Needs Help (Alt Names crowner 13 Dec 2017): Positive Discrimination

Are we building to a consensus, or do we need a crowner?

Odd. The page isn't linking to this thread for me which might partially explain why this is so stalled.

Wasn't someone doing a wick check?

So what are our current thoughts on actions? From what I can tell (and these are not mutually exclusive)

• Rename
• Clean up
• Flamebait-ize/cut examples
• Limit to In-Universe/lampshaded examples

A couple that just occurred to me:

• Turn into an index of subtropes (This hasn't been mentioned yet, but just occurred to me. Tropes like Women Are Wiser that are predicated on this)
• Make it explicitly an Audience Reaction and put it into YMMV.

Any other ideas?

edited 25th Feb '17 11:25:44 AM by Larkmarn

It's not just you, it doesn't link for me either

Fixed that. Solution was to re-save the page link in the "linked page" function of the thread.

Here's the wick check. Like I said before this trope is being largely used as "this female and/or minority is the most kindest, level-headed and/or competent character in the work or some group in a work". So yea, we really need to rework and rename this thing.

Wick check results (50 out of 358 total):

"Subversion"

• A Giant Sucking Sound
• A Passage to India

"female and/or minority gets the most positive portrayal"

• Alcatraz
• Characters.Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog Freedom Fighters
• Characters.Arthur
• Bailey School Kids
• Bicentennial Man
• Bobo Brazil
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Characters.Comicbook Teen Titans Post Flashpoint
• Characters.COPS
• Crash Bandicoot
• Series/Coach
• Characters.Comicbook Teen Titans Post Flashpoint
• Crash Bandicoot
• Characters.Degrassi Graduating Class Of Season 5
• Dinosaurs
• Characters.Divergent
• Drawn Together
• Elementary
• Flatliners
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
• GI Joe GI Joes
• Gold Digger
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
• Higher Learning
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Hustle
• Characters.Into The Woods
• Kamen Rider Dragon Knight
• Characters.King Arthur
• King of the Hill
• Kung Foot
• Law & Order
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Luann
• Maken-ki!
• Marble Hornets
• Mass Effect 1 Npcs
• Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Character benefits in-story because of their minority status

• Bobwhite
• Characters.Daria
• Diversity Lane
• Get Out (2017)
• Iron Jawed Angels
• Jingo
• Key & Peele
• Melrose Place

questionable

• Chopped
• Disclosure

The only one I can comment on of that list is Chopped. I think it's misused, the cooks still had to do a good job with what they were given in the ingredient baskets, even though the baskets were not filled with the difficult ingredients they normally would be.

The whole episode was a softball compared to the norm, but no one contestant was given more leeway or treated better than the others (from the trope page: "When the Token Minority and/or Token Female character can do no wrong. ").

edited 2nd Mar '17 9:56:52 AM by Madrugada

The way I'm reading it, the "female and/or minority gets the most positive portrayal" can be categorized further depending on the genre:

• They were purposely created to be empowering: Buffy, Astrid etc.
• Only Sane Man is woman/minority: Foxxy Love, really most sitcoms and ads towards stay-at-home moms.

This trope is more like every female/minority character get's written as a borderline mary/marty stu to the extent it becomes uncomfortable and feels like fetishizing them on the part of the author.

A definition like that, other than being ymmv, is just gonna devolve into "white man is not the best".

I think we should just limit this page to actual positive discrimination in fiction.

I looked at a few examples from the wick check in post #30, and I'd characterize them as saying "this character, who happens to a minority, is awesome". I don't think that counts as a trope. I'm quite in favour of limiting it to cases where Word of God or In-Universe information tells us "this character was made better than the rest of the cast because of their status as a minority".

How about just in-universe Positive Discrimination? That seems to be a thing and we'll actually be using the term the way most people use it.

^ The problem with that is that's it's an entirely different phenomenon only tangentially related to what the trope is supposed to be about.

I think we can all agree that the name is bad and refers to a much broader phenomenon than what the trope definition describes, but absent a pattern of misuse in which the examples match the trope name rather than the definition, I don't think we can justify redefining the trope to match the name.

I don't think the previous wick check adequately establishes any particular pattern of misuse. The trope isn't just "woman or minority receives the most positive portrayal," it's "the Token Minority and/or Token Female is without flaws." Examples in which a non-token minority or female lacks flaws but other minority or female characters have flaws don't count, nor do examples in which all characters have flaws but the Token Minority and/or Token Female have fewer. Examples in which all women are superior to all men would fall under Women Are Wiser.

Going through a sampling of examples on the page (chosen by picking the first three from each folder), I am able to identify a few broad patterns of use and misuse:

• Correct - Uses the trope as defined in the trope description, as "the Token Minority and/or Token Female can do no wrong."
• Minorities Are Great - A minority character and/or minority group is portrayed positively, but no tokenism is described and/or they're not established as unrealistically flawless. Also includes cases of "women are better than men" which should more properly fall under Women Are Wiser
• Argues With Itself - Example initially appears to fall into either the Correct or MAG categories, but then goes on to contradict itself by establishing that the minority character does in fact have flaws or that there are white male characters who are portrayed just as positively.
• In-Universe Positive Discrimination: Character benefits in-story because of their female or minority status.
• Aversion: Listed as an aversion or subversion, which I would argue is not notable because this is not quite a Trope in Aggregate.
• General Misuse - Zero Context Examples, examples that are so poorly-written that they're hard to parse, and other miscellaneous crapitude.

• Advertisement:
  • Oven cleaning ad: a better fit for Women Are Wiser and/or Men Can't Keep House. Also very nattery with bad Example Indentation. MAG
  • Butterfinger ad: Casual male-bashing that has nothing to do with any definition of the trope. GM
  • "Ads for Flash in the UK": Confusing example that does not explain what it has to do with the trope. GM
• Anime:
  • Eyeshield 21: Confusing, poorly-worded example; seems to follow the "minority person is great" definition but doesn't adequately explain how or why. Also has a second-level bullet that falls squarely into Repair Dont Respond. '''MAG"
  • Gundam Build Fighters: Generally correct, but the last sentence strikes me as a nattery Justifying Edit. Either it's enough of a flaw that the character doesn't count, or it's not worth mentioning (I'm inclined to say the latter).
  • Ghost in the Shell: Correct, but with poorly-indented second-level bullets that need cutting.
• Comics:
  • "Black scientists": Falls afoul of Examples Are Not General and does not talk about either tokenism or lacking flaws (unless you assume that scientists are naturally superior to non-scientists, one supposes). GM
  • Wakanda: Does not cite a specific character, token or otherwise, and also gets very nattery and Repair Dont Respond-y. Is Wakanda a utopia or isn't it? AWI
  • New X-Men: AWI
• Film Animated
  • How to Train Your Dragon: MAG; doesn't adequately establish tokenism ("most" of the other trainees are boys; okay, is she a Token Female or isn't she?)
• Film - Live Action
  • Mr. and Mrs. Smith - AWI
  • Get Smart: MAG
  • Living Dead trilogy: Correct
• Literature
  • Dean Koontz: Examples Are Not General / Zero Context Example. GM
  • Uncle Tom: Does not establish tokenism; also gets muddled up in later interpretations of the character to the point where it's hard to tell what the original point was. GM
  • Amtrak Wars: More properly belongs under Women Are Wiser. MAG
• Live Action TV
  • Newsradio: AWI.
  • Office (US): IUPD
  • Spin City: Aversion; fits the trope description well enough, but not notable.
• Newspaper Comics
  • Dilbert: Not An Example; "acceptable" flaws are still flaws. GM
  • Luann: Correct, although it uses the now-flame-baited Mary Sue trope in a way that should be removed.
  • Garfield: AWI: is she a flawless goddess, or is she cold-hearted and cruel? The entry text is all over the place. Doesn't help that it also goes off into an aside about a later adaptation of the character, which should get its own entry if it's an example or be omitted if not.
• Wrestling: The entire section falls prey to Examples Are Not General. There are literally ten bullets at various levels of indentation, not one of which is a specific example that we can judge as fitting or not fitting the definition.
• Theater:
  • West Side Story: AWI; also incorrectly tries to establish a subversion.
  • Andorra: IUPD
• Video Games:
  • Crash Bandicoot: AWI
  • Fire Emblem Tellius: AWI
  • Epic Mickey: MAG
• Web Original:
  • Most Popular Girls in School: The first bullet point doesn't even establish which characters are minorities and which not; the second is a non-noteworthy aversion. GM
  • Macho Sauce: Appears generally correct, but lacks enough context to judge and is very poorly-written. GM
  • Regretsy: Does not seem to have anything to do with tokenism or discrimination. GM
• Western Animation:
  • Ben 10: AWI, poor Example Indentation
  • Space Jam: Very confused example, talking about the conventions of cartoon physics rather than establishing tokenism or flawlessness. As an aside, this is probably a valid example with some rewriting, but as written I'm going to mark it as GM
  • Fairly Oddparents: AWI, probably belongs under Women Are Wiser.
• Other:
  • Bionicle: AWI
  • Hero Factory: Correct

Results:

• Correct: 5 (14%)
• Minorities Are Great: 6 (17%)
• Argues With Itself: 11 (31%)
• In-Universe Positive Discrimination: 2 (6%)
• Aversion: 1 (3%)
• General Misuse: 10 (29%)

When I have more time, I'll go through the wicks from the wick check above and give it the same analysis.

edited 4th Apr '17 2:20:16 PM by HighCrate

Going through the wick check:

• A Giant Sucking Sound - Uses the IUPD definition, but is a sketchy "aversion."
• A Passage to India - Uses the MAG definition, but is a sketchy "aversion."
• Series/Alcatraz - Correct
• Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog- Freedom Fighters - Correct
• Arthur - Correct
• Bailey School Kids - Correct
• Bicentennial Man - AWI
• Bobo Brazil - Pot Hole lacking sufficient context to determine use
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - one correct example, another MAG
• Comicbook Teen Titans Post Flashpoint - MAG
• COPS - MAG
• Crash Bandicoot - AWI
• Coach - MAG
• Degrassi: Graduating Class of Season 5 - Uses the Correct definition; it runs afoul of Examples Are Not Arguable with the Weasel Word "arguably," but does not actually argue against itself
• Dinosaurs - MAG
• Divergent - Pot Hole
• Drawn Together - MAG
• Elementary - GM; entry text seems only tangentially related to any definition of the trope
• Film/Flatliners - Correct
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Correct
• GI Joe GI Joes - GM (Zero Context Example)
• Gold Digger - Pot Hole
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - Correct
• Higher Learning - AWI
• How to Train Your Dragon - MAG
• Hustle - GM. There are several bullet points, most of which talk about the racial background of victims of con artists, few of which seem to have much if anything to do with any definition of the trope.
• Into the Woods - MAG
• Kamen Rider Dragon Knight - GM
• King Arthur - GM; Zero Context Example
• King of the Hill - Aversion
• Kung Foot - Aversion
• Law & Order - GM; seems to use the "IUPD" definition, but it's so poorly-written that it's hard to tell.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - AWI
• Luann - AWI
• Maken-ki! - MAG
• Marble Hornets - Pot Hole, also uses Weasel Words.
• Mass Effect 1 Npcs - Aversion, and a particularly specious one.
• Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus - GM
• Webcomic/Bobwhite - Uses the IUPD definition, but is very context-light.
• Characters/Daria - IUPD
• Diversity Lane - IUPD
• Get Out (2017) - One bullet point with clear IUPD, another that is a particularly poorly-written attempt at aversion
• Iron Jawed Angels - Appears to use the IUPD definition, but is very context-light.
• Discworld/Jingo - IUPD
• Key & Peele - GM; several bullets have zero context and the other doesn't seem to have much to do with any definition of the trope
• Melrose Place - MAG
• Series/Chopped - GM
• Film/Disclosure - GM; appears to use the IUPD definition, but it's so vague and poorly-written that it's hard to tell.

Results:

• Correct: 9 (18%)
• Minorities Are Great: 11 (22%)
• Argues With Itself: 5 (10%)
• In-Universe Positive Discrimination: 7 (14%)
• Aversion: 4 (8%)
• Pot Hole: 4 (8%)
• GM: 10 (20%)

Based on the above, some conclusions / interpretation:

The example page actually has less correct usage than the wicks, which the opposite of the usual pattern; I believe this is because of the higher rate of examples that argue with themselves. I'd venture a guess that many of the wicks that appear to be correct are actually Not An Example, and that for whatever reason people are more likely to jump in with a "well, actually..." on the trope page itself.

The "Minorities Are Great" category is largely made up of examples which attempt to use the correct definition, but forget to establish tokenism, e.g. "General Blackman, who is black, is the best damn general in this man's army." That only matters if General Blackman is the only minority general in the army and all the white generals are terrible. It's unclear how many of these are valid examples that don't give enough context, how many are non-examples because there are other minority characters that do have flaws, and how many are examples in which there are multiple minority characters but none of them have flaws, which is a related phenomenon but does not currently fit the trope definition as written.

While there is a certain amount of mistaking this trope for the larger phenomenon suggested by the trope name, it's not so widespread as to make redefining the trope to match that misuse a good option. A better option would be to clean up the bad examples / wicks and rename the trope to something more indicative. If we determine that a trope for in-universe positive discrimination is needed, it can go through TLP.

The number of examples which argue with themselves suggest a magnet for Justifying Edits; these should be cleaned and the page may need to be watched to ensure they don't crop up again.

The number of poorly-written and confusing examples suggest that the definition may need to be rewritten for clarity. As of right now, it starts out clear enough, but starts wandering around about the third paragraph, which may be contributing to some of the confusion. Regardless, a thorough cleanup effort of the example page and wicks seems called for.

Thoughts?

edited 5th Apr '17 8:14:50 AM by HighCrate

Actually, I don't think these two samples are comparable like that. One is randomly sampled and the other is not. Plus, they are both samples — we can't say they have "proven whatever" but that they have "demonstrated whatever." That sounds like it's being nitpicky but it is the difference between "I have food" and "I want food" (i.e. not interchangeable).

Basically, what we have is...:

• Good
  • Correct: 9 (18%)
  • In-Universe Positive Discrimination: 7 (14%)
• Bad
  • Minorities Are Great: 11 (22%)
  • Argues With Itself: 5 (10%)
  • GM: 10 (20%)
• Neutral-ish???
  • Aversion: 4 (8%)
  • Pot Hole: 4 (8%)

Note that a pothole is not necessarily bad? Is the pothole being used correctly? Is it a sinkhole? Is it potholed in the description or an example? Also, I don't see how In-Universe examples are bad.

The clearly bad wicks amount to 52% of use.

My opinion on the options laid out in this post:

• Rename: There's a large number of inbounds, but most of the misuse seems to be tropers thinking this is "minorities are great." I'd need to hear suggestions for a new name, honestly...
• Clean-up: I could support this, but we'd need to revise the description (and obviously the example section) so that tropers get the idea that criterion 1 and criterion 2 are both necessary to be this. Also, maybe establishing the tropes described in this thread (e.g. Women Are Wiser) as being subtropes to this.
• Flambait-ize: I don't see this as necessary given the wick check. Even if all of the "general misuse" is complaining or flame-bait-y, that's still 20% compared to 32% "good" (or otherwise okay) use.
• Limit to In Universe Examples Only: There are more straight good examples in the wick check than in-universe ones, so I wouldn't support this option based on the wick check.
• Make an example-less index: I don't know if this is necessary. There doesn't seem to be a lot of discussion on this option, but I don't think it needs to be example-less if there are enough "correct" examples that don't fall into a subtrope.
• Make it Audience Reaction: I disagree with this. I don't think it would help to solve the problems with this trope.

Does this call for a Trope Transplant?

I would be behind a rename. The current name seems more broad than it actually is. If this has fairly strict criteria (Token Minority portrayed as superior/perfect/sue), then the name isn't indicative of the trope.

However, the name doesn't seem to be the cause of the problems seen in the wickcheck. The current name shouldn't cause "minorities are great" or "arguing with self". So I think while a rename might help overall, it doesn't fix the specific problems.

A rewrite then cleanup seems like the best way forward. Let's throw a sandbox up and try for a basic rewrite.

Oddly, I'd also like to keep Flame Bait-ize (Example Sectionectomy I guess), on the table. "Arguing with yourself" isn't a good sign, and given it's a semi-sensitive topic, cutting example might be a good option.

I made a crowner.

Kinda a bit late, since the clock is up, but we're not letting it go to waste, so hooking it.

"Clean up"? What did we say about such crowner options being unsuitable?

Yeah, that option can use a bit of clarification. What are we cleaning up?

Have there even been a decide criteria for this trope? If not, a clean up is definitely jumping the gun.

My idea of a clean up would be removing examples that don't agree with the description and laconic (Token Minority and/or Token Female is superior to others). Maybe I should at that onto the Clean up option.

I'm not sure it's racism to point out intentional minority pandering. I'm thinking what we need are more examples where whites, English speakers, the so called majorities most users here are familiar with, are the positively discriminated minorities, to put things in perspective, but beyond that...

Positive discrimination, well, if you're in a white place known to be very white like northern parts Maine or Guadalajara, a black character that comes in who rocks at something for reasons completely unexplained and has little in the way of negative traits, that might count. Like, we called in Dr. McBlackguy because he's the best there is, that might not. Just because this town's white doesn't mean the whole world is and a great black doctor being elsewhere is entirely possible. Now if you've got a bunch of truck drivers, mostly white like everyone else around, but the black one's an effortless straight A student about to get his medical license while the white ones are all social or financial disasters waiting to happen, that would probably count.

If you've got a police show, and all the black criminals are competent and organized while the much more common white criminals tend to be anything but, that might be an example. If black officers are less common than white officers but always in positions of authority over most white officers, that might be an example. White criminals, at least from where I'm from, tend to accuse black ones of being disorganized, without purpose, sloppy. Black officers accused by the general public of having the same attitude as their white masters who use them to do things they themselves are too afraid to do. I could easily see a writer from my part of the country writing with these things in mind.

As a professional wrestling fan, my standards are Apache Bull Ramos and Ernie Ladd. In the territorial era, casual racism had not quite died out, fans where prone to riot when heels they didn't like won anyway, so portraying an ethnic minority like an Apache or a Black Man as a heel was rightly believe to be a very dangerous thing to do. So all the Amerindian wrestlers were good, honorable sportsmen whose most offensive action was to maybe publicly sit in the local town square in protest of the mistreatment of their people. The black wrestlers always smiled, always followed the rules, and generally acted like they were having a good time. Of course there was a negative in that the Amerindian and Blacks never really got to be too prominent, mostly wrestling other "coloreds" in special attraction matches, getting their own separate but not equal title belts if lucky. Ramos and Ladd were the first big cases to break the mold, being completely unapologetic dirty heels. Even then they started against "colored" baby faces before the white baby faces stepped in to teach them a lesson, but this lack of positive discrimination had a positive effect. The "colored" baby faces beating them is what let men like Bobo Brazil get popular enough to get in the ring with white heels, it only stood that if the "colored" baby face can now wrestle "better" competition, then surely the guy he'd been wrestling for the last two years could too. Progress! If I personally can't frame an example in context similar to that, purposeful intent, motivation behind it, consequences in application, I don't add it. I know what deliberate positive discrimination looks like.

But you don't have to be as strict with examples as I am. You just have to ask, "Is the subject truly a minority in the context of the work?", "Are their positive traits obviously at odds with those displayed by the majority?" and "Does it make sense for them to have these traits for any other reason than being a minority?"