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Unfortunate Implications
This is really one of those conversations two white people shouldn't be having, isn't it?
— Crown Attorney David Kaye, This is Wonderland

Jar Jar Binks notwithstanding, fiction has come a long way in terms of racial, sexual, and cultural sensitivity and general political correctness since the era of Emperor Ming — but every once in awhile, you notice something that makes you wonder how it got past the censors.

Sometimes, this involves a trope from the bad old days, transplanted into a Science Fiction or Fantasy setting, with a "civilized" race and a "barbarian" race. Other times, it's something where the writers started with an innocuous idea and went off in the wrong direction without realizing it.

A few of the most glaring are listed below. See also Values Dissonance, when the authors wouldn't even have the same sensitivities as the audience in the first place.

And remember: just because a work has Unfortunate Implications does not mean the author was thinking of it that way.

Examples

Anime and Manga
  • 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 Pokemon (ironically enough, Jynx was not intended to be black, but to be a ganguro, but was eventually changed to pink 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.
    • There's an AMV Hell segment which syncs up Mr. Popo to Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. One of AMV Hell's more unfunny moments... Unless it's some kind of biting satire about the portrayal of blacks in anime.
      • Mind you, that was AMV Hell 2, comprised of clips not in AMV Hell 1 due to being... let's call it "Unfortunate". This Troper thought it was pretty funny, but also watches horror movies to watch people explode.
      • And, 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. This troper has seen both versions, and yes, it is exactly as cringe-inducing as it sounds.
    • The only depiction of an African-American character that isn't a caricature this editor can think of off the top of his head is, of all people, Barack Obama John Omaha in Air Gear. And possibly Patrick "Panther" Spencer from Eyeshield 21, though the explicit comparison of the young man to a wild animal is obviously less-than-kosher.
      • This troper immediately thinks of James from Blood Plus, because he seems to be black just because he is. One even has to wonder if the way he accuses the Schiff of being lesser beings than the chevaliers is really meant to have that extra layer it seems to carry.
      • You're forgetting Tapp Oceano from Metal Armor Dragonar, who was black just because. He even had a white girlfriend.
      • Also don't forget Dutch from Black Lagoon, who is actually the crew's boss.
      • There is also Claudia Lasalle in Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (Claudia Grant in Robotech), an African American female officer who is a faultless professional, a very likeable girl of the Cool Big Sis type and had a great relationship with a white pilot, Roy Fokker.
      • Bob from Tenjho Tenge more or less subverts this as well.
      • Another subversion comes in the form of Heiji Hattori from Detective Conan, one of the very few characters who can keep up with the titular hero. His dark skin is explained as beiong from mixed Japanese-Hawaiian-Black descent.
      • Yet another subversion from Gundam 00, the president of the World Economic Union is black, and bears a strong resemblance to Barack Obama. Also, one of Graham Aker's Overflags, Daryl Dodge, was black and showed pretty good skill compared to most non-gundam pilots. he dies, but does so in pretty awesome fashion, and during the ending to the first season in which a LOT of characters die.
      • Shotaro Ishinomori plays with this a bit in his Cyborg 009 series. While many of the minority characters are drawn in a rather caricatured manner, this is simply a cover to make it more accessible to an early 1960s audience. The series itself is pretty anti-racist, with great Character Development and in later versions the art style was toned down.
      • See also Captain Michael Heartland in Argento Soma.
      • Quite a few anti-4kids You Tube videos suggested that 4kids was being racist for editing out a black person, rather than seeing said minor character as a racist stereotype.
      • It gets even worse. One character from One Piece made the comment "Don't ask don't tell" when referring to Bon Clay. Lesson learned: racism bad, homophobia GOOD. It doesn't help that that line was thrown in for comedic relief. Yeah...
      • Jackal Kuwahara from The Prince Of Tennis is half-brazilian and black, but is not at all a stereotype or a caricature... at least, not in the manga. The anime, on the other hand, gives him a backstory as a poor kid playing soccer in the slums of Brazil.
  • 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 that can defend the fact that the only two black characters to show up in the series either die in two seconds or is a pimp. Yeah...
    • This troper spent the first several episodes of Code Geass in disbelief, then shock in that an anime that flagrantly made Britain (and, by allegory, the West) out to be the political Big Bad made it across the pond. So the presence of other Unfortunate Implications isn't that suprising.
      • This troper, upon first hearing about the setting, thought it might be a nationalist revisionist allegory for World War II and the resulting occupation, portraying Britain as racist aggressors and the Japanese as the victims.
    • Then why is the Britian based in America while got kicked out of the Isles? Talk about unfortunate implications.
  • Kirabi/Killer Bee, the host of the 8-tailed beast is the first black person in Naruto and well, he's really quite something (see elsewhere for details). This was quickly remedied by the inclusion of more (much less ridiculous) black people, as Cloud Village is the first multi-ethnic village seen.
    • This troper begs to differ and draws the gentle reader's attention to Kidoumaru, the Evil Genius of Big Bad Orochimaru's Five Bad Band the Sound Four (don't ask). Questionable whether he's an aversion or a subversion: he's homicidal, and the emphasis on spiders in his character design could have less-than-fortunate implications, but he's also the brains of the operation and behaves in a way that's best described as "stereotypical gamer geek gone horribly, horribly wrong". That, and any potential Scary Black Man moments are equaled or exceeded by every single one of his pastier team members.
    • And isn't Kirabi actually a quite efficient fighter who could outsmart the Akatsuki, anyway?
      • Would I be an ass if I said Shikamaru?
    • Killer Bee gets a pass for being utterly hilarious. He's like a non-McNinja Deadpool.
  • Averted in Digimon Tamers: Babel appeared to be a physicist and was clearly shown to be highly intelligent, though admittedly his inner blackness appears to have still compelled him to look like Samuel L. Jackson and wear sunglasses indoors (although, to be fair, Yamaki does this also).
  • 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.
      • That is, if you could call most of the shinigami "Good Guys". Remember, one of them tortured an old man to death.
      • Well, Kurotsuchi Mayuri is something of an extreme example. One still wonders why they look the other way with him though.
  • As noted in the Idiot Hero page, it is common for the Idiot Hero to have vaguely Western features, while the smarter Lancer looks more Japanese.
    • Naruto may be a combination of this and the fact that in Japan, if your hair is a light colour like blonde or red, you're considered to be somewhat of a punk — which Naruto is frequently called.
  • The Magical Girls in My Wife is a Magical Girl lose their powers if they kiss a man. This invites comparisons to another class of women famous for never kissing.
    • Such comparisons would be based on characteristically Western, and probably inappropriate, assumptions. Prostitutes are not famous in Japan for never kissing, but it's common throughout anime (and East Asian culture in general) for kissing to be treated as a Really Big Deal, and one's first kiss to be thought of as one's virginity more so than one's actual virginity. In context, "they don't kiss" doesn't mean they do more serious things instead; it means they're really pure and innocent.
  • 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).
    • Then, there's Jakotsu, the only homosexual in Inuyasha. He's a villain and something of an actual pervert which wouldn't be a problem if there were other homosexuals who weren't Depraved Homosexuals. Then, there's the fact he sounds like a woman in the English dub. Although, this troper isn't sure whether Rumiko Takahashi was a part of the English dub or not.
      • Jakotsu is less of a straight example (pun intended) and more of a subversion. He is a Villainous Crossdresser with a crossdressing voice (feminine-looking characters like him are often voiced by women), but unlike the standard Villainous Crossdresser he does have quite the sympathetic Character Development through his fierce loyalty to Bankotsu, his sworn brother and leader. Bankotsu himself regards Jakotsu as the only one of the group he can fully and wholly trust and mourns his death intensely, regarding Renkotsu as a traitor and killing him for his murder of Jakotsu, after all... that, and Bankotsu/Jakotsu seems to be a quite popular Ho Yay pairing.
    • Then, there's the Double Standard of girls being able to beat up boys but boys being stuck with a case of Wouldnt Hit A Girl...
  • Partial aversion with Choco of Shaman King. The good news? He's got a well-thought out backstory (this troper cried), 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.

Comic Books
  • Falcon is an Avenger and sidekick to Captain America, and earned a degree in college. In Captain America #186, he's retconned to have been a pimp and involved in crime before becoming a hero.
  • 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◊.
    • 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. Um... yeah.
      • Um... well... the first Northstar got better? That's good, right? Of course, then Ultimate Northstar got crippled to give Colossus something whine about, so maybe not...
  • Not having learned its lesson at all, DC is set to introduce some new Japanese heroes during the new Crisis Crossover Final Crisis, also by Great Ten creator Grant Morrison. Their entire theme is how superficial and fad-oriented Japan's culture is, and how it has appropriated superhero culture. Thus, all the new Japanese heroes are ripoffs of popular American heroes like Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern, but with a pumped-up version of their style and none of their substance. Observe. Note that the commentary mentions that, in DC's Japan, "Anyone can be a hero as long as they're cute enough. Real heroes go unnoticed in favor of gorgeous wannabes." This statement effectively undermines the credibility of the Japanese heroes DC already had, the "real heroes" that don't happen to follow the new "gorgeous wannabes" stereotype. Urgent memo to DC: STOP buying non-American hero ideas from Grant Morrison...
    "What are you, dense? What are you, retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the Most Excellent Goddamn Superbat!"
    • So, DC's Japan treats superheroes the same way that real Japan treats Idol Singers?
      • Exactly.
  • 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. Some novel he did "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.
  • 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 a normal college student than the wife of a super-hero. A decision that was, as far as any regular reader of New Warriors or The Avengers was 100% out of the blue and out of character for the (formerly) mature and level-headed Firestar. (Not that Vance looked much better)
    • The first couple of the X Men: Cyclops and Phoenix. Phoenix dies (again). Within six issues, Scott is playing tonsil-hockey with Emma Frost literally on top of Jean's grave.
    • 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.
    • And that's besides the repeated teases at breaking up Marvel's one enduring couple Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman.
      • Which is the probably one of only two relationships that actually needs to break up, for all that Reed is a dick to Sue. (The other of course is Storm and Black Panther, which was shoehorned in by a Writer On Board and completely destroyed Storm as a character with any sort of independence or agency.)
    • And then there's One More Day.

Disney
  • 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" (even though the film was set after the American Civil War).
      • 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 showing up at the awards' ceremony...
  • The depiction of Huns as yellow-eyed demons in Mulan.
    • Not to mention the fact they were the Xiongnu at the time, not Huns (and its still somewhat debated how closely related the people were).
      • "The Huns are attacking!" sounds a lot better than "Non-representative members of one of the dozens of plains nomad peoples that live beyond the Empire are coming! Run!" Besides, their tactics were unremarkable (in terms of viciousness) for any army at the time, settled or nomadic.

Film
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Star Wars — Simon Pegg points out that the first black character double-crosses them. You Lando!
    • To be fair, he did have a Darth Vader pointed at him at the time.
      • Plus as soon as he had the opportunity he betrayed the empire to help the good guys and got the pleasure of blowing up the second Death Star in episode 6.
  • The sheer horror that is the Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Not only is he a racist stereotype of the most blatant kind, they got Mickey Rooney to play him. Yuk.
  • 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.
  • This troper rented a few older holiday-themed movies to watch during Christmas. She watched "White Christmas" and enjoyed it very much. Curious, she then rented its predecessor "Holiday Inn"... And she is still mopping up the mess from when her head exploded during the number for February. Values Dissonance is one thing but this... Holy. Shit.
    • This troper, as a young child, had no clue what that was all about, and thought the business with the makeup and retarded-looking costumes was entirely stupid. Today, I still have no clue what it's about, but now I have the added bonus of knowing exactly how racist it is.
    • Your Mileage May Vary. This troper saw it as a tribute to black history and Lincoln, despite the fact that blackface is considered racist by many today. Also, the blackface was a plot point used to hide the heroine's face, and the act wasn't planned to be in blackface before that.
  • The film 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? 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."
  • 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. Fridge Logic makes it firmly this. 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 a black athlete/"actor").
  • 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!).

Literature
  • 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 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.
    • Let's not forget good old fashioned British classism. The hobbits are upper middle class English country gentlemen, whilst at the other end of the scale, the orcs (with a couple of exceptions) speak like London dockworkers. The trolls near the beginning of The Hobbit fit the general stupid and smelly archetype and talk in a way which is hardly "drawing room fashion".
      • Hobbits were, to an extent, a parody of the English middle class, 'Bag End', for example, home to our rather staid and bumbling hero from The Hobbit being a literal translation of the (at the time) newly fashionable and gratuitously French 'Cul-de-Sac'.
    • 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.
    • However in The Hobbit Beren and the Lakemen are all black. (Dalemen are white though, so maybe the Unfortunate Implications are still there...)
  • 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 unfortunateness of Lovecraft is implied. On more than one occasion he came right out and made statements showing a degree of racism appalling even for his era.
    • Lovecraft's racism isn't quite as simple a deal as people usually assume; in his younger days he was essentially an armchair Klansman, writing "non-fiction" about subhuman Jews and non-human(!) Negroes, but with age and actual experience on the people he despised, his opinions mellowed considerably, eventually even leading him to marry Jewish Sonia Greene.
  • 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.
    • For bonus lolz, check out From the Desk of Brian Jacques.
    • 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. This troper almost quit reading it at that point....
    • 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.
  • On that subject, 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). Which is odd, as a neighboring tribe they were once at war with (and exterminated...) were called the Jocopo.
  • The Chronicles Of Narnia are more or less permanently under fire for two things. The controversy with some merit to it involves the depiction of Calormenes as barbaric Middle Eastern stereotypes. The other one is about Susan Pevensie's absence at the end of the Last Battle, sometimes interpreted as "being barred from Heaven for liking lipstick and nylons," although a more attentive reading suggests that the bigger problem is that she's rejected Narnia and Aslan in favor of materialism and hedonism, and that her absence from Heaven is because she's not dead yet.
    • Well, making a woman in her late teens lose each and every member of her immediate and extended family in a horrific train crash is all right then. I'll bet being an orphaned female in post War England cures the materialism and hedonism right quick. Aslan was doing her a favor by slaughtering her family. Nice.
    • Then there's that moment in the Last Battle, where the protagonists disguise themselves as Calormenians with dark skin-paint. After they wash the stuff off, one of them exclaims something in the vein of "I feel like a human being, again". The phrase "good white Narnians" also crops up with alarming regularity.
      • If you've ever worn heavy face paint (e.g., for clowning), you'll know what a huge relief it is to take it off, in much the same way as when you take a shower after a particularly hot and sweaty day of work. You sort of do feel human again. (I'll make no apology for "good white Narnians", though.)
    • 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 so 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 makes him no more or less sexist than the US army. Make of that what you will
      • 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.
      • One word: Eustace. That guy was a walking manifestation of this trope, and a strawman to boot. Your parents don't smoke or drink? Then you're a snob. Being raised as a pacifist? Then, by taking a vow not to fight or kill, you are automatically the world's rudest and most immoral person because you don't fight (irony, much?)...you're also a wimpy coward. And of course, they made Eustace become nice after he decided they were right. Also, a rather disturbing turn of phrase shows up when Peter Pevensie is described, multiple times, as being "cold", killing his enemies easily, and that being so cold is what makes him nice, as that's what it means to be a good Narnian. I couldn't even finish the book because it was such Values Dissonance. To be fair the usage of the word cold might have had a different connotation back then.
      • Although, to be fair, even before the Pevensies went to Narnia, they didn't like Eustace because he acted like an whiny stuck up brat. Even when they get on the ship, their main complaint is he doesn't do a lick of work, but instead complains about the conditions and weather.
  • Twilight:
    • Gender: Bella seems incapable of doing anything by herself without being almost killed/raped or without getting severely injured. She faints at the sight 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, every other girl is described as shallow, immature, self-centered, a harpy, or an idiot — if they get any personality at all.
      • Except for Angela, who is portrayed as a genuinely loving, caring, pure-hearted girl. Even Edward, who has read the minds of hundreds, if not thousands of people, is surprised by her inherent goodness. She dotes on her siblings, ignores social cliques and gossip, and dates a very nerdy, un-self-confident boy while all the other girls chase the vapid hunks.
      • Bella also chooses to do all the housework and cooking for her father.
      • However in the last book she becomes as beautiful and perfect as every other vampire, perhaps even more so to Mary Sue levels.
      • This Troper overheard a bit of the audio book version and was a bit disturbed to hear the main character describing going to college as her second choice for her future.
      • It deserves mentioning that, while the male characters exist independently of their significant others, none of the female characters (yes, the Sparklepires too,) have any characterization outside of their male love interests. For example, if you were describing Esme, no one would know who you were talking about unless you said "She's Carlisle's wife."
    • Race: The character Jacob is a Native American who turns into a werewolf (read: an animal). At one point in Eclipse he sexually assaults Bella; then, when she breaks her hand trying to defend herself, essentially tells her to lay back and think of England so she won't get hurt any more. Edward, Bella's main love interest, is Caucasian and refuses to have sex with her before marriage for fear of hurting her. But . . .
      • Also when Bella's father learns that Jacob sexually assaulted her and broke her hand, he laughs with Jacob and encourages him to do it again.
      • Wait, seriously? That isn't out of context or anything? DAMN. D:
      • And when addressing Edward or any other vampire, Jacob mainly uses ethnic (species?) slurs to the point of sounding downright racist.
      • The perfect Cullens are all described as having brilliantly white skin (despite not being blood-related) while we know that dark-skinned vampires exist (and a beautiful black Sparklepire shows up as a minor character in the movie). Also, the simpler, more "primitive" werewolves are all Native American, and highly stereotyped at that.
    • 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 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...
      • Not to mention 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.
  • 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.
  • Albert Camus' novel The Stranger has this in its infamous "shooting the Arab" incident. Heroic Sociopath Mersault shoots an Algerian Arab (never named) for no reason, and is only executed because the judge is repelled by his atheism. Camus has been criticized by those who don't really get it for not seeing the racist implications of this incident, occurring in a setting of Algeria when it was a French Colony.
    • Correction: He did have a reason for shooting him. The sun got in his eyes.
  • The novel The Iron Dream deliberately invokes this, since the plot of the science fiction novel within the Frame Story involves a science fiction hero "reclaiming a planet from genetically impure mutants" by slaughtering them wholesale. This strikes people as vaguely anti-Semitic, but then again, said novel was written by an Alternate History version of Hitler who moved to the US and became a science-fiction author instead of founding the Nazi party.
  • 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.
  • 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.)
    • That's not true, Egeanin is an equal forcing Domon to give up smuggling, Tuon is the dominant in her relationship as is Faile. The relationship of Lan and Nyneave is based on the Sea Folk custom, and neither Tallanvor, or Morgase is the dominant in their relationship, its Lini, Morgase old nurse maid, who bosses the both of them.
      • See Discussion.
    • And then there's the spanking...
    • And Mat's rape at the hands of Tylin.
  • Donita K. Paul's Dragonknight, where everyone who is not a Christian Wulder-worshipper is immediately evil and is subject to discrimination or persecution from The Party 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.
  • In Valley Of The Horses — part of what makes Ayla and Jondalar's first time so "joyous" is that Ayla is the first woman he's ever encountered that could take his entire length without pain. Slightly Squicky on its own... but when you factor in the previous book (Clan Of The Cave Bear), one could easily intuit that the reason Ayla is so... accommodating, is that her constant sexual abuse at the hands of Broud left her in the state where she could take that kind of length without complaint. So Yeah...
  • 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 hitting on another woman as at the fact that Ktarka had already killed several characters and was planning on killing at least three more, one of them a little kid.

Live Action TV
  • 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.
  • 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). In the DVD commentary for it, Ronald D. Moore admitted accidentally walking right into Unfortunate Implications territory.
    • The commander's dalliance is one of the only things in the entire story that makes her seem warm and human. The entire theme of the episode is about how in dire circumstances we must cut out that which is unnecessary in order to survive; becoming a "Razor". The Pegasus under her command did this by stripping multiple refugee ships they encountered of their parts, fuel, and useful persons onboard. They left the rest behind (she even took all the chairs out of meeting rooms to get people working faster despite her own back pain). Her relationship with the Cylon was the only thing in her life that wasn't "necessary" and it turned out to be a Cylon spy. If it was one of the male Cylons, the idea would be unchanged, just less HAWT!
  • Ever since Supernatural killed off four badass black men (Gordon Walker and Agent Hendrickson being 2 of them), it has been accused of racism, even though it kills pretty much everyone, black or white, gay or straight, male or female, at some point. Arguably, while they were still alive, you could say that these two "evil" black men chasing after two white boys was slightly veering into Unfortunate Implications territory. Hendricksen, of course, was a good guy who hunted the boys because he thought they were psychos.
    • Supernatural has run into trouble with even more Unfortunate Implications with its handling of gay characters. Not only did Dean dropping a "gay" in a derogatory way 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.
    • 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. This reaction can be seen as slightly hypocritical though, seeing as how everyone thought it was hilarious when he was the one getting objectified in "The Kids Are Alright" (not to mention that he's one of the most objectified characters on the Internet) and also they turn right round and call him a little slut and a dirty whore.
  • 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.
  • Something this troper noticed years after the fact: compare the three minority members of the original Power Rangers to the colours they were chosen to wear.
    • While this is obvious enough for Zack and Trini, this troper never understood this point of view for Jason, who is Caucasian as Caucasian can be. On the other hand, Tommy Oliver was revealed three seasons after he appeared to be adopted at some unspecific point and born biologically Native American, which fits more in with this trope since he had been promoted to Red Ranger by that point.
      • Nah, Tommy had to go through Green and White first. Red Rangers are almost always the leader, no matter their ethnicity. More of an Unfortunate Coincidence (if you look too hard).
    • 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's actor is Caucasian, Native American and Asian in varying degrees.
  • This editor found somewhat disturbing a recent 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.
    • It could be argued, though, that Gus' character has been long established as less brave than Shaun (since childhood, even), though it does seem to be getting played up more as the show goes on, leading right back to this trope.
  • 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, and I wish I was kidding, grow stronger by terrifying people.
    • Gender:
      • The majority of empowered humans with abiltiies 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.
  • 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 dies 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?
  • 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...
  • Many episodes of MST 3 K 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. Just one of many reasons this troper feels the need to shower after watching that movie.
      • 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...
  • Smallville has always been a damsel-in-distress show, 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...
    • ...and the boy whose attentions Sharpay is constantly blowing off is black. Hmmm.
  • Hannah Montana is white, as are her two best friends. The two antagonists at their school are black and Asian. The fact that they're pretty much the only black and Asian characters on the show doesn't really do much to make the implications any lighter...
  • The final episode of Star Trek The Original Series, "Turnabout Intruder", in which a woman pulls a Freaky Friday on Kirk to break through the glass ceiling, was probably meant to be pro-feminist. Nowadays it seems rather anti-feminist, due to the woman being an Ax Crazy Mad Scientist who immediately becomes The Umbridge after taking over. Additionally, there's the fact that women apparently can't be starship captains even in the utopian future of Star Trek. (This has since been Ret Conned out of existence by attributing it to one of her delusions, which, of course, renders the episode's storyline entirely pointless.)
  • Enterprise had the slightly unfortunate gimmick of the Andorians calling humans 'pinkskins'... Apparently they didn't notice the black helmsman.
    • Given Mayweather's, er, "prominent" role in the series, can you blame them?
      • I don't know; if an alien were surveying a bridge, and most of them had pinkish skin, it's not unreasonable to just call them all "pinkskins". Just like humans might, seeing a bunch of Cthulhu-ishly face-tentacled aliens, call them "squidfaces" without noticing/caring about the couple of them that for some reason don't have tentacles.
    • 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 Evil Counterparts take over the MirrorUniverse, it looks like a deliberate subversion.
  • 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 unambigous 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.
  • 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.

Music
  • This troper is always consistently amused by 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 tropers 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.

Radio
  • 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.

Tabletop Games

Theater
  • Similarly, the moral of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Phantom Of The Opera appears to this troper 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."
  • This troper was actually more creeped out by the paedophillic themes than anything else. (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?)
  • Carousel has an extremely disquieting moment where the heroine says