History Main / RacialFaceBlindness

** Played straight and then averted in the Souphanousinphones' debut episode, where the main four guys ask Kahn if he is Chinese or Japanese... then ask ''again'' upon being told that he's Laotian. Then, ''Cotton'' of all people is able to correctly identify Kahn as Laotian at first glance, after being told that he was Japanese by Dale. Of course, Cotton ''would'' know exactly what Japanese people look like, [[MemeticMutation he killed fiddy of them]].

* In an exchange from ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'' Toni shows Joan a picture of her new white lover and asks "Doesn't he look just like Brad Pitt?"
--->'''Joan:''' What? No, he looks nothing like Brad Pitt.
--->'''Toni:''' Eh, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, they all look the same to me.

** In "The Pursuit of Happiness", a defendant's lawyer tries to argue that a key witness, who is Korean, is incapable of telling non-Asians apart and could therefore not correctly identify the Puerto Rican defendant. Ben Stone is disgusted.

* ''Series/{{Community}}'': When Jeff finds a photograph of Pierce with a black man on his black professor Kane's desk, he assumes getting kicked out of class was a scheme by Pierce and Kane...only to realize that it was a different black man.

* South/Southeast Asian-Americans are most commonly mistaken for an ethnicity that isn't Asian AT ALL (most commonly Native American), as many people think Asians are all ''East'' Asian and [[PhenotypeStereotype have pale skin and straight hair,]] but South and Southeast Asia are in the tropics, so many people from that region are tanned/brown and some can get so dark that they are mistaken as Black Americans. This is not helped by rampant {{UsefulNotes/Colorism}} that [[ButNotTooBlack enforces beauty ideals of pale skin and straight hair,]] so the Southeast Asian celebrities on the media may not look anything like a person off the street.

* South/Southeast Asian-Americans are most commonly mistaken for an ethnicity that isn't Asian AT ALL (most commonly Native American), as many people think Asians are all ''East'' Asian and [[PhenotypeStereotype have pale skin and straight hair,]] and some are so dark that they get mistaken as Black. This is not helped by the actual colorism rampant in Asian communities that [[ButNotTooBlack enforces beauty ideals of pale skin and straight hair,]] so the Southeast Asian celebrities on the media usually don't look anything like a person off the street.

* Bizarrely this happened with Littlemix members being confused in an article by Metro which mistakenly used an image of Jade Thirwall (who is half Arabic), but the article was about her bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock (who is half Black Caribbean). Even more so the two look nothing alike being heights, having different body types, hair colour, hair styles, facial features with only medium shade of brown skin being their only visual similarity.

* In the Italian series ''Gomorra'', an African crack dealer manages to negotiate a larger cut of the profits from the Camorra, but so he won't get any ideas, that night they gun down several of his men in a public massacre. He's then told that he's [[CantKillYouStillNeedYou 'lucky']] to have escaped this fate as black people all look the same at night, but if he causes any trouble "we'll come for you in daylight."

* In the Italian series ''Gomorra'', an African crack dealer manages to negotiate a larger cut of the profits from the Camorra, but so he won't get any ideas they gun down several of his men in a public massacre. He's then told that he's [[CantKillYouStillNeedYou 'lucky']] to have escaped this fate as black people all look the same at night, but if he causes any trouble "we'll come for you in daylight."

* WebVideo/GradeAUnderA made an entire video about this trope, where he issues a series of tests designed to (jokingly) prove to the viewer that they are racist. The first test has him showing the viewer three different Asian women, saying that one of them is from China, one of them is from Japan, and one of them is from Korea. [[spoiler:It turns out that ''none'' of them were from either China or Korea. Two of them were Japanese, and the other one was a Laotian-American drag queen named Jujubee.]]

** In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS4E9BreakingOutIsHardToDo Breaking Out is Hard to Do]]," Peter says "Oh my God, it's Creator/JackieChan!" to various Asian people, even his sumo wrestling opponent ("Boy, you've put on weight, Jackie Chan!"). He only gets it correct by the 3rd or 4th try. Jackie Chan himself confuses the Griffins for Ethan Hawke (and in the case of Meg, Frankie Muniz).
--->'''Jackie Chan:''' Oh my God, it Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle!\\

** In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS9E14TiegsForTwo Tiegs for Two]]," it's revealed that ChineseLaunderer Mr. Washee Washee thinks all white Americans look like Creator/GeneShalit.

* In ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', Peter says "Oh my God, it's Creator/JackieChan!" to various Asian people, even his sumo wrestling opponent ("Boy, you've put on weight, Jackie Chan!"). He only gets it correct by the 3rd or 4th try. Jackie Chan himself confuses the Griffins for Ethan Hawke (and in the case of Meg, Frankie Muniz).
-->'''Jackie Chan:''' Oh my God, it Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle!\\

** This shows up in [[https://youtu.be/Fkhwg9cxA48 an earlier seasons cutaway gag when Peter and Lois are planting trees in Israel.]]

* ''Literature/TheGreatWhiteHope'': How Jack escapes from the cops staking out his house, before eventually fleeing the country. A Negro League baseball team pays a visit, Jack changes clothes with one of the baseball players, and then leaves with the rest. Because, as Jack says, "You hear that sayin how all n***s look alike!"