Not Tropeworthy: Ambiguously Brown

Exactly. If Pam Grier or Queen Latifah show up in a movie, even if it's some bizarre fantasy/sci-fi world, we will still automatically associate them with black women.

Even with But Not Too Black folks will be like "Oh, you can tell by her hair!"

Any examples of Ambiguous Ethnicity?

Fez from That Seventies Show.

There's a chracter in Awkward Black Girl who parodies Ambiguous Ethnicity.

Ah, Amir. He goes around making ethnic jokes and no one can tell whether they mean to be offended or not.

Also, Aasif Mandi on The Daily Show takes advantage of this to 'play' many different races. He's been Indian, 'Mexican', a genetic 'Muslim'

edited 22nd Jun '12 8:45:14 AM by animeg3282

Ok that works. What about examples for Ambiguously Brown? Seems like an an improvement but something about it feels like it could get into assumption territory with its examples. I think it's the "no other reason than to make them visually distinct" part.

edited 22nd Jun '12 9:11:15 AM by captainpat

Yoruchi Shihouin of Bleach is an example (in fact, she's the current poster girl). There's never any reason offered why she's so dark-skinned as opposed to the other characters, and we never see any other members of her clan/family. She stands out on her own because her skin color is never explained or even pointed out by any character. Her skin color is just a complete non-issue.

Also is Zommari from the same series. He's got dark skin and thick, "negroid" lips, but this is never brought up nor characterizes him in any way.

edited 22nd Jun '12 9:31:34 AM by KingZeal

What about Jackie Tristan?

Not to mention Villetta from Code Geass . This is a highly stratified society, but no one mentions whether she is discriminated against for being dark. We rather get the impression that it's just a design.

It seems like the clarified definition of Ambiguously Brown doesn't actually involve ambiguity. It's more like Purely Aesthetic Skin Color.

I like the "Purely Aesthetic" part of the name, but to keep this from being confused or lumped in with Amazing Technicolor Population, I think we should keep the "Brown" in some way.

Maybe Aesthetically Brown?

I've never seen her in color before. Her skin color is no different in the manga.

edited 22nd Jun '12 11:31:18 AM by KingZeal

Here's a colored spread from the manga.

Yeah, I usually skip past those things. I meant that in the B&W pages, her skin doesn't seem any different.

She seems to count, I suppose.

That doesn't feel any different from the current definition. It's just any brown character who's specific race isn't relevant to to plot.

"Aesthetically Brown" sounds like "Brown that is pretty".

Purely Aesthetic Melanin? Purely Aesthetic Pigmentation?

(qv Purely Aesthetic Gender.)

I like the second one best.

me too

Again, how is what's being proposed any different from the current definition?

I don't think there's anything wrong o_O

However, I do remember this was sent to the TRS and we cleaned the live action examples, I could start by pruning those.

Is it okay to also prune the examples that aren't ambiguous? That is, those that either have a stated race/origin, or those that are from a fictional world, and thus don't have a Real Life culture they're from.

edited 22nd Jun '12 2:58:38 PM by Feather7603

If they have a made up culture,also prune. Like "She's a Blablahian from Blah Blah land" isn't ambigious brown. You know she's a blah blah.

Well, I took the chainsaw after what I judged to be not ambiguous, or part of fantasy cultures. There are likely more than those I'm not familiar with, especially anime. Bleach, One Piece? I kept some confirmed examples if it was part of the plot that characters didn't know or wondered. But stuff like Final Fantasy, Zelda, Avatar The Last Airbender, Negima, Pokemon, etc. have their defined cultures in their own worlds. Oh My Goddess, Negima, My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, and others weren't about humans.

If you think it's wrong, feel free to revert it, but please do add a good description as to why they fit the trope.

Edit: I checked the work pages, and very few of them actually had this trope listed.

edited 22nd Jun '12 5:36:03 PM by Feather7603

might have been a little pre-emptive - we're still working out what exactly this trope should include.

True, but if there was anyone wanting to have examples where the culture or race of the person was actually defined (and without the ambiguousness being a plot point), I missed it.

I mean, take the Water Tribe from Avatar The Last Airbender. It's absolutely not ambiguous that they're Water Tribe. If you apply it to a real world culture, you're saying it has to be one specific Real Life culture, and not just inspired by it with other traits to suit the story or liking of the creators. If that are just inspired by, rather than a direct copy, it won't be a one-to-one correspondence.

edited 22nd Jun '12 7:53:21 PM by Feather7603

We should probably add somewhere in the description that live action example only count if there's a plot point within the work and get rid of the whole fandom nonsense.

edited 23rd Jun '12 6:48:54 AM by captainpat