Can this be more specific : Black And Nerdy

And that then places you in a vast minority.

Most people expected what is common, anticipate the usual, and are surprised when things don't fit neatly into their little preconceived boxes.

You claim not to. That's you. Not solely, perhaps, but among very few. Society breeds expectations. Those expectations can be subverted. May not work for every single viewer in every single circumstance, but there you go.

edited 26th Apr '11 3:11:40 PM by Daremo

straight from the Subverted Trope page

Uncommonality is not grounds for a Subversion.

Your statements are backup by assumptions of things you can't possible know and extremely broad statements.

You have no way of knowing what exactly are the preconceived notions of the audience. You say society breeds expectations, but haven't specified which society exactly and I have to ask, the example about the three Jewish men, you said most viewers are going to be expecting an Ashkenazi Jew. How do you know that? Saying because it's a common portrayal of Jewish people in media isn't good enough. How do you actually know what viewers are thinking. Viewers you did not specify.

Also note that All Jews Are Ashkenazi link. Every almost every non-Ashkenazi example is cited as an aversion.

edited 26th Apr '11 4:58:21 PM by captainpat

To resolve a question that was asked: An Averted Trope is when a trope is not played at all. For Black and Nerdy, this would be... a black character who isn't nerdy. Or a nerd who isn't black. Or the absence of black characters or nerds.

A Subverted Trope occurs when the writers set up the expectation of a trope being used within a story, only to have it not played at all or played differently than expected. For Black and Nerdy, this could be a black character who is set up to look like a nerd (Urkel glasses, awkward diction, etc.) but then it's revealed that he's a jock instead.

edited 26th Apr '11 5:00:04 PM by Fighteer

Is Black and Nerdy, the trope itself, a Subversion of a black stereotype?

edited 26th Apr '11 5:00:14 PM by captainpat

Umm... It's certainly an anti-stereotype. I don't really see how you can call it a subversion since there's no trope that it's played against.

Does that make it a trope? I feel a bit hypocritical that I think this is a trope but object to You Have to Have Jews.

Basically, I do think it is notable that the Smart Guy in media often tends to be the only black character in the Five-Man Band.

For instance, I like media about heists and con artists and in Leverage, Oceans Eleven, The Italian Job (the remake), in all cases, the Smart Guy is black.

Not every Smart Guy is black obviously, but it sort of seems notable when they are. But I am open to the idea that this isn't really a trope.

edited 26th Apr '11 5:09:20 PM by Jordan

The trope that this is subverting is Big Scary Black Man.

Nothing about Big Scary Black Man says that they can't be smart.

Do they have a common personality or trait, other than the fact that they are Black and smart, that is unique to them and that we don't see whenever that role is played by a actor of a different race

But this isn't just about smart. This is a weird little nerdy character. The polar opposite of the big scary tough guy one expects.

Who is one? What are they expecting and why?

edited 26th Apr '11 5:34:17 PM by captainpat

What? Huh? You can't possibly be implying what it seems you are about black men, can you? I must be misinterpreting this. Please clarify!

He's saying that media has conditioned us to expect black male characters to be tough guys a la Scary Black Man.

She

edited 26th Apr '11 7:04:57 PM by captainpat

If so, then that belief probably explains much of the Trope Decay going on here...

I don't even think this is a trope.

I'm just gonna put this out there, from the Not A Subversion page

edited 26th Apr '11 7:20:54 PM by captainpat

I don't think this is a subversion in the TV Tropes sense of the word, which is more precise than the word is generally used in conversation.

However, I think the odds are good that this originated in a subversion of the historical (and quite racist) tropes for black characters in American media (and to some degree elsewhere).

It's probably still a consideration in some of the casting choices (real or artistic) made today — in at least as much as they're trying to avoid any of those old stereotypes. It has to be in the minds of creators to avoid racial stereotypes, especially in media intended for children.

However, I don't think we can automatically assume every nerdy black character is a deliberate avoidance of black racial stereotypes.

edited 26th Apr '11 10:59:39 PM by Morven

Especially when there's no proof in the actually work and we don't know anything about creative process that lead to that character being black and nerdy.

Do we have any tropes that aren't Your Mileage May Vary that assume the authors intent because I'm kinda surprised that people think their assumptions are good enough to justify the exist of something in a work.

edited 27th Apr '11 11:42:28 AM by captainpat

Erm, never mind. I thought this was a rename of The Urkel but that trope still exists.

edited 27th Apr '11 9:09:29 AM by Fighteer

I am astounded at how a lot of this discussion has gone.

The entire reason we created Averted Trope was to avoid the use of "subversion" to describe cases where the expectation of the trope resulted entirely from knowledge of the trope, as opposed to anything in the work itself. It was an attempt to avoid tropers finding "subversions" everywhere when the expectations that were being "subverted" were only created because of TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.

If stereotypes are tropes, this is exactly the case with whatever trope Black and Nerdy is "subverting".

I'm not entirely sure the question of whether it's a subversion or an aversion is even relevant to whether or not it exists as a trope. I've often wondered if "subversion" as we define it basically amounts to a lampshaded aversion. This wouldn't be the first time we created a trope to define one phenomenon, and then another trope for all the exceptions. (See: the old versions of Unlucky Childhood Friend and Victorious Childhood Friend.)

I agree, to the extent that I don't think it matters whether you call it subverted or averted. Sorry to repeat myself, but what I think is important is that this is a trope, but only really in the context of historical works where you can more clearly see some kind of expectation that black people are all the Scary Black Man or at least not intellectual in any way. Nowadays, it just isn't as significant that a nerdy character is black.

A trope is an convention, so you would in fact need knowledge of the actual trope to know when and how that trope is being used, and most importantly, when you can reasonably expect the trope to occur.

This is just a theory but I think that the mislabeling of a situation as a subversion of a trope probably stems from misknowledge of what the trope actually is and what a subversion is, least as tvtropes defines it. If a troper knew what exactly the trope that a piece of work is subverting then would know the typical setup for that trope. They shouldn't have to look for it and it should be obvious when a trope is actually being subverted.

Now, I do agree that a stereotype is a trope. Stereotypes work as tropes because general assumptions about a character's race, sexual orientation, gender etc... are being used to define certain aspects of that character. However, just because a creator of a work has not used a stereotype(trope) to define a character does not mean they have subverted a stereotype(trope). That just means they haven't used the stereotype(trope), they've averted the trope.

Also you would not call a subversion a lampshaded aversion. A lampshaded aversion means that the work itself, usually through a character, would have to point out the trope not being used. A subversion does not need to be pointed out, but it does need to be made explicitly clear that the trope being subverted will occur.

edited 28th Apr '11 12:27:01 PM by captainpat

bump

It's been five months since this was active. Let's try to get back on topic, and get this wrapped up.

Scary Black Man may be a stereotype, but it is not an Omnipresent Trope. Now, unless we redefine Scary Black Man to be omnipresent, then this trope does Not automatically Subvert it.

Nor does it automatically avert it.

So basically there's nothing outstanding about a smart person who happens to be black.