life. Add to all that their attitude towards the Go Lion/Voltron Earth-team pilots themselves, which is at one point to dismiss them as 'drifters from Earth', and telling them that they would make fine staff guards for whoever eventually marries the Princess. So, of five planetary saviors, one is deprived of her freedoms at every possible turn, and the other four are spit on as immigrant hired help. Kids, be like the Go Lion/Voltron Force and get crapped on regularly.
It's interesting to note that in Peacemaker Kurogane, every single character that is shown outright to be gay are Depraved Homosexuals. Especially noticeable is Suzu, who was originally straight and a good person. However, after going crazy, he suddenly becomes very flamboyant and girly, probably to contribute to his "creepiness".
As a general rule of thumb if the Abrahamic God appears in an anime, at best he's a complete asshole, at worst he's basically the Christian view of Satan. The only time God has been portrayed in a positive light was in Princess Knight, which was made in the late 1960s. This generally leads to Christians either being just the religion of Shinto with nuns replacing Shrine maidens or the Inquisition.
When you stop and think about it, the very fact that few if any Anime characters look like a real Japanese person has unfortunate implications of its own. More so if you know that this is because influential manga author Osamu Tezuka based his art style on Disney Cartoons...
- Yeah, like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. So much whiteness there. No one has the body proportions of anime characters, including Westerners. The Japanese see them as Japanese.
- Maybe then the unfortunate implication is in how the west see Asians? Yellow, short and squinty eyed?
Maybe it's just This Troper, but wow, I was kind of...disturbed by how all the (obviously adult) members of Team Dai Gurren seemed to fawn over the (obviously preteen) Nia while ignoring the (also obviously adult) Yoko. Like, seriously, Nia came up only to their belts and had the build of a ten-year-old... a scrawny, underdeveloped ten-year-old at that. Don't get me wrong, she's cute and all, but it would have been less creepy (and less stereotypically Otaku-ish mayhap?) if they'd saved that bit for when she grew up into a buxom anime teenager after the time skip.
- Of course, they weren't necessarily fawning out of lust, nosebleeds aside. It's possible to see their infatuation as in-universe Moe Moe, her adorability overwhelming them with the desire to protect and do right by her. It's a flimsy defense, but it's there.
- "Obviously adult"? Yoko is fourteen. That's unfortunate implications on its own.
- There is no possible physical way that Yoko is anything but at least twenty. Seriously...it's simply not possible.
- Word Of God covered their asses on this one by saying that since everyone had been living underground for so long, mankind had lost its perception of time. So while by their count she's 14, by our calendar she's of a more appropriate age.
  - And according to that info, Simon would also be an adult. An adult that's barely started puberty.
- Keep in mind that Gurren Lagann started off as a parody. Yoko is fourteen, and she has huge knockers. This Troper has met a fourteen year old with almost the same exact figure and bust size as Yoko. Most fourteen year olds with said figure tend to wear heavier clothing to hide their rather large cans, and do so quite well.
In One Piece, the only female Shichibukai has the lowest revealed bounty at 80 million berries (Blackbeard didn't have a bounty, but his defeating Ace is enough proof of his strength) and her fighting style seems to mostly involve petrifying people who are attracted to her. Most other organizations except for Baroque Works tend to follow The Smurfette Principle, but the difference between the female member and the male members doesn't seem as considerable or as troubling as here.
- In the 4kids dub of the Alabasta Arc, Miss Father's Day, who wears a frog costume, was given a French accent, presumably a joke about the French being called "frogs". Since 4kids often gives accents based on what the characters look like (Robin, who often wears a cowboy hat, got a Southern accent), it's possible they knew what they were doing.
- Boa got her Shichibukai title after one short campaign, plus bounty only means how much a threat you are to the world goverment which is why Blackbread who only attacks other priates gets zero, while Robin got hers wend she was just a child for knowing too much.
- Forget Boa Hancock...how about the fact that both female Straw Hats had to do an arc where they betray the team and have to learn that, yes, they can trust their Nakama.
While the story pages of Elfen Lied contain enough High Octane Nightmare Fuel to last several lifetimes, the chapters' cover pages are rife with Unfortunate Implications, as many of them feature the ladies of EL in states of dress and undress, and sometimes in coquettish poses. For the nearly-adult women, like Yuka and Lucy, this is one thing, but for Nana and Mayu, it is completely another. While Nana survives the events of the manga, at no time is she depicted as anything but an early teen. As for Mayu, this troper supposes that Lynn Okkamato wanted the reader to appreciate her beauty, and she has that, to be sure, and is one of the sweetest characters in the dark manga. But she is also a victim of rape at the hands of a stepfather who may or may not have married her distant mother just so he could get to Mayu, and she is almost one again at the hands of the vile Unknown Man. Depicting at least her fully clothed and not posed seductively would seem a given.

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The Great Ten, a team of Chinese "super-functionaries" in The DCU, are almost all at least partially built from East Asian stereotypes. These range from the Accomplished Perfect Physician, who has a bit of the "old Asian master" about him but still manages to be a rounded character... to Egg Fu, Fu Manchu as a big yellow egg; and the Mother of Champions, whose power is having lots of Super Soldier babies. Egg Fu is a known Grandfather Clause dating back to some really horrible Silver Age "Yellow Peril" Wonder Woman comics. God only knows what the hell they were thinking of with Mother of Champions, though. A superpowered Asian Babymama? One imagines the thought process went along the lines of "there are a lot of people in China, how can we make that into a superpower?", a creative direction unlikely to lead anywhere but 'over the line.'
- And Marvel's main Chinese hero? The Collective Man. Who can actually draw on China's population power to boost his abilities.
It seems like there's not an element of Freedom Ring's death that wasn't an unfortunate implication. Less than a month after Joe Quesada cites him as a positive example of a gay male character in Marvel Comics, he's killed off in a graphic and somewhat suggestive manner◊. And then his powers end up in the hands of his decidedly straight friend and sidekick◊.
- His replacement is then killed for being a Skrull (this after he help save the Earth from a Skrull Invasion) at least you're supposed to hate his killer... who got their own miniseries about them murdering Skrulls....
  - Well, Skrulls did try to take over the world and the ones in said miniseries are bad.
  - The point is, they murder a guy because of his race after he just saved them all.
Speaking of gay male heroes at Marvel, Northstar (the first gay hero to come out of the closet at Marvel) was killed by Wolverine in Wolverine #25 with an attack he probably could've dodged. A bit bad, but people die in comics. Then, one month later, Northstar is killed off in two alternate universe comics, both released in the same week.
In the Young Avengers/Runaways crossover, the gay Hulkling, lesbian Karolina, and trans Xavin were captured and tortured, and the reason given for why they specifically were selected was that it would create less trouble because they're all aliens. No explantion is given as to why Wiccan, Hulkling's mutant boyfriend is brought along, too.
Comic writer/artist Jim Starlin is known for putting his female characters through the 'rape is empowering' trope at least once in their careers. Supervillain Nebula — brother/sister incest rape, till she killed him. Willow from Dreadstar — Father/daughter incest rape, develops survival skills. Gamora the cosmic assassin — gang-raped, rebuilt by Thanos to make her stronger. The novel "Lady Electric" — Main character gets raped by her mother's boyfriend, gets no support from the mother. But when she is transformed into a supercomputer, she finds the will to get her revenge. Look out for any future reunions between Drax and Moondragon.
There was an extremely obscure DC Comics superhero born from the excremental Bloodlines Crisis Crossover of African-American/Vietnamese descent named... Mongrel. Yeah. He died in Infinite Crisis.
Archie Comics is full of this, Depending On The Writer. One story involved Betty And Veronica going on a camping trip with Archie, who became increasingly irritated by their presence. They eventually realized the problem — they were managing to put up their own tents, etc. without his help, which was making him angry. They immediately began acting helpless and stupid, asking for help with every little thing, which gained Archie's affections once more. Wow.
- Then there is the subversion runs, like the one where Ron convinces Betty to play tennis to her best ability instead of pandering to Archie. Betty trounces Arch and Ron then does exactly what she called Betty on. In the end, Arch chooses Betty as his tennis partner for a tournament because he "needs a partner who is better than [him]." Like it was said, it depends on the writer.
Whether intentional or not, Marvel seems to be on a crusade to show that marriage is something young people should avoid at all cost, lest things end in tears (or a funeral). Apparently, dating keeps you young, vibrant, and hip. Marriage instantly ages you 15 years and makes the characters unable to connect with the readship. One More Day is simply Exhibit A. Other examples:
- The repeated invocation of Hank Pym: Wife Beater. Never mind that not only did he only hit the Wasp once it wasn't even the worst thing during that storyline. But "He hit Janet" is the only thing anyone remembers. Even though they'd reconciled at least twice since, it always came back to "WIFE BEATER".
- Justice and Firestar had been a couple for damn near a decade, and engaged for at least half of that. They split up in a badly written one-shot Valentine's Day special because Angelica — who was the one who proposed — decided she'd rather be a normal college student than the wife of a super-hero (she's one herself, so chalk up another Unfortunate Implication). A decision that was, as far as any regular reader of New Warriors or The Avengers was concerned was 100% out of the blue and out of character for the (formerly) mature and level-headed Firestar.
- Cyclops and Phoenix were the first couple of Mutantdom. Scott loved Jean enough to leave his current wife and son to be with her. (Hmm...) When Phoenix died (Again...), within six issues of that death, Scott was making out with Emma Frost — Jean's rival — literally on top of Jean's grave. Horrible imagery, even if it weren't the grave of Scott's wife. (It was later hinted that Jean's spirit pushed Scott towards that scene, to make sure he didn't leave the X-Men. So what's Emma's excuse?)
- Scott's younger brother Alex, more or less dumps his fiancee (for two decades plus) Lorna (AKA Polaris) at the altar for the new writer's newly introduced pet Muggle. Lorna reasonably responds to this by trying to kill the entire wedding party. The fact that the entire relationship was caused by the telepathic desires of said Muggle's mutant son to have a father does not help, considering this (unintentionally or not) implies that a little kid not only forced the pair together, but added to Lorna's already present insanity to get her out of the way. And yet the author expects everyone to agree that this is sweet, adorable, and romantic, and Lorna's clearly a horrible monster for legitimately losing her shit over it.
- Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Namely, their divorce after she allowed the man who kidnapped, drugged, and (by implication) raped her fall to his death and said that it was suicide. Hawkeye, who'd been told about this by the ghost of the dead man (who conveniently left out the drugging and raping part) wouldn't even let her explain herself and went off on her in a rage over how Avengers weren't supposed to kill for any reason, and he couldn't trust her anymore. While he eventually did hear the whole story and realize he'd been a dick, what relationship they have has still been extremely strained.
- Lucky BMB seems to really hate this thinking, he brought back Mockingbird (pretending this whole think ever happen) plus Luke Cage and Jessica are still together.n
During the early Chris Claremont run of X-Men, the team is literally sucked into hell, or a Dante's Inferno replica. They meet the demon/judge Minos, who is a sleazy piece of work. Minos immediately hits on Storm. And then Nightcrawler. His response — "this is hell — everything goes!". So in one shot, homosexuality is associated with the evil and the damned.
- Until recently, the X-Men character Siryn was portrayed as an outlandish stereotype of Irish women. From her rude and flirtatious demeanor, to her red hair and severe alcohol dependency, the character was little more than an outdated ethnic caricature. However, recent incarnations of the character have abandoned her more offensive aspects and she is now portrayed as a much more well rounded character.
- And then there's the original New Mutants. A team compsed of members from around the world, and yet the two American kids are the leaders.
The Green Lantern Corps is composed of some of the best and brightest of the sector's species. There's the Humans Are Special angle inherent with four members of the Corps being human — a number exceeded only by the Guardians themselves, despite humans being probably the most technologically primitive species in the galaxy, but that's all but natural law in the DC Universe. What's more unnerving is that every Earth-based Green Lantern ever has been male, and only one has not been white, and all of them are American.
- Jade, was a Green Lantern for a good while, and she is neither white or a man, however she was just a replacement Lantern, and wasn't even picked by the Guardians, so it's questionable if she counts
- Not to mention Kyle Rayner is half-hispanic/half-irish. His absent father's name was Raymond Vasquez
Grant Morrison's Final Crisis crossover features a plotline involving the villain Darkseid kidnapping female heroes and villains, and making them into his personal army by forcing them into macabre, mind controlling masks. Batwoman, a lesbian superheroine, is shown clad in a mask with an S&M ball-gag in the mouthpiece that prevents her from speaking. The implied connections between kink and homosexuality are somewhat unsettling, and the mask was heavily altered in the subsequent issues.
- Wait, does it count if they're forced / brainwashed by the villain?
- I would say yes, because it was purely commentary by either the writer or artist. The other women were all given very beast-like or tribal looking masks, but the lone lesbian was forced into the one with fetish overtones. Within the fictional DC Universe, Batwoman's sexuality is not public knowledge, so it's not like the villain deliberately chose that mask as social commentary. It was purely the work of the creators, and the gag was wisely removed in the subsequent issues.
- They were ment to be the Female Furies, a long time all female villain group the serves as Darkseid's elite guard, at least Grant Morrison openly apologize about giving the women (or at least Wonder Woman, who does save the day and free everyone form mind control) the raw end of the deal.
- In the opening issue of the same series, a group of supervillains are shown brutally attacking and possibly killing a group of teenaged superheroes. The problem is that with one exception, none of the teens were white. Both Mas and Menos are Hispanic, and Empress is Jamaican. Perhaps to prevent further fan outrage, an extended "Director's Cut" of the first issue was released a short time later, showing that the young heroes had indeed survived their encounter.
Lampshaded in Maus. Vladek Spiegelman is incredibly miserly, and his son wonders what people will make of a person who is advancing that particular stereotype about Jews.
Usagi Yojimbo — Probably the reason the foreigners including Jesus will remain They Who Must Not Be Seen for a long time. Either the only difference between them and the Japanese Funny Animals (which includes Gen the rhino, Lord Mifune the tiger, and Katsuichi-sensei the lion) is Wig Dress Accent or they're a different family of animal (reptilian missionaries would have a literal Crystal Dragon Jesus!). At least Space Usagi has the options of robots and aliens.
In the Batman series, all the members of the Batfamily to have ever been tempted by evil or too violent or depicted as incompetent are those whose parents were criminals. It's the case for Jason Todd (too violent, murderer), Stephanie Brown (incompetent), Huntress (tendency to disregard the one rule), Cass Cain (murderer, though it was retconned as More Than Mind Control), and Damian (murderer, has tried to kill members of the Batfamily).
As much as this troper loves them, he still has to shake his head sadly at the general portrayal of black people in the Asterix books. Uderzo nearly always draws them in the style of a sambo-like caricature from the 1930s. Sigh ...
- As if the art wasn't bad enough, this troper remembers that most of the black people shown in those books happen to be slaves, either of the white romans, or the tan (but still greek-influenced) egyptians.

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Song Of The South is never coming out of the Disney Vault in North America (it's been available in Europe for some time now). Interestingly, when the film was first released, the NAACP acknowledged "the remarkable artistic merit" of the film, but decried the supposed "impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship". Yes, the film was technically set after the Civil War. But really now, acting like Reconstruction was all singing bluebirds and joyous dancing and smiling beautiful White children for Black people is disingenuous at best. Lost in all the hubbub is the fact that James "Uncle Remus" Baskett was the first actor hired by Disney ("Song of the South" being Disney's first foray into live action) and that he won an Oscar for it. (An "honorary" one, because of racism, but still.) You rock, Mr. Baskett. Although he was banned from the film's premiere.
The depiction of ~~the Xiongnu~~ "the Huns" as yellow-eyed demons in Mulan.
The buck-teethed Siamese Cats in Lady and the Tramp. Not to mention their lisping accents with broken English, mentions of fortune cookies and the pseudo Asian music of their number. How consciously invoking so many stereotypes wasn't foreseen to be offensive is just bizarre.
- Lady and the Tramp was made in 1955, when people of Asian descent were still Acceptable Nationality Targets. The only thing they didn't forsee is America making peace with China and Japan, leading to a gigantic Funny Aneurysm Moment. Though it is a bit surprising that the Siamese Cats were left intact in future releases of the movie.
The "Pastoral Symphony" segment of Fantasia included a centaurette servant named Sunflower, who is part African human, part donkey, performing menial duties for the blonde, white female centaurs, and two attendants to Bacchus who are part African Amazons, part zebra. The servant has been excised from all prints in circulation since 1969, while the zebra centaurettes have always remained in the film.
- Also, while the zebra-girls look more exotic than anything else, Sunflower is the sort of big-lipped, pigtailed caricature that modern audiences find embarrassingly outdated at best and highly offensive at worst.
Then there's the "squirrel love" scene in The Sword and the Stone. Yes, that's right, there's a scene where a lady squirrel is chasing around Arthur insistently... and Merlin lets this happen! (At least, until it happens to him). Depending on how you interpret it, it could have a large number of unfortunate implications.
- Oh no, don't offend Squirrel Girl! (We're not upset, either.)

Close Disney Animated Canon

Man from Africa appears in an all-white town, starts killing, and eventually kidnaps a white woman to rape her, whereupon the townspeople come after him as a mob and burn him to death. The movie: The Mummy's Tomb.
The way Christian — the only gay character — in Clueless is deliberately left out of the final wedding scene. Amy Heckerling originally filmed it with him there, as we see in the behind-the-scenes features on the DVD, but took him out when it came to the editing.
The 1942 movie Holiday Inn... the musical number for February (Lincoln's birthday). Values Dissonance is one thing but this... Holy. Shit. A big Blackface minstrel show about Abraham Lincoln. Naturally it gets cut when on TV. (Even in 1942, controversy forced Irving Berlin to alter the offending word "darky" to "negro.")
Rules of Engagement. Someone guns down a crowd of protesters in Yemen... and later on it's revealed that it was okay, because the crowd was all armed and attacking. Even a four year old girl is shown to be armed. Did I mention that when they show the crowd, they try to make all the Arab people as alien and as evil as possible? This may be an Unreliable Narrator at work, but it's all rather vague. As Mark Freeman said:
"The message of Rules of Engagement is the necessity to kill all those who actively oppose the United States and that the murder of women and children is acceptable in such cases."
- This example counts as something of a Shocking Swerve. Throughout the movie, the Marine's attack on the protesting crowd was presented as abhorrent as it was believed that only a few people in the crowd were actually armed and that the Colonel (played by Samuel L. Jackson) overreacted by ordering his men to open fire on the entire crowd, armed or not. It was only after finding the security videotape that the audience finds out that 90+% of the crowd was in on the attack and that Jackson was justified (legally if not morally) in opening fire on a crowd of civilians. That said, it still leaves the fact that an Arab four-year-old girl is still firing a gun at Americans out of hate. And one-handed, despite any recoil, but that's another trope.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen caught a lot of flack for the twin Autobots Skids and Mudflap. The pair talk about busting caps in people's asses, swear constantly, have buck teeth and googly eyes, claim to be nearly illiterate, and have very redneck/"ghetto" accents. One even has a gold tooth.
- That's not even getting into the Jordanian midget and the Indian deli worker with horrible teeth. Someone send this movie to sensitivity training.
- The first movie also had, uh, problems with African-American portrayals. Tyrese played a fairly average soldier, that was okay. But then you had Bernie Mac as a crooked used car salesman, Anthony Anderson as... well, almost every other character Anthony Anderson has played on the big screen, and Jazz, the Autobot who throws about B-boy slang, busts out a breakdance move, and is the only Autobot to be "killed" by Megatron.
Christmas with the Kranks is already pretty bad, what with the neighbors trying to force a couple into celebrating Christmas instead of going somewhere else for it. As said over on Family Unfriendly Aesop, what would the same neighbors do if a non-Christian moved into the neighborhood?
As pointed out by The Nostalgia Critic, Kazaam has a scene where a white kid points out that he owns a genie played by Shaquille O'Neal (who, for those of you living under a rock, is black). Not to mention that the genie sleeps in his bed, showers in front of him, and even kisses him all over when the kid comes back to life. Somebody call child services, quick!
The James Bond movie Live And Let Die has this going on in more ways than one with Solitaire, who is a Vodoun priestess, cartomancer...and inexplicably the only white person in Dr. Kananga's employ. It's as if she existed to be rescued by Bond from the Scary Black Men. Also, somehow the entire population of Harlem is in on the bad guy's conspiracy. The only non-villainous black cast member is Bond's CIA sidekick. Even the black Bond Girl was The Mole!
- Then there is the novel this is based on where everything stops being merely an implication.
- The producers actually wanted a black Solitaire at first (even though she was white in the book), and considered Diana Ross for the role, but felt that it would have been far too controversial in the US and South Africa in the early 70's.
Hot Fuzz, enjoyable as the action and silliness are, does rather seem to imply that anyone who doesn't believe in 'tough on crime' policies is really acting for deeply selfish reasons — possibly to further their own mass-murderin'.
Stephen King novel turned film Firestarter had caucasian George C. Scott cast as Native American Big Bad John Rainbird.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: it is totally okay and even heroic to sneak onto someone else's land without permission and steal their most valued treasure — as long as they don't speak your language, wear as much clothing as you do or have your skin colour. But it's deeply uncool to swipe something from a white guy in a hat who speaks English.
- Keep in mind that this is a portrayal of the Nazis. Whether or not this makes it better or worse is for you to decide.
David Lean's Ryan's Daughter is full of Unfortunate Implications. The supposedly Irish heroine is played by the very English Sarah Miles, given a name (Rosy) that conjures up the English 'Rose' more than 'Rosaleen', and contrasted heavily with the ugly, loud, cruel and stupid locals played by Irish actors and actresses.
Idiocracy is supposed to be a satire of crass popular culture but ends up advocating social Darwinism. Lower class individuals are portrayed as unintelligent not because a lack of education or opportunity but because they are genetically inferior.
- Well they never did say that the football player was lower class, nor did they say that it was genetic and not cultural, which given the time frame makes a lot more sense.
Pink Panther 2: Well, it's a Pink Panther movie, so it's expected that The Hero bumbles around and embarasses himself for the whole movie then redeems himself by figuring out the plan and apprehending the villain at the end. However, Clouseau is racist (at the very least, completely ignorant of political correctness). The Dream Team of inspectors from various countries, though portrayed as generally more competent than Clouseau, suddenly become bumbling idiots themselves in the film's final sequence in one dastardly Humiliation Conga and concede that Clouseau is truly the greatest inspector in the world. In other words, the incompetent racist guy is greater than the all the world's nations working together.
Arguably, the Star Wars prequels. A lot of species in the galaxy are apparently quite similar to negative racial stereotypes from Earth.
The "hopeless, sexless geek" Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles is reportedly absolutely infamous among Asian-Americans.
Happy Feet — All of Mumble's sidekicks are rather over-the-top Hispanic stereotypes, and the girls they talk to are likewise. These penguins are meant to be the the positive alternative to the rather over-the-top stereotypically religious and clannish elder penguins.
300. You can see why Iran got mad at the portrayal of the Persian Empire as an army of insane deformed Camp Gay demons, who, for some anachronistic reason, also include black soldiers and dress in Japanese styles, while the heroes are a militaristic culture of athletic white men who kill unarmed messengers and view violence as an ends to war, rather than a means. To quote the New York Post: "But keeping in mind Slate's Mickey Kaus' Hitler Rule -- never compare anything to Hitler — it isn't a stretch to imagine Adolf's boys at a "300" screening, heil-fiving each other throughout and then lining up to see it again."
Shallow Hal is about a guy who learns to see a person's inner beauty. The thing is, every single fat and unnatractive women in the movie are as supermodels to him while all the hot women become ugly in his eyes. This seems to suggest that being attractive and being a good person are mutually exclusive traits.
- Seriously,watch that film again. Because there is only one hot woman he sees as ugly in the whole movie. His ability is to see inner beauty, but attractive characters who are also good people remain attractive. It's not a particularly good film, but that implication just isn't there.
- This troper wonders how it felt to be a casting director on that movie. By definition of the role they're cast in, several of the actresses in this film are implied to be objectively physically ugly in real life. Hollywood Homely or otherwise, that's still a pretty Unfortunate Implication for the actresses in particular, and for standards of female beauty in general.
Bruce Willis' The Kid has its fair share. Unpopular at school? Oh, you're fat and have a speech impediment? Well, the only way to become a worthwhile member of society is to learn to fight, lose weight and get a speech therapist. Only then will your life have meaning.
- For bonus points, if you've managed to alienate the only woman whose ever meant anything to you through your insensitivity and all-round Jerkassness, then all you need to do is turn up in a Porsche with a sheepish smile and a puppy, and you get instant forgiveness! And possibly sex!
As the Nostalgia Chick pointed out in her review of the Baby Sitters Club movie, the one black girl is given no subplot or depth to her personality unlike all the other girls, most of whom are white. She also made a note that while the series is to be praised for portraying a group of enterprising, financially successful young girls, their business is structured around that of child-care, perhaps leaving the impression that girls are simply best suited for maternal work.
- She must have been in too much of a hurry to be offended, so we can't blame the Nostalgia Chick for missing the fact that girls too young to get work permits don't have a hell of a lot of career options to start with.
Aside from the more obvious controversy regarding Tropic Thunder (see the page image if you've been living in a cave), there was also a lesser one centered around the "Simple Jack" subplot. Said plot involved Ben Stiller's character playing an extremely mentally retarded character in one of his past films, which ended up being a complete flop. The intent was to mock the use of Inspirationally Disadvantaged characters as Oscar Bait by presenting one who was not at all inspirational; however, the "but not too disabled" subtext, that Jack was a box-office failure because the character was so extremely impaired, seemed to go unnoticed by the filmmakers (though not by disability activists).
- This is actually one of the jokes later on in the film, with Ben Stiller discussing with the "Blacked-Up" guy about why his film failed. He actually responds with almost the exact same words, saying he went "Full retard", and that you should "Never go full retard", citing that every other Inspirationally Disadvantaged character is quite mild in their disability so the audience can relate to them. Played For Laughs, but it actually adresses the point.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest pulls a hat trick. During the "cannibal savages" sequence (one!), Will and the other white guys must outclimb all the ethnic people to reach the top of the ravine. They stop to avoid alerting a guard... and then the ethnic crewmembers flash evil grins and start climbing again (two!). But their rope snaps and the cage of bones they're in plummets into the ravine, leaving the crew to be composed entirely of white guys (three!). Oh, Disney.
Kung Fu Panda: the prison guards are all rhinos(an animal usually more immediately associated with its African species than Asian), and they are all voiced by African-American actors. They are shown to be violent, egotistical, and unwilling to listen to reason, as evidenced by the warden rejecting Shifu's warning that his prison may not be sufficient. Furthermore, the warden menaces the goose for no reason other then to establish his superiority; which in of itself carries implications of Asian culture being meek and easily intimidated and black people being intimidating.

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The Ur Example has to be The Bible: Eden's working fine until a woman comes along. Conquest of Canaan is fine because Noah cursed Ham's descendants. Then there's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's fine for Dinah to be raped as long as the men submit to circumcision. Then there's what they do after leaving Egypt. Slavery's fine; there are even laws governing the proper purchasing of slaves. And on and on, all the way to the Apocalypse of John the Divine and the Deuterocanon.
In The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Tolkien describes Orcs: "...they are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes; in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." Not to mention the fact that actual Arabs and north Africans...ish...are supposed to make up a goodly part of the (scary, foreign) human forces of evil. Sauron's human followers were at least acknowledged as human when Sam watches one of them fall in combat and wonders what lies and threats tore him from his family to die in a foreign land... but still, none of them are ever given names, dialog, or motivation.
- Tolkien struggled for his entire life with how to reconcile his strict Catholicism (which viewed evil as an inherently uncreative force) with a race that was Always Chaotic Evil. He never found an answer that satisfied him and apparently Hand Waved the issue by saying that the halfway-decent orcs are just not the ones we see.
- In The Silmarillion, it's directly stated that neither Sauron nor his older and far more powerful boss, Morgoth can create anything, at least nothing alive. As discussed in the movies, Morgoth just twisted some elves around, and after all the battles, some of the orcs must have escaped to the East (along with the rest of the wizards). At least, that's one theory.
A good argument can be made that HP Lovecraft's entire body of work can be traced back to a combined fear of sex, foreigners, and seafood. His later work tones down the racism, and now our "genetically inferior" villains are just deformed or inbred.
- Not all the unfortunate-ness of Lovecraft is implied. On more than one occasion he came right out and made statements showing a degree of racism shocking even for his era. A good (and shocking) example is this passage, the final twist of "Medusa's Coil" (ghostwritten for someone else, but it's his):
  "[She] was faintly, subtly, yet to the eyes of genius unmistakably the scion of Zimbabwe's most primal grovellers.... [T]hough in deceitfully slight proportion, Marceline was a negress."
The "good guy" species in Redwall all speak perfectly civil, upper-class English... except for the moles, who have an accent that sounds like that of the West Country, an English region more associated with rural life and stereotypes (and, hence, the working class). The Always Chaotic Evil vermin? Lower-class, mostly Cockney, slang, for the most part, with the exceptions of mustelids. There are perhaps four vermin who pull the Heel Face Turn in the entire series. Only one of them survives. The upshot is not so much "lower class = bad", but that being working class is okay as long as you have the decency to be a nice, earthy country-type and not some inner-city urban thug.
- There's also an incident in Loamhedge that is... less than sensitive to wheelchair-users. Martha, who has been confined to a wheelchair all her life, gets up and walks to save the Abbot; she says afterward that she was only impaired by a lack of willpower.
- A majority of the Redwall books are not too bad, but the most recent, Eulalia, is So Bad Its Horrible because of all the Unfortunate Implications. Let's see, an innocent vole is forced to dress up like a vermin and used as a trick and the Redwallers badly hurt him. This would be fine if it acknowledged that it was an accident, that because of the disguise they thought he was an enemy, but they justify it because the vole was rude to a protagonist earlier. So even when the Redwallers realize that the vole had no choice he gets treated horribly, and then when he tries to steal the Sword of Martin as revenge for his ordeal... the Redwallers kill him.
A Noble Savage tribe in Terry Goodkind's Sword Of Truth series are also called "mud people", but that's the name they proudly take for themselves; they took the name from their use of mud as camouflage (presumably after watching Predator).
The Chronicles Of Narnia are more or less permanently under fire for two major issues. The controversy with some merit to it is about the Calormenes, evil Arabs who embody most topical vices. The other one is about Susan Pevensie's absence from Paradise at the end of The Last Battle, sometimes interpreted as "being barred from Heaven for liking lipstick and nylons." An attentive reading suggests that this is more due to elevating shallow materialism above the truly important things, and to her NOT BEING DEAD.
- The phrase "good white Narnians" also crops up with alarming regularity.
- Lewis also has a mildly schizophrenic attitude towards women. On the one hand, Calormene treatment of women, particularly forced marriage, is treated with disapproval and most female protagonists are portrayed as fairly independent and capable (ineffectual women are treated with scorn). On the other, a generally patronising sense of "that's no good for a girl" pervades discussions of Lucy and Susan's participation in battle, and the most powerful women in the Narnian universe are antagonists.
- Lewis didn't like the idea of women in combat (Father Christmas says as much when giving Susan her bow), but saw no problem with them being competent in other areas. (This is slightly aleviated in the Disney film of Prince Caspian, where Susan Took A Level In Badass and actually puts that bow to good use.)
- Then there's The Silver Chair, where Jill tells the prince that people "don't think much of men who are bossed around by their wives" where she's from.
- Lewis also manages to communicate through his description of Eustace's parents and the school they send him to that he thinks "liberal" and "progressive" mean "a bunch of damn hippies who want to overturn the traditions that made Britain great". Examples of these sins include children calling teachers or parents by their first names and coeducational schools.
  - And a school which doesn't push religious values or use physical discipline is depicted as a hellhole with teachers completely blind to the fact that a group of bullies keeps the rest of the students under their reign of terror.
  - Also, there may be a crack at Eustace being Quaker, since refusal to bear arms is apparently another part of his jerkish, hypocritical ways.
Ah, Unfortunate Implications. Where would Twilight be without you?:
- Gender: Bella seems incapable of doing anything by herself without being almost killed/raped or without getting severely injured. She faints at the smell of blood, is ridiculously clumsy, must be rescued constantly, and is loved by every single male that sets eyes on her. On the other hand, most of the other female characters (with the exception of Angela and Esme) are either shallow, immature, self-centered, bitchy, or ditzy.
- Race: The character Jacob is a Native American who turns into a werewolf (read: an animal).
  - The whole Cold Ones story, with its seemingly unironic use of the term 'pale-faces', and basically the idea of inventing legends and customs for a real culture that already has them. Pretend Jacob was telling a 'lost Koran story' involving the word 'infidels' and you might see what we mean.
  - Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon, a religion who has a rather...interesting Origin Myth for Native Americans. She writes a book in which Native Americans are descended from wolves (or at least, that's what was said in the movie).
  - The perfect Cullens, and indeed all the incredibly perfect race of vampires, all have brilliant, beautiful shiny white skin (regardless of their ethnicity as mortals). Also, the simpler, more "primitive" werewolves are all Native American, and highly stereotyped at that.
  - This is why the town of Forks wouldn't actually allow the movie to be filmed there — the Quileute tribe were too offended by their portrayal in the book. Who can blame them? Also, Stephenie Meyer obviously hasn't been to Forks, making her a victim of Hollywood Geography. Meyer's portrayal of the Olympic Peninsula is ... well, it is wrong.
- Relationships: Stefanie Meyer has said she believes Edward to be the perfect guy. This is why he does things like telling Bella she's an idiot all the time, telepathically stalking her, listening in on her conversations, secretly breaking into her house at night and sitting in her bedroom so he can spend hours on end watching her sleep. She's flattered when she finds out, and happily lets him keep doing so. Locking her in her house and breaking her car so she can't visit her friends... hard to imagine a more perfect beau.
  - The recurring theme that love can conquer anything — even when one of the persons involved repeatedly tells the other to leave them alone lest they fly into an uncontrollable frenzy and murder them. Edward warns her. A lot. Bella persists, nonetheless.
  - Unfortunately, in both Twilight and The Host, Meyer tends to depict "love can conquer anything" as "If you just keep letting him abuse you and never fight back, eventually that will make him love you."
  - Jacob counts too. He decides that the best way to make Bella realize her non-existent love for him is...to threaten to kill himself if she doesn't kiss him. And it works! Turns out Bella really did have feelings for him! And it's not the first time he does it, either. When he first forcefully kisses her, Bella's own father laughs and congratulates Jacob. Then Bella forgives both her dad and Jacob. Even "perfect guy" Edward shrugs the reaction off, saying he was used to Bella being overly nice.
  - Sam and Emily: Sam and Leah loved each other until Leah's cousin, Emily, visited. Sam imprinted on Emily, and promptly dumped Leah. When Emily refused to go out with him, Sam "wolfed out" and tore half her face off. Sam offered to throw himself under a bus, so Emily felt sorry for him and decided to be with him. Guilt trips equal love.
  - "Imprinting": Love At First Sight? Potentially cute. One-sided obsession at first sight? Not cute. One-sided obsession at first sight where the target's expected to be flattered and eventually reciprocate? Waaaay not cute. One-sided obsession where the target expected to eventually give in and sex you up is a toddler? BAD TOUCH! ABORT! ABORT!
- Age: Bella displays complete revulsion at the mere thought of being a day older than a teenager, at one point having a nightmare in which she is sixty-plus years older than Edward and treating it as one of the most horrible things that could ever happen to her. This is part of the reason why she's so desperate to become a vampire: so she can remain young and perfect forever. Because we all know things like personal maturity aren't as important as looking pretty.
The Legend Of Rah And The Muggles. Not only does the intro casually drop the phrase "ethnically impure" in a book intended to be read by six-year-olds but the stunted, deformed titular creatures are supposed to have evolved from the various "ethnically impure" people left behind After The End. Not to mention the barely touched-upon inferred nuclear apocalypse.
The Robert Heinlein book Farnham's Freehold demonstrates the evils of racism by showing a future in which blacks are the dominant group and oppress whites in parallel to contemporary oppression of blacks. Unfortunately, the blacks in the story eat whites, which suggests a message that blacks really are savages deserving of oppression.
- Robert Heinlein was pretty rascist. It shows in stories such as The Sixth Column, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Column, which is basically a invasion of the Unites States by Pan-Asians(Japan and China working together. This is particularly jarring b/c China and Japan are tradtional enemies and grouping them together is smothering there diversity. The heroes basically create a Deus Ex Machina that kills all yellow people and saves the day.
In The Wheel Of Time, no couple can live happily ever after until the man is more powerful than the woman, or at least more dominant. Domon defeating Egeanin; Nynaeve marrying Lan after she learns to submit to saidar, and the marriage vows which mean that whichever one gives the orders in public will have to obey in private; Tallanvor and Morgase getting together after she's dethroned and working as a lady's maid; Bryne and Siuan. To name but several.
- And then there's the spanking...
Donita K. Paul's Dragonknight, where everyone who is not a Wulder-worshipper is immediately evil and is subject to discrimination or persecution from the heroes.
Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon features a scene where the protagonist, a computer scientist, finds himself embroiled in an argument with some academics whose field seems to be sociology. They basically accuse him of perpetuating an unequal system by belonging to a field so dominated by white men and of turning a blind eye to the existence of privilege in society; he hotly insists that he had to work extremely hard to get where he is, and that anyone who was prepared to do the same should be able to as well. He's clearly meant to be the voice of common sense among a bunch of pretentious ivory tower-dwellers — but no one calls him out for more or less saying that the reason women and non-whites are underrepresented in many fields is because they're just not prepared to work hard enough.
Gone With The Wind. Goddamn. Period-Appropriate Racism, and all that, but... how exactly does that explain the fact that all the white people speak the King's English and all the black people speak in in a highly stereotyped dialect? Especially considering the dialect of the southern aristocracy wasn't even the King's English in Real Life.
- Malcolm X reported being humiliated in the theater at the "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies" bit. To be fair, though, not only is that probably meant to suggest (in the book) how they simply sounded to the bigoted southerners, but there is also a rather stereotypical view of the white Irish.
You could fill a book with all the unfortunate implications that crop up in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. Most, but not all, of them are related to the elves that can't be argued with.
- Veganism is the way to go and anyone who eats meat is a horrible, horrible person who doesn't value the sanctity of life (thankfully, Eragon seems to be a little more reasonable about this lately).
  - However, the Dragons (who even the elves suck up to) think that their vegetarianism is ridiculous.
- People who put their stock and faith in gods and religion are morons believing in fairy-tales, and atheists are grounded squarely in reality despite evidence of magic and supernatural beings.
- A woman who is able to take care of herself is an unusual occurrence. (You're trying too hard, Paolini.)
- The hero cannot truly face evil unless all evidence of his scars (both literal and figurative) and trials are swept under the rug and "cured"...and he's a half-elf. On a related note, not having scars makes you better than people who do.
  - Possible subversion, by the third book other major "Good" characters have hideous scars, including the leader of the Resistance and the brother of the Hero.
- Anything you do to the opposing side — absolutely anything, including torture, murder, and conquest — is okay as long as you're the main character doing it to the opposing side. Don't worry, no one will call you out for this. Except your childhood bully, but he was a jerk to you anyway.
- The Mind Rape of Sloan done by Eragon. What were his major crimes? Trying to keep his daughter alive and not giving the Designated Hero some meat in exchange for a rock. To be fair it was a "very" pretty rock.
  - Well, he did also murder someone while giving his daughter to the bloodthirsty monsters just so she wouldn't marry the brother of the farmboy that he doesn't like.
S.L. Viehl's Jorenians are monogamous (and invariably heterosexual) enough to make the Moral Guardians weep with shame. In the second book of the StarDoc series, the vengeful Ktarka — who's not allowed to marry, because she proposed to someone who turned out to already be engaged — is making advances on the heroine in between attempts to destroy her. Another Jorenian character seems nearly as shocked at the fact that Ktarka was putting the moves on another woman as at the fact that she had already killed several characters and was planning on killing at least three more, one of them a little kid. (Someone must have called Viehl on it: Later in the series, she paired up the gay secondary character Hawk with a male Jorenian...and tossed in an Anvilicious message about how same-sex marriage is okay.)
In Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, everything is a symbol relating to an overall point about race relations. More than once a character who expresses a view different from Ellison's is revealed to be blind—because they don't see the truth, get it? One can't help but wonder whether the book's ever been printed in Braille...
TV series Red Dwarf releases a few tie-in novels. So far so good. First two are published as a single book in Amercia. Also good. What's not good is that, in the cover illustration, the two black characters, Lister and the Cat, are replaced by a white guy and an actual cat, respectively...

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Doctor Who: The Doctor's first companion, Susan Foreman, was originally not supposed to be related to him. The powers that be made her into his granddaughter because they feared he would come across as a child molester (50something man travelling with a 15-year-old girl. Or at least a girl who appeared to be 15, as Susan was from Gallifrey and probably older than she looked) In The Sensorites, the Doctor says that a young human woman is a few years older than Susan, so maybe not.
- The new series has its share as well. "Silence in the Library" had Miss Evangelista, a pretty woman patronized by her team for being pretty but dumb. She even says, perfectly seriously, that she was pleased when her father told her she had the IQ of plankton. After she is later killed, her "data ghost" is saved in the titular Library's data core with transcription errors that make her virtual reconstruction smart... at the cost of her pretty face. All of which seems to imply that pretty = stupid while smart = ugly. "Brilliant and unloved," eh?
- This troper remembers the promotional buzz made by BBC producers announcing Martha Jones (portrayed by Freema Agyeman) as "the Doctor's first ever black companion". Deftly ignoring the fact that Mickey Smith (Rose Tyler's ex-boyfriend, portrayed by Noel Clarke) had played a significant role in several Season One and Two stories, and had even travelled in the TARDIS for a few episodes. So Yeah.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor added a lesbian backstory to one of the series' biggest psychos (with her former lover being one of those on the receiving end of her hardcase-ness, subsequently losing it a bit herself). In the DVD Commentary for it, Ronald D. Moore admitted accidentally walking right into Unfortunate Implications territory.
- And now we've got another gay character on the show... and it's Felix Gaeta. The same Gaeta who unintentionally collaborated with the Cylon government on New Caprica, and as of season 4.5 is guiding the bloody Zarek-led mutiny into new depths of dickery. Mind you, it also turns out Hoshi is gay, and we've seen no villainy from him, but this makes, what, the second queer character who goes all nuts in military circumstances and believes the ends justify the means?
The first episode of Phoenix Nights plays with this trope. A local folk band called "Half A Shilling" perform at the opening of the titular social club; their signature song "Send The Buggers Back" is ostensibly about sending back a pair of shoes but with Anvilicious racial subtext (the shoes were black when they should have been white). When Peter Kay's character realises this (with the help of a journalist covering the event) he goes into a blind panic and tries to get them off the stage.
Compare the original minority members of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to the colors they were chosen to wear: an African-American as the Black Ranger, and an Asian as the Yellow Ranger. When the characters had to be replaced, the production made sure their respective roles got a Race Lift.
- Series developer Tony Oliver admitted when recasting Trini from the Hispanic Audri Du Bois to the Asian Thuy Trang after the pilot episode this genuinely never occurred to anyone in production. For whatever it's worth, Jason/Red's actor is Caucasian, Native American and Asian in varying degrees.
- Having learned their lesson, Rangers didn't have those race/color combinations again until Operation Overdrive (season 15). Considering that by then black cast members have worn many other colors (red, green, blue, yellow, everything except maybe pink or white — hmm), having one as the Black Ranger might have escaped notice this time... if they hadn't copied Super Sentai directly and made him a professional thief. *facepalm*
  - Fun observation: A Caucasian has played a black ranger, but we have yet to see an African American play a white ranger.
  - Let's be fair; there has been a minority White Ranger: Trent of Dino Thunder was Hispanic.
  - Wasn't he evil for half of the show?
  - He was a [1]... Of course he was evil (well fifth technically, but who'se quibbling)
An episode of Psych dealing with a haunted house: Gus' fear of ghosts came across as surprisingly similar to that displayed by Ethnic Scrappy black characters like those played by Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Moreland. Gus' character has been long established as less brave than Shaun (since childhood, even), but still. Not to mention that trait's gotten played up more as the show goes on.
Heroes has a number of unfortunate implications in the series.
- Race:
  - The majority of black and Latino characters are criminals, or put in position of being criminals, Scrappies or Magical Negroes. A special mention should be made for season 3 villain Knox, a black man who is not only a criminal, but who has the power to...grow stronger by terrifying people. He also enjoys it.
  - Hiro's Flanderized buffoonishness, particularly the arc in which he mentally reverted to a 10-year-old, plays to some unfortunate stereotypes of Asian men. Ando's initial obsession with porn/Niki did too, but that character trait was fortunately phased out pretty early in the series.
  - In the episode "Cautionary Tales," HRG (a white man) accuses Mohinder (an Indian man) of getting too deeply involved with the Company, and finally concludes in shock and disgust, "You've gone native!" The problem? "Gone native" is a derogatory expression left over from the British Empire, used for white men who adapted too much to the "native" dress and customs of their colonial subjects, including... you guessed it... Indians. So Yeah.
- Gender:
  - The majority of empowered humans with abilities they can use to successfully fight off Sylar are male.
  - The majority of female characters are either manipulative or helpless, rather than proactive.
  - Candice used her illusion powers to fit a specific definition of beautiful, telling Micah [and the viewers] that she was fat and unattractive in her true form...which viewers only saw from the back after Sylar killed her. An official series webcomic showed that as a teenager she was very overweight with a stereotypical goth/"emo" look.
  - There's a pretty frightening amount of trophy or Disposable Women, or women just plain written with the intention of being sympathetic but not coming off that way.
  - And Maya hits both race and gender unfortunateness: her powers are triggered by a hyper-emotional state, which happens with irritating frequency, playing to both "hysterical woman" and "overly passionate Latina" stereotypes. The fact that she needs men (Sylar, her brother) to control her only adds to this. She's also victimized on a disturbingly regular basis.
The whole Dark Willow storyline in Buffy. Yes, the writers can claim that had she still been with Oz he would have died and she'd react in the same way, but we're left with what they put on screen: a scenario where one half of a lesbian couple is shot dead, and the other half goes crazy, as per many portrayals in less enlightened times. And it just happened to take place after a day of unmagicked, undisguised sex. Unfortunate? You bet. In addition, the writers blathering on about how they liked to use magic as a metaphor for lesbian sex. Didn't they consider that making Willow an abusive magic junkie might send out the wrong message?
- The show contains an awful lot of female empowerment, thought it often goes too far and comes off as sexist against men. One of the most blatant examples is "Beauty and the Beasts", which told us that all men are literally hormone-driven, woman-beating animals.
On one occasion, Johnny Cash performed Ghost Riders in the Sky on The Muppet Show in front of a background decked out like a barn. Nothing wrong with that. However, there were several Confederate flags hanging in the background, which could have easily have been overlooked as cultural flavor. But then Gonzo came in halfway through the song riding on a cow while decked out in a white sheet and hood...
- Uh, what? Gonzo shows up here at about 1:55...wearing a light blue duster, a bandana around his neck, and nothing on his head. Then near the end, (about 3:20) a bunch of them wearing sheets (as in 'kid's ghost costume') and cowboy hats (not pointy hoods) ride out... like 'ghost riders', geddit? You'd have to be really desperately looking for something to be offended by...
  - Also notice that, rather than "several" Confederate flags, there's one, at stage right, with the US flag being properly positioned (with regards to flag etiquette) at stage left.
Many episodes of MST3K are chocked with Unfortunate Implications, due to the sordid, dated, and low quality nature of many of their films. Probably the worst offender was The Wild Wild World of Batwoman, which featured an army of dim-witted, easily kidnapped women, a female character being led around on a leash by a lesser mook, and a painful seance that was frequently interrupted by a gibberish-speaking Chinese man. Other shameful moments of the series include:
- The "Hitler Building" sequence from Invasion of the Neptune Men. The fact that the filmmakers were using actual brutal WWII footage for their trite little space movie really stuck in the craw of many of the MST 3 K writers and cast members.
  - You can hear genuine shock in their responses, which doesn't stop "They blew up the Hitler Building!" being a Crowning Moment Of Funny.
- Unless you count the entirety of the KTMA-era episode The Million Eyes of Sumuru, a film which packs the collective misogyny of 100 Bond movies into a mere two hours. The most offensive scene involves one of the title character's attractive female lackeys killing an innocent female prisoner so she could drag the hunky hero into her cell and make out with him. And this was played for laughs.
- What about Hobgoblins? The main character's virginal girlfriend is shrewish, unpleasant, and no fun to be around until she's mind-controlled into dancing at a strip club, and afterwards decides she likes the attention she gets as a sex object. As Crow says: "Yes, girls, this is the only way to make your boyfriends like you!"
- The extremely bizarre Mexican Santa Claus has Santa's workshop staffed not by elves but from children from around the globe. Apparently there are no child labor laws in the North Pole...
  - Don't forget that the helpers from Africa wear sackcloths, bones in their noses and hair, and dance to drums. As Servo declared as one of the African kid actors: "Bone in my hair? — I'm from Detroit!"
- Angels' Revenge features a Sassy Black Woman character, as well as a "Vietnamese" character named Keiko who uses a katana (while everyone else uses guns), teaches karate, and gets introduced with a gong noise. At one point Mike groans: "This is offending one-celled animals."
  - Don't forget the scene where the women actually torture a drug dealer for information by threatening to castrate him. This scene is played for laughs, with one of the titular Angels being a cop! There's a really, really creepy focus shot on the little 13-year-old girl who is smiling smugly during this entire scene. Yeah, heroines for the ages, these girls are.
- Not to mention the short Once Upon A Honeymoon, where the wife is singing about her greatest wishes, which include the stove working properly, the sink not leaking and the refrigerator door staying closed. "Aim HIGH, sister!"
- Then there's Horror of Party Beach which features Eulabelle, the fretful, superstitious "Mammy"-style servant. "It's da voodoo, dat's whut it is!"
Hogan's Heroes women are usually pretty trusting to the point of stupidity, much like every other non-Ally character on the show. In one episode Hogan forces his way into a woman's apartment with flowers, saying that he's watched and admired her from afar for months (even though she's only been in town a few weeks), tells her to turn the radio up loud, and proceeds to get her very drunk to the point of unconsciousness. When he leaves he stuffs a thousand marks in bills into her hand from the bank they'd robbed by drilling through her wall, which was the entire point of getting in there in the first place. Hogan doesn't seem to worry about what she's going to think when she regains consciousness.
Smallville has always been a damsel-in-distress show—it's Superman, but when the dude who'd just come out about his feelings for Chloe in the previous episode turned into a monster, crashed her wedding, made her faint and carried her off all Rape of the Sabine Woman, well, that was awkward.
The remake of BBC post-apocalyptic show Survivors may have blundered into this accidently while attempting to diversify the cast; of the the titular survivors who make up the main cast the only white male is an escaped murderer (and — it is implied — potential rapist) and the dodgy scientists who were involved in releasing the virus are also white men.
In the Disney Channel Made For TV Movie High School Musical the leading male's Black Best Friend is paired off with the the leading girl's Black Best Friend in a classic case of Token Shipping. The sequel has The Libby batting eyes at said leading male and saying the line "We're skin tone compatible!", which starts sounding really weird when you remember that the guy's girlfriend is supposed to be Hispanic...
The final episode of Star Trek The Original Series, "Turnabout Intruder", in which a woman pulls a Grand Theft Me on Kirk to break through the glass ceiling, ends with a pretty blatant Stay In The Kitchen-ish aesop: "Her life could have been as rich as any woman's. If only... If only..." The anti-feminist anvil is hammered further with the ambitious woman being presented as an Ax Crazy Mad Scientist who immediately turns into a hysterical Umbridge after taking over. Even in the utopian future of Star Trek, it seems women cannot aspire to lives "as rich" as those open to men, and are barred from service as starship captains. This embarrassment has since been Ret Conned out by attributing it to one of the woman's delusions, despite Kirk's explicit on-screen acceptance of both the accuracy of her accusations, and the injustice of the policy.
Enterprise had the slightly unfortunate gimmick of the Andorians calling humans 'pinkskins'... Apparently they didn't notice the black helmsman. But then, given Mayweather's, er, "prominent" role in the series, can you blame them? TWoP calls him "Maywho?" for a reason. Hoshi receives more attention than Mayweather, but that's not saying much. The two of them are so eclipsed by Archer/T'Pol/Trip that when their Mirror Universe doubles take over, killing all in their way, it looks like a Take That against themselves.
- Even the opening theme of Star Trek Enterprise falls under this. The montage in said theme was ostensibly supposed to show the "firsts" of human space exploration which would eventually lead to warp. Thing is, all of the scenes used were from the American space program, which would ostensibly be more familiar to the American audience. This, of course, doesn't take into account the fact that in Real Life the Soviets were ahead most of the time in the Space Race, especially during the earlier stages. A Russian sci-fi fan this troper has talked to was highly offended.
- He must be living quite the ideal life if that's the best thing he can find to affect offense at.
- C'mon. We've all seen what happens when Trek tries to involve Russians.
  - YES! Delicious Chekov...mmmm...well, vaguely Eastern European who was meant to represent all of the Soviets and be a bit of a loony prick...um...but he's so pretty!
The creators of Star Trek always prided themselves on its message against prejudice, both through metaphor and example (the fact that a black woman is on the bridge with Kirk and no-one thinks it's unusual). One unanticipated consequence however was that gay fans of the show would take this lesson to heart and call for a gay character on Star Trek The Next Generation or its spin-offs, or at least have a reference to the fact that homosexuality exists in the Federation. Despite trying to fob fans off with a couple of Very Special Episodes on the subject, there was never any unambiguous sign that any main character, guest star, or expendable ensign had ever had or contemplated having sex with someone of the same gender. One argument by The Powers That Be was that they couldn't do it without belittling gays ("What would you have us do, put pink triangles on them? Have them sashay down the corridor?"). Then comes the Deep Space Nine episodes set in the Mirror Universe. Which sent the message that it is possible to be openly gay. But only evil people do it. Apparently only the Expanded Universe novels can get away with multiple gay and lesbian characters.
- Word Of God is, "Sexuality is a 20th-century problem — not a 24th one.". In that context, 'openly gay' people would be as silly as 'openly straight' is today...and would stop the series from being greenlit.
  - Which would have been easier to believe if almost every character hadn't been openly straight. Honestly...it's all about paying lip service to diversity while making sure any diversity that's the least bit transgressive is explained away as "not really existing any more, so we don't have to write about it and scare the insecure fanboys".
- It should be noted that there were plans to have an openly gay character in Star Trek: First Contact (Lt. Hawk, played by Neal Mc Donaugh), but the idea was scrapped at the last minute. Lt. Hawk is (purposefully and prominently) present, relationship and all, in the novel "Rogue", which is part of the "Section 31" series of books.
- One episode featured Guinan explaining love to a newly created android; Guinan's actress Whoopi Goldberg successfully changed the line from "when a man loves a woman" to "when two people are in love". An attempt to include a same-sex couple in the background of the same scene was scrapped at the last minute.
- Let's not forget that every single human/alien hybrid has always had to struggle with his or her "heritage" from either side of his or her ancestry, no matter where and how said person was raised. Then there's also the tendency for non-human races to all act exactly the same way and have only one major culture. Echoes too closely to the racist belief that certain races are naturally predisposed to act a certain way just because they are members of said race rather than, y'know, trivial things like environment, culture, and personal tendencies.
- There's an episode of Next Gen where Worf finds a planet with some lost Klingons "unaware of their heritage" and takes it on himself to immediately teach them to kill things, get drunk, sing, and follow the PROPER Klingon behaviors and religion. It's really quite odd if you stop to think about it. To the writers' credit, they did later bring this up with Worf's son Alexander having no interest in doing things Just Because He's Klingon, and Worf seemingly accepting that... until in DS 9 they reversed course again and declared that Worf could not possibly accept his son being anything other than a cookie-cutter Klingon. Argh.
  - Um...what??? Yes, the implications of that particular story arc were rather unfortunate, but it was Alexander who wanted to "prove himself" to his father, not the other way around.
Star Trek Voyager has a lot of Unfortunate Implications in the form of Chakotay. While the writers may have wanted to add even more diversity to the cast, their portrayal of Native Americans composed of a mishmash of several different (and often erroneously portrayed) cultural practices of several Native American groups. The end result is so stereotypical that it's bound to have come off as quite offensive. It doesn't help that the episode "Tattoo" basically reveals that a group of aliens visited the Native Americans in the distant past and "uplifted" them from being primitive savages by giving them culture. Sci Fi Debris derisively noted that the latter was essentially "Space White Man's Burden".
An episode of Drake And Josh featured the titular protagonists going head to head with a group of five-to-seven nerds. The nerds are snobby, have an unwarranted sense of self-importance, and are revealed to be underhanded, dishonest thieves, vastly inferior to the talented and creative protagonists. Oh, all the nerds are Asian, by the way.
The Christian Grace from The Secret Life Of The American Teenager is so Anvilicious that it's embarrassing that some viewers believe all Christians act like that.
The eponymous Sanctuary is uncomfortably zoo-like, and despite the good doctor's protests that these "abnormals" are sentient beings, even she doesn't treat them as in any way equal to human beings.
Lost gets a fair amount of complaints about the way it kills off far more notable female characters than male, especially since there are more men to begin with. Ditto with black characters (even Abaddon).
This clip is an example of the "didn't realize what could occur" version of the trope, showing that not even unscripted shows are exempt.
The sixth season of 24 features Kal Penn as a man suspected of being a terrorist simply because of his race, and violently attacked by some of his neighbors, in a scene where it certainly appears we're supposed to be on his side. Except not long afterward it turns out he really is a terrorist. The show's eponymous Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique has always put it in hot water, but this was perhaps the most offensive thing it's ever done.
{{Denji Sentai Denjiman's [2]}} opening features the red leader beating up a Scary Black Man.
One for UK Tropers: the animated opening credits of the satirical quiz Have I Got News For You used to end on a shot of George W. Bush sitting in the Oval Office and throwing a dart at a map of the world, ostenisbly picking his next military target. Since Barack Obama's election, that clip has been replaced with one one of Obama sitting in the Oval Office and ... dunking a basketball. Um, really?
- To be fair, Obama HAS mentioned that he enjoys playing basketball.
  - "Fair"? Did Bush ever mention that he enjoyed darts?
Supernatural is hit pretty hard by Monochrome Casting, so it's extra notable that they've managed to kill off all four badass black men introduced in recent seasons (who are all antagonistic Scary Black Men to boot). Gordon started out nice, but was swiftly Jumping Off The Slippery Slope and when he became a vampire, he had to be messily put down by Sam. Hendrikson was a Bald Black Leader Guy and an Inspector Javert of the FBI who existed to make Sam and Dean's life miserable. When he came around, he got killed. Two overzealous married black hunters got in a situation over their heads against the brothers' advice, and the guy dies. (At least his wife survives.) And in "All Hell Breaks Loose", when all the psychic kids were trying to escape a demon who wanted to recruit them, who's the sane-at-the-beginning character who quickly succumbs to the dark side and tried to kill them all? The black guy.
- Season four's resident Scary Black Man is the somewhat-Knight Templar angel Uriel, contemptuous of the brothers and all humans in general. He turns out evil too and has to be killed.
- Supernatural has run into trouble with even more Unfortunate Implications with its handling of gay characters. Not only did Dean's dropping a "gay" in a derogatory way in "Bedtime Stories" stir up some fans, but the only two openly gay characters introduced (Lily in "All Hell Breaks Loose" and Corbett in "Ghostfacers") were both killed viciously and horribly in the same episodes in which they first appeared. In other words, a lot of Bring Out Your Gay Dead. (Interestingly, "Ghostfacers" was nominated for a GLAAD award regardless.)
- The show has run into a few sexism problems as well, with fans disliking Dean objectifying women and calling every demon a bitch, whore or skank.
Robin Hood has quite a bad case in an episode where the Abbot of Kirklees is revealed to be working in secret on translating he bible into English. When Friar Tuck discovers this and grills the Abbot over it, nearly all his questions are answered with a dismissive "You wouldn't understand!" or variation thereof, which is very strange given that Tuck is both a fellow man of God, and also a scholar who shows many signs of his advanced knowledge to the Abbot in their conversation. It's the fact that, in this version, Tuck is a black man that makes this really uncomfortable.
The "Fagmalion" episodes from Will And Grace in which Will and Jack attempt to turn Straight Gay Barry into a "proper" homosexual — read Flamboyant Gay — and end up getting crushes on the finished result. At one point Barry actually calls them out on this and walks out on them, only to come back a couple scenes later, claiming that he'd rather go through it with them than do it alone... and that he wants to look like someone from "Men's Fitness".

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Music videos which are happy to feature lots of blatant sexual imagery and push at the boundaries of censorship, but which don't want to be too controversial by, say, showing a potentially interracial relationship. A good example that UK viewers may know is the Sugababes video for their single "Push The Button" in which the girls each partner up with a man on a different floor of an office building. When you see the black guy (who is also conspicuously cool...) you can guess which Sugababe will be dancing with him... Sadly, the director wasn't Genre Savvy enough to partner the Asian girl up with an Asian guy to really hammer the point home.
A very disturbing example is "(How Could You) Bring Him Home " by Eamon, where the issue seems to be that he discovered his girlfriend with another man, and it's implied that he did somehing horrible to him. Not only does he try to justify it by saying that "any man would have done just the same", but the girl is demonised, because she heartlessly cheated on the otherwise so sweet Eamon and drove him over the edge.
The band Boys Like Girls has an unfortunately homophobic-sounding name.

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In a very loose animorphistic adaptation of Balzac's (non-animorphistic) short story "A Passion In The Desert", the unnamed protagonist repeatedly claims that women are like beasts, both in the narration and in the dialogue. Furthermore, when he and Mignonne (the currently human animorph he is speaking to when he says that women are like beasts) are camping in a desert and a panther approaches, the panther will allow the protagonist to pet her. The man insists that Mignonne pet her, and when she refuses saying that she's frightened, it only makes him yell at her to do it anyway. She reaches out a hand, and the panther bites her. She pulls back but the man tells her to do it again. Unfortunate Implication? Double Entendre? Both?

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The earliest editions of Dungeons And Dragons drow: An Always Chaotic Evil matriarchy that looked vaguely African in culture (and skin color). Luckily, the publishers very quickly edited that last part and instead made them look black, not brown, and more alien to human eyes. Though it's still an eeeevil matriarchy that must be destroyed (not to mention that all of the more unconventional, popular drow are male.)
- Also, War of the Spider Queen shows how well most drow fare when a tight grip of sadistic matriarchs and Religion Of Evil constantly keeping them in check is released. Though then it merely replaces the old Unfortunate Implications. Now it's "I know you and so do it to you For Your Own Good!".
- In addition to the Drow, other dark skinned D&D races of typically evil alignment include the Gray Dwarves (aka Duergar) and the various Goblinoids. Never mind the fact that living underground would turn a population's skin incredibly pale after several generations, not dark. Further implications of the Drow are that any society that is sexually open is necessarily evil, and that association with spiders (those helpful arachnids that eat many a pest) makes you evil as well.
The Orks in Shadowrun could often be described as the "The New Blacks" as many things about them seem to be specifically designed to echo African Americans (and occasionally, Hispanics). They have their own culture, which is quite popular on the street and amongst the less fortunate. They probably suffer the most from the Fantastic Racism, being seen as an actual threat by the normal humans due to how fast they multiply. There's even non-orks embracing Ork culture and become "Ork-Posers". Orks are more often presented as gangers or criminals then Dwarves or Elves. Similarly, theres fewer Orks amongst the rich and successful then there's of any other race, save the Trolls (who are big and scary and rarer then all the other metatypes to begin with, meanwhile, Orks are the second most common Metatype after humans).
- Not to mention Shadowrun's other little gaffes, like most of North America being taken over by Magical Native Americans, most of everything else being taken over by Evil Japanese Mega Corporations, most of the non-shadowrunning population being trideo-numbed idiots who don't have a clue that UCAS elections had been rigged for forty years, etc.
Most of Warhammer40000's female combatants involve S&M Fetish Fuel, and the one's that don't follow other another kind (psychic warrior women elves... not to mention the Howling Banshees...). Of course, female combatants are arguably Fetish Fuel already, so this may be unavoidable...
Whether or not changing gameplay based on gender by having differences in stats i justified is an on-going debate, but no one can justify FATAL's version of this, where female characters have a penalty to their intelligence score.
- Oh, why stop there? Men with a low Rhetorical Charisma score (that is, how well you can speak) gain the "gay" modifier. Rape receives a lighter punishment than keeping an unclean house. And then there are the cursed armors of bad racial stereotypes.
  - And after homosexuality was put in, the characters most likely to be gay were the weak men and strong women. Byron "Abominatus" Hall even chose to "defend" this idea by saying that "stereotypes are usually true, that's why they become stereotypes". The man is clearly either a very cunning Troll, or seriously brain damaged.
  - And the idea "your [female sexual organ] is hacked, [unpleasant effects], worst of all you won't want sex." Hell, FATAL is this trope embodied and mixed with (s)crappy mechanics.
The Old World of Darkness had its share of, um... interesting ethnic interpretations:
- Vampire The Masquerade had the Ravnos clan, a clan of Roma origin whose clan weakness was a roll to resist engaging in illegal activities. Rumor has it that the ham-fisted portrayal of Romani culture was why the writers chose to kill the clan's antediluvian (who took a good chunk of the clan with him) during the Time of Thin Blood.
- Werewolf The Apocalypse was a bit worse. Oirish bards with a penalty to self-control, Nordic warriors with very uncomfortable ties to the Nazis, two Magical Native American tribes... over time, some of the stupider elements (such as the tribal penalties) were removed from the system, and the tribes became a bit more developed, but in the beginning, things were awkward.
- Probably the worst example was the now-infamous Gypsies book, which turned an entire real-world ethnic group into a minor supernatural template. Complete with a stat called "Blood Purity."
- Assamites: Because the world really needed some Vampire Arabs to go with its Space Jews.
The most unfortunate sentence◊ in the d20 SRD.

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Similarly, the moral of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Phantom Of The Opera appears to this editor as "It doesn't matter how talented you are, or how much you desire love and acceptance, if you are physically imperfect you will die cold and alone. Because it also automatically means that you're criminally insane".
- Consider the creepy paedophilic themes. Erik poses as her father's ghost, starting when she arrives at the opera house at a very young age — continues posing as father's ghost after attempting romantic relationship with her — surely I'm not the only one who saw this?
  - As Phantom of the Opera in 15 Minutes says, "Daddy issues ahoy!"
  - The paedophilic aspect really shows up only in the film version; the stage version never specifically says when Christine came to the Opera and the Phantom started hanging around her (and it is generally assumed that, as in the original novel, she was a young woman by that point). The massive Electra complex overtones remain, though...
Seussical: the Musical, in its effort to give each character an individual musical style, trips over this trope but hard. The protagonists, needing to be straightforward and often innocent, get generic folky pop (Horton, Gertrude, Jo-Jo) or old-time vaudeville stuff (Cat in the Hat). The antagonists are a little more cartoony and therefore get more distinctive music... Latin for Mayzie the lazy bird who abandons her egg to go party, 70's funk for the threatening Wickersham Brothers (and they're literally monkeys. Whoo boy), and the sour kangaroo is specifically modeled after Aretha Franklin. Yikes.
The Las Vegas Sun's review of Criss Angel — Believe (the Cirque Du Soleil/magic show hybrid) points out that, in the story, "[T]here’s a continual struggle over [Criss's] usually shirtless bod between his stage assistants, Kayala, an angelic ever-receding woman in white and Crimson, a devouring, demonic black woman. (Not even going there.)"
The Paper Mill Playhouse production of Stephen Schwartz's musical Children of Eden cast Adam as white and Eve as black, apparently also allowing them to have children of different skintones. On the one hand, the colour-blind casting played nicely to the show's theme of unconditional love and community; on the other hand, there were possible Unfortunate Implications in that both Eve and Cain (one traditionally held responsible for mankind's expulsion from paradise, the other the first ever murderer) were portrayed by black performers. Of course, both Eve and Cain are portrayed as sympathetic protagonists compared to Father's (God) possessive behaviour and Adam and Abel's strict, unthinking adherence to the rules. Still, when a black Eve sings of her black son Cain "Was it just a defect in me, / A flaw in my nature, / And now look what I've done — / I've passed it to my son, / This wild inclination ...", and given how much the story goes on about "the blood of Cain" tainting the human race, it's hard not to feel a little uncomfortable. Or rather, it's been hard not to ever since I read about this trope ...
Probably invoked another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. Judas' Motive Rant / Villain Song contains the following lines:
Listen, Jesus, don't you care for your race?
Can't you see that we must stay in our place?
We are occupied; have you forgotten how put down we are?
- Nominally, he's talking about the Jews, but consider that Judas is traditionally played by a black actor. (This was not Rice and Lloyd-Webber's intent, however. Murray Head, a white actor, created the role for both the original British concept album and the subsequent stage production; it was a politically-conscious American director who deliberately cast a black actor for the imported Broadway production and began the tradition.)
  - Ben Vereen was definitely cast for more than just his color.

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Warcraft III — The Horde's dialects are based on stereotypes of different races. The playable Trolls are Jamaican (with other tribes sounding Cuban), an Orc hero type uses pretty bad Engrish, and Tauren, while mostly unaccented, have several cultural commonalities with Native American. The Forsaken, however, have the sort of vaguely British accent one associates with minor bad guys in action flicks, and the Alliance-affiliated Dwarves sound Scottish. Thankfully, they had dropped most of the Always Chaotic Evil stuff before this.
"What do you mean what kinda' accent is dis? It's a TROLL accent. I swear, Jamaican meh crazy."
- In World Of Warcraft, this continues to the Alliance expansion race, the Draenei (Teutonic, Slavic, or Mediterranean, depending on what the accent sounds like to whoever it is you're asking), while the expansion's Horde race, the Blood Elves, meet a different stereotype (metrosexual) — more consistent with the Alliance original races' behaviors. This aspect of this may be a Justified Trope in that the Draenei and Blood Elves are supposed to be bastions of the opposing faction within their own ("human" Alliance versus "alien" Horde), in turn consistent with each of these races being the only race in their faction to have a class previously exclusive to the other. Both were pretty controversial.
- The Night Elves, although nature friendly, have an authoritarian, militaristic, and rigid culture. Gender roles are similarly rigid and socially they are about as conservative as you can get, their culture hasn't really changed much in 10,000 years of isolation. Add in buildings that look distinctly Asian (pavilions and such) it makes them seem a lot like typical fantasy elves superimposed over Cold War era Communist China. Maybe it's just me...
In The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind the Dark Elves (Dunmer) used to be the Chimer, but their leaders offended the Daedra Azura and they were "punished" with ash-blue-gray skin and fire-red eyes. The Redguards, however, look like average African-Americans and are treated in a mostly neutral light.
- The reason for the Dunmer's appearance is actually vague in the game's lore because several deliberately conflicting accounts are given of their history that provide explanations for their divergence from typical elven appearance. Either way, by the time of Oblivion, they're treated the same as any of the other races seem to be.
- If memory serves, the Redguard are only in Tamriel because they "broke" their homeworld. Also there's the Adrenaline rush racial power, which makes a Redguard character run faster and jump higher. No comment.
  - To be fair. the ability also increases your strength, health, endurance and agility, which doesn't effect their ability to run and jump...
  - Depending on what source you listen to, the Redguard's home continent experienced earth tremors or was sunken by the Ansei bandits, or is perfectly fine and the Redguard are just the descendants of Ansei revolutionaries that left after beating a corrupt Emperor's army, so the implications can be unfortunate or not depending on who's telling the story.
  - Knowing Bethesda, possibly intentional. After all, there's that one infamous M'aiq the Liar quote that no one seems to sure of the implications therein. Just basic word/character play.
In the original Star Control, most of the Alliance (or "good") species didn't look very alien to humans (beautiful humanoid women, furry vulpine-lupine-rodent creatures, pretty silicon-based life forms, pterodactyl-like organisms, etc.). The Hierarchy (or "evil") species were invariably ugly, except for the humanoid Androsynth, who had Turned Against Their Masters, so the use of What Measure Is A Non Cute was glaringly obvious. The sequel reversed this to some degree, since the player character had to ally with both cute and non-cute aliens, but none of the old Hierarchy species allied with him permanently, if at all. And even if you do agree that space aliens should only be allowed to have sex with humans if said aliens are attractive by traditional human standards, the accidental invocation of Bring Out Your Gay Dead was unfortunate.
- Strangely, one of the things the unofficial sequel did away with. The green Ur-Quan are now your allies, the creepy looking (either because of their gross teeth or their Special Effects Failure) Harika & Yorn become them later, the hideous Doog are good-natured and only against you because the Ploxis have tricked them, the stoic Clairconctler are being blackmailed, and so forth, however above troper did miss out on the Orz eventually making a Face Heel Turn. This happens in SC3 too oddly enough. I guess humans are just too trusting of those darned goofy fish. They do hit one unfortunate implication accidentally however. The motivations of the Ploxis' empire and their wish to secretly control the quadrant from behind the scenes sound like they were torn from the pages of Protocols For The Elders Of Zion. Being bird-beaked rats doesn't help thanks to the profile view it gives them.
StarCraft: Most of the Terrans speak with U.S. Southern accents, are all white, and the Confederates fly the actual Confederate flag. SCV pilots (workers of the faction) appear black/multiracial, and will even mention "watermelon seed fights". There is one female non-unique unit. (Repeatedly clicking on an allied Civilian and then an allied SCV reveals that they either the same people or Blizzard got lazy and didn't give them a new soundset. Given that the Civilian is clearly white, one assumes that the interior of an SCV is just poorly lit.) Not mention the Terrans are all descendants of criminals that were put into rockets and shot into space. Whether this is clever satire or something else is up to the player, I suppose. The exceptions to the rules are as follows:
- In the plus column: Major character Kerrigan is a red-headed Hispanic.
- There is also, apparently, one Mexican (judging by his accent) in the original cinematic opening.
- The Battlecruiser captain is Russian. The Science Vessel commander is very slightly British. The Goliath is almost accentless. If the Firebat has any Southern accent at all, it's well-hidden.
- The expansion tries to rectify things a bit:
  - For one, Samir Duran is East Indian, doesn't get killed off, and isn't stereotyped in the least.
  - Both new Terran units are female. The Medic (non-combat unit) is a white woman with a flirtarious, vaguely Valley Girl accent, and the Valkyrie pilot (support combat unit) is given a very German accent with dominatrix undertones, which become overtones if you repeatedly click on her.
- In the upcoming sequel, the only unit with a black character model is the Marauder, whose face is concealed the majority of the time. On the other hand, that's because they use badass powered armor equipped with grenade launchers. The SCVs are now clearly white, now that the Terran Dominion has seen fit to give them adequate lighting inside their suits.
Phantasy Star Universe has bumped into this one a few times in its Story Modes. So far, we've had the not really that bad 'You are my assistant, right?' from Laia, that even in context made her look daft rather than compassionate as was the intent, however then we've got the somewhat more Nightmare Fuel like ones:
- At one point, the CAST (android) Captain Fulyen Curtz calls the youngest story protagonist, Lumia (who's 13), 'Lumia Dear'. This is almost certainly an attempt to directly translate 'Lumia-chan' (and give him a developing humanity moment), however, given her reaction, it just comes off as making Curtz look like he likes 'em young.
- And earlier in the game, we have the frankly unbelievable set of lines, after the protagonists discover a set of stasis pods containing sleeping, female Communion of Ghural acolytes: Laia — 'So that machine is used to "train" them to become maidens? How exactly does that work?' Lord Rutsu: 'I'll leave that to your imagination.' This was actually an attempt to excuse a life-sucking power system as a training simulator, but thanks to their use of " marks around train, and Rutsu's response, it just sounds scary. Even moreso considering what maiden means, especially in the Shinto religion the CoG is based on.
  - So really, one has to wonder whether or not someone in the localisation department is doing this deliberately.
Wham Bam Rock◊, from Kirby Super Star. In the DS remake he was redesigned to look more like a Shakokidogu (an ancient clay figure from Japan with an extremely stylized female form) and less like a blatant Ethnic Scrappy. Good move, I say.
- Wham Bam Rock's appearance, meanwhile, was switched over to Wham Bam Jewel, his on-steroids counterpart from "Helper to Hero". The lips are less massive, and he has three eyes, but he still resembles a blackface a bit too closely for comfort.
The early Ghostbusters video games had a maximum of three Ghostbusters, all white-skinned, as the playable characters, which means they forgot the black Winston. However, the Angry Video Game Nerd pointed out that for the NES game, this might have been a Fortunate Implication for Ernie Hudson, his actor.
- Of course, Winston wasn't an original member of the team in the movie either — he was hired later when business picked up. I leave it to you to decide whether that makes the implications worse or better...
- Anybody who seriously takes that as a slight, though, probably just isn't familiar with the technology. The most likely explanation for the fact that all of the Ghostbusters in the early games have the same skin color is because that's all they could fit in the color palette.
- Interestingly, the PAL- and Japan-only New Ghostbusters II did feature Winston. Due to the above-mentioned palette issues, though, he was a bit blue in the face...
Sony's Fat Princess looks like it's got a couple of issues...
Valkyria Chronicles: The Darcsens, for all intents and purposes, are Jews (this game is a very thinly veiled pastiche of WWII), but they look Japanese. AKA the people who were helping the Nazis. There's also a conspicuous lack of a Japanese Expy group, leading to the impression that the story literally replaces the Jews with the Japanese, and writes them as invaluable help for the heroes.
- To say nothing of lead female Alicia's losing her invincibility when Welkin proposes to her and kisses her.
  - Both of these two are peanuts to the true unfortunate implication of the series, that if you convert all the races back to their WWII equivalent, you realize that the Valkyria are the Aryan race. Later in the game, the Valkyrian characters become invincible demi-gods, basically proving Hitler's master race idea right! OH, and they're all female.
Shadow The Hedgehog features black aliens called the Black Arms as enemies. Lead by a jerk named Black Doom who wears tribal jewelry. And the military refers to the aliens as "those black aliens," shoots them on site, and seems to think Shadow, who's black in color, is one of them all the time, even though he saved the world and was famous before. Maybe the aliens are just misguided, right? No, they're being mind-controlled by Black Doom, and Shadow, who's something of a Heroic Sociopath, is the only one who can resist. Every character who has acknowledged Black Arms blood is either evil, amoral, easily manipulated, or some combination thereof. Did I mention they're all black in color? Confusing the matter, however, the aliens are called terrorists by the (white) President. Zuh?
- Shadow was under attack by GUN soldiers because their boss told them to shoot Shadow himself on sight, not because Shadow looked like the aliens.
In Ys Online, one of the three playable races are the "Afrocans". Here is their description: "Afrocans tower head and shoulders over their cousins, the Eresians. Unlike Eresians; who prefer a more subtle approach, Afrocans like to conduct business with the sharp end of a battle axe. Of course, it helps that they are naturally muscular and seemingly carved from granite. It is not surprising that their enormous physical strength and power are ideally suited to combat and they often take part in fierce battles." Emphasis ours.
A large portion of Final Fantasy Tactics is a rant against Christianity using a thinly veiled version of Jesus, implying that Jesus was executed not to die for mankind's sins but because he was evil.
- Thieves also seem to be the darkest-skinned of all playable classes (at the very least they're the most Hispanic-looking). And the only black character is a largely forgettable minor noble who only appears in one scene.
  - This is a prime example of the seeing-UI-everywhere mentioned in the page description. The lack of black people isn't due to racism, but the fact that the setting is modeled on medieval Europe. And how do you get "Hispanic-looking" from this◊?
In the Atelier series: . There are a variety of "fairies" that you can hire in the early games to assist with labwork and whatnot and to help gather materials. Unfortunately, the least competent one... is the one dressed in black. And he's often depicted in supplementary material as having dark skin. Oh man...
A rather minor one, but in the Kingdom Hearts series, the only woman in Organization XIII holds the second lowest rank, and is a shocking, psychopathic, sadist. Hmmmmm.
- The ranks can have special exemptions (when #4 Vexen pulls rank on #11 Marluxia, Marluxia reminds Vexen that he's personally in charge of Castle Oblivion), but it gets worse when you realize that the 13th member is a bit of a special case, and that he joined only after Sora became a Heartless in Hollow Bastion, so Larxene has been the newest member for some time. It has yet to be seen how they treat Xion in 358/2 Days.
In the Russian campaign of Call Of Duty: World At War, the Russians are portrayed as being just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis (they even commit more on-screen atrocities), and almost all of the Russian soldiers are portrayed as bloodthirsty psychos. Contrast this to the American campaign, in which the war crimes committed by both sides are largely ignored with the exception of the prison camp sequence at the beginning of the game.
- In the multiplayer, all the announcers are zealous LargeHams. With the exception of the American one~~, Jack Bauer~~.
Resident Evil 5 features a white American who saves Africa from Scary Black Zombies with the help of a very lightskinned African woman. (There are also some white and Middle-Eastern zombies thrown in.)
- It Got Worse. Later in the game, a large number of enemies you fight are, inexplicably, spear-wielding African zombies who look like they were ripped straight off the the set of Zulu! Apparently, this version of the parasite made them "dress like their ancestors" for some reason...
- And then there's Sheva's secret costume...
- There's also one whopper of an unfortunate implication late in the game... you arrive at the evil chemical plant, and find a conveyor belt full of limp, not-quite-dead humans, who've been used as test subjects, and are about to be sent into a furnace...and in order to proceed you have to activate the conveyer belt yourself...and you can also take their jewelry. Not reminiscent of anything, no sirree...
In Metal Gear Solid 3, the Boss comes across Snake disguised as Major Raikov (who is implied to be the lover of Colonol Volgin) and disdainfully asks why he is wearing a "fairy disguise" and mockingly warns him that it might "rub off on [him]". Kojima was clear in the director's commentary that she was actually talking about herself, but the translators decided to have some fun with the line.
- Every confirmed gay or bisexual character in the whole series is a villainous sadist. Volgin is a rapist, Ocelot gets off on torture, and Vamp is plain inhuman and wears a knife in front of his crotch (curiously enough, he was originally intended to be a female character, but was turned male fairly late in development). Thankfully, the gallons of Ho Yay between the heroic characters, the gay loves generally being portrayed as sympathetic relationships, and Snake calling out Raiden on being more disturbed by squicky gay relationships than squicky straight relationships do a bit to alleviate this. No love for Metal Gear Solid 4, though, which presented a male/male "couple" as being incapable of raising children until a woman showed up and started cooking for them, which could be interpreted as a swipe against non-traditional families, and removed all of Vamp's sympathetic traits (like his noble goals and loyalty to Dolph's family) in favour of playing him for plain old gay panic with his Does This Remind You Of Anything fighting with Raiden.
- Race — The black member of the B&B Corp is the one who walks around on four legs like an animal. Also, the South American and Indonesian members are incredibly light-skinned.
- Racial stereotypes: The DARPA chief, bomb expert, two women who carry a railgun and the arms dealer. Guess what? They're all black.
This troper is a formerly homeless sex worker, and was not particularly amused when playing Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. It's discussed that Ph.Ds and so on taste better than bums, and members of one "elite" clan will even projectile vomit if they drink from a homeless person or a sex worker. Nice to know that either a) his socio-economic position was inevitable because of some kind of inferiority in the very blood in his veins or b) his socio-economic position has somehow made him lesser on a cellular level. (Or on some kind of mystical, spiritual level, but honestly, that just makes it worse.) Then there came the subplot about having to find and kill a plaguebearer spreading some kind of blood-related, sexually transmitted virus using homeless people and sex workers. It ended up being a fictional virus that had something to do with an evil cult, but the game allows you to think for a little while that you need to put down an HIV positive vampire. ("Ever seen Old Yeller?") There was still enough Have You Tried Not Being A Monster to make it really, really uncomfortable.
- (b): Those who eat better, going to taste better?..
  - Ventrue all have funny little restrictions on whom they can feed on-some can only feed off the upper class. As for the 'tasting better.' People higher up on the social ladder are obviously going to be cleaner and healthier than street prostitutes or the homeless.

Close Video Games

Capitol Critters — All the characters were different Talking Animals. The major characters we were asked to identify with, including the hero who'd just left the family farm and moved to the big city, were rats and mice. All the rodents lived on certain floors of the White House and were portrayed as mischievous at worst. Other floors were the exclusive domain of the cockroaches. The cute, furry rodents didn't get along with them, especially if they happened to enter rodent territory. Weirdly, several episodes seemed to suggest that the roaches should stay in their designated territory. Additionally, the mice were complained about vocally by the humans, but the roaches were met with immediate attempts to kill them. Standard What Measure Is A Non Cute situation, right? Well, yes, but consider the one thing that makes the show so irredeemably warped: The cockroaches all had blatant stereotypical minority personalities. They spoke with African-American slang and wore ethnocentric clothing. And their territory looked like a ghetto. Wow.
- African-American stereotypes are not the only ones thrown around; the demimonde cockroach couple trying to move in at the beginning, who get targeted by a regular little "Save the Neighborhood" posse, seemed decidedly Jewish.
From what this editor has seen of "Dr. Rabbit's Bright Smiles World Tour" (an animated short about oral hygiene sponsored by Colgate), one might suspect the real reason Colgate tried to get You Tube Poops featuring the cartoon off You Tube is not because of copyright infringement, but because of all the ridiculous foreign stereotypes in the cartoon.
- The way his speech is so easily edited into saying "Shag" "Ass" "Negro" and "CUM!!!" It's almost like they wanted people to make You Tube Poop out of it.
Codename Kids Next Door's Multinational Team: Word Of God says Numbuh 5 is French. The good news is she doesn't follow any French stereotype. The bad news is since she's also black, she follows an entirely different stereotype.
- Numbuh 2 is a fat doofus who's not as competent as he likes to think, and just happens to be the American on a Multinational Team.
- Numbuh 2 is still the best pilot of the team though, so they may have tried to avert this. Plus, he isn't the most unfairly treated among the main cast. That would be Numbuh 4 who is considered by most allies and foes alike as being an utterly stupid kid who hits first and doesn't quite know how to ask questions.
  - Further, upon inspection of 2's family, especially his Grandmother's speech pattern, it isn't too hard to assume that he is Jewish. This is significant in that he is portrayed as being laid-back and easygoing, as opposed to strait-laced and excessively nitpicky.
- Except for British Number 1 all the members are stereotypical with the dumb-and-tough Aussie (Number 4), the excited and ditzy Japanese (Number 3), and the already mentioned number 5. Consequently Number 2 is probably the third most competent member.
  - Wait, the posh, ego-inflated, ringleader Brit isn't a stereotype? Granted, it's usually one played by the villain, but...
Of course, Cartoon Network did to Numbuh Two what TBS did to Wheeler in Captain Planet almost a decade earlier. Wheeler was brash, loud-mouthed, wielded the mostly destructive power of fire, and was specifically designed to complain and raise objections only to be shot down by anyone else on the team, even when he had a perfectly legitimate argument. Was there ever any doubt in your mind that Wheeler would be the American in the group?
While nobody could fault the Tom And Jerry license holders for trying to get rid of Mammy Two-Shoes, a racial archetype that just comes across as offensive by today's standards, why did they swap her out for an Irish woman?
- Turner has subsequently swapped her out again, this time for a modern black woman, giving her lines in a straight modern reading (with attendant modern recording quality, resulting in an odd sort of audio-temporal version of Conspicuously Light Patch). This is of course completely period-inappropriate, and, further, a real-life Revealing Coverup.
In the first aired episode of Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, Angelica refers to a white girl in a Sheena costume as a "jungle bunny"... apparently the writers figured: "bimbo girl on the beach = beach bunny", "bimbo girl on the slopes = ski bunny", "bimbo girl in the jungle = jungle bunny", without realizing that was an old, racist term for those of African-American descent. The Edited For Syndication version of this episode corrects it to "jungle rabbit".
There is not a single non-Caucasian actor cast in the Live Action Adaptation of Avatar The Last Airbender, which stirred considerable controversy in the fanbase. One side saw racist implications behind casting all whites for a story that is obviously set in a world that was inspired by ancient Asian and Inuit culture. The other side has used all sorts of... well, strange arguments to counter this, one being that the main characters are white because they have big eyes and don't speak with stereotypical Asian/Native American accents, or just accusations of detractors of being racist against whites. (Never mind that minorities have been marginalized in Hollywood since there have been movies, and that white kids were specifically sought out for the roles to the exclusion of any potentially suitable minorities.) The only way things could be made worse is if they do cast Asians... but only as villains.
- But if worst comes to worst, the movie could be some tasty Snark Bait for the fans who don't take Avatar too seriously anyway. (Yes, they exist.)
- It got worse when: Jackson Rathbone (Sokka) reassured worried fans that he'll get a tan. Two casting calls were uncovered — the first asking for 'white or other' actors to come out to audition for main roles, the second looking for multicultural extras to come in native dress and demonstrate native crafts ("if you're Korean, wear a kimono!") They swapped Zuko's actor out for the one famous young Asian they could make bank on in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire, never mind that he is Indian and looks (at least skintone-wise) far more like Sokka than the Japan-based Fire Nation's Zuko. And now the only Asians in the whole thing are the villains, as predicted above.
  - If that weren't bad enough, consider the fact that the Avatar cartoon was based primarily on the East Asian cultures of China, Japan, Mongolia, Korea, etc. Though M. Night Shyamalan did eventually cast minorities in his movie, there's still the fact that none of them are East Asian, despite the Avatar mythos being built almost entirely around East Asian civilization.
  - Even ~~some~~ A lot of arguments against complaining about the cast are full of Unfortunate Implications, such as that whites are generally better actors than minorities anyway, that certain innocuous details that sorta resemble stereotypical white traits mean that the characters are white, and general willful ignorance about institutional and cultural racism. And the fact Zuko and Aang have Asian styled clothing, write with Eastern calligraphy, and live in an anchient Asian-styled world with nary a trace of western culture? "The clothes don't make the man." (actually, that last one was just an assault on all common sense.) Man, something about this fandom just brings out the worst in people....
  - Now that images of the actors in costume are out, there are more complaints about the outfits are more subdued in color than in the cartoon. A nitpicky complaint, but the counter-argument falls straight into Unfortunate Implications: "The cartoon colors would be too bright to be believable in real life". Which ignores the Asian cultures the nations are based on that do have such brightly colored cultural outfits◊.
- And now attempts are apparently being made to "ethnicize" the supporting cast. Take a look at Suki and Yue, two female love interests. Hmm. I wonder what's going on there...
- Make of this quote from Dee Dee Ricketts, casting director, what you will.
  "[We want the prospective extras who show up at the casting call to] [d]ress in traditional cultural ethnic attire...If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen... We're trying to create these four different nations so we're looking for different skin tones, and features, and bone structures...It doesn't mean you're at a disadvantage if you didn't come in a big African thing. But guys, even if you came with a scarf today, put it over your head so you'll look like a Ukrainian villager or whatever."
There was an episode of I Am Weasel which had the titular I. M. Weasel and I. R. Baboon both create microscopic versions of themselves from their DNA. Predictably Weasel's mini-people develop civilization at an accelerated rate while I. R.'s never moves beyond Stone Age level. The Unfortunate Implications come when both micro-civilizations make contact, interbreed, and promptly collapse; leading to Weasel and Baboon agreeing to never marry. This was so close to the old racist belief of "keeping the White race pure" lest Western Civilization collapse from the introduction of "impurities" that, even as a child, this editor could not find the joke funny.
- The creators probably thought they were on the safe side since Weasel is voiced by African American actor Michael "Worf" Dorn. Given the nasty eugenics echoes, it seems they were wrong.
- Don't forget "agreeing to never marry"
In the Spongebob Squarepants episode "Sun Bleached", Spongebob and Patrick were not invited to a party because they are "not tan enough". Also, to enter said party, guests were required to have a skin tone that matched the darkest shade on a specific "tanning chart". Does this sound like an inversion of something?
The purpose of Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin was to attract such criticism. He, er, succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Subtlety (in this case masked beneath obvious trolling) is just something the general public has never, and will never, EVER get, it seems.
Transformers Generation One had the nation of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya. Yes, ''Carbombya''; the apparent capital Carbombya City has a population of 4,000, and 10,000 camels (they even list this on the sign). The entire population is an Arabic stereotype always swearing on their mother's camels. The actor Casey Kasem was so disgusted that he left the show.
Animated B-grade Space Opera Starchaser: The Legend of Orin has, as a subplot, a a secretarial android in a very female chassis being captured by the local Han Solo Expy. Initially, she is quite combative, until he locates her personality circuits inside her posterior and reprograms her to be arm-drapingly infatuated with him (that's gotta be a trope, in itself). He then sells her to a slave auctioneer at the next civilized port, and only grudgingly buys her back when the Raised By Wolves hero manages to get himself put up on the block, too. This editor has never been accused of feminism, but, damn.
- Also, after the hero's initial girlfriend is rather shockingly killed, the hero finds a new chick to fall in pretty-much-instant love with, and the new girl uses the same voice actress. Women are completely interchangeable!
This troper happened to be watching Ni Hao Kai Lan, and noticed that the normal children's lessons take on surprisingly communist overtones when delivered by a young Chinese girl. For example, a lesson on teamwork essentially teaches "You must happily do your arbitrarily assigned job, or else society will fall apart."
An episode of Animaniacs— specifically, one of the Pinky And The Brain shorts, features Brain having a crush on a female lab mouse, Billie, despite the fact that she's as dumb as a box of rocks, alarmingly similar to Pinky. Apart from what that implies about what Brain finds attractive, the unfortunate implications come at the end of the episode. Billie suffers an accident that drastically improves her intelligence; when Brain realizes this, he asks her to solve a complex formula that he's been struggling with, and she solves it instantly. After that, Brain takes Pinky back to the cage, and insists they need to get back to taking over the world. Pinky asks why. Brain's answer? "Because if we don't, she might beat us to it!" Family Unfriendly Aesop: Remember girls, guys will only like you if you are too stupid to compete!
- This misses a critical part of the exchange, however. Pinky actually asked Brain if he had stopped loving Billie because she was smarter than him, and Brain replied that he did still love her, but then stated that because of her increased intelligence, she might try to beat them to ruling the world. So girls, even if he really loves you, he'll still dump you if you're smart enough to offer competition!
Every animal in Little Bear is anthropomorphic to some extent, except Tutu, Emily's pet dog. She is treated like a pet, even by the other animals. She is said to only speak French by Emily's grandmother. Could the reason she is treated like a pet is because she can't speak English?
In the Lion King everything is said to be a part of the Great Circle of Life — except hyenas that are filthy beasts that ought to be exterminated. And how they are voice-acted in a manner that seems to depict them as Hispanics. Yeah...

Close Western Animation

Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire has an entire arc of worldbuilding and random fantasy races. The audience is introduced to Bort, one of the "Mongrelfolk," a race of hybrids that look like patchwork people (for lack of a better explaination) due to the high levels of magic in the food they eat. A race of people is referred to as the area's "greatest mystery" and "extremely rare" as if they're some form of exotic bird, and Dominic squees about the fact that he actually gets to help the mysterious foreign creature garden. He spends the whole time geeking out and gleefully questioning Bort, who chooses to communicate via misspelled pidgin written on wooden signs rather than speaking out loud, and doesn't seem perturbed at all. When Dominic's tour guide (who granted is a jerkass in most other things) tells him to shut up and "stop treating him like the catch of the century," Bort pounds him into the the dirt and calls him a "jurk". Native/foreign peoples are clearly just waiting to be admired and questioned about their daily lives when travelers enter their countries, and anyone who interferes with the white privilege involved in this is an ass.
- The relevant strips start here. When you respectfully question someone on their way of life, you're a journalist or scholar. When you're loudly blissing out in front of someone because the activity you are engaging in is not special or rare, but the person is, you're not acting like a scholar. You're acting like a bug collector, and you're not treating them like a person.
  - The second line might charitably be called a prescient Lampshade Hanging: "Someone else we've managed to offend? Probably."
Shortpacked! lampshades this trope in this strip
The otherwise hilarious Buttlord GT falls headlong with this trope due to its gaybashing, though averts it noticably near the end of the comic; the only sympathetic relationship in the comic is the explicitly gay one, complete with Squee moment at the end.

Close Webcomics

This news broadcast

. Not the news itself but the way it is presented.

Not to mention all the unfortunate implications in a number of the You Tube comments alone.
- "Implications" my ass! It's like a goddamn KKK meeting in that thread!

The UK Independence Party's logo is a pound sign with their name across it — representing their opposition to the EU with our currency, which some Europhiles might want to get rid of. Unfortunately, there's recently been a scandal about MPs making excessive or downright fraudulent claims on expenses...
Wikipedia used to have an article at "List of All Blacks", since moved, but retained as a redirect.
^{By way of explanation, the New Zealand rugby team dresses completely in black, and is thus known as the "All Blacks"}
^*
- Also from the same source: "List of All Black tests".
In a bit of meta-Scunthorpe Problem, words that are both used innocuously and in an offensive way like "gay" and "Jew" have been subjected to online filters. This has the ironic effect of censoring(and outraging) the very people the filters were intended to protect.
In Genki: An Introduction to Japanese one practice sentence says "My friend went to China and didn't come back". Which This Troper laughs about whenever he remembers it.
This troper once spotted a genuine 'motivational' poster in a government establishment that bore the word 'diversity' with a picture of two children's clasped hands; one black, one white. Er...
On one website this troper lurks, one of the tags (for an article indexing articles on financial bailouts in the US, strangely enough), one of the user contributed tags is "This is what happens when you give money to "the sons of Ham"". It's arguably made worse (or funnier) by the fact the site's owner was the author of several controversial newsletters in the 1980's regarding black crime.
This Russian state TV signoff. At first, it looks like your standard patriotic sign-off piece. But watch closely at the shot at 0:28 to 0:30 — a car is breaking the road rules — not exactly something you want to advertise on a flagship station...

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