History RaceLift / ChangingTheMinority

* ''Film/DDay'' the Russian ForeignRemake of ''Film/{{Commando}}'', have it's entire cast being white due to being filmed in Russia (save for a Japanese henchman who's not in the original). As such, non-white characters from the original film like Cindy, Cooke, Henriques and some of the enemy mooks are all white Russians.

* ''Film/ExodusGodsAndKings'' came under fire for casting white folks as the Egyptian and Israelite lead characters, including Creator/ChristianBale as Moses and Creator/JoelEdgerton as Ramses II. For added UnfortunateImplications, servants, assassins, workers and so on are portrayed by actors of colour. However, as of 2016 it was discovered that Ramses was fair-skinned.

* Rose Wilson of ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' and the '90s ''Deathstroke'' series was introduced as the illegitimate daughter of Slade Wilson and a Cambodian woman named Lillian Worth. While most artists didn't really reflect Rose's Cambodian heritage as much, she was still meant to be mixed-race, albeit with pure white hair and blue (or green) eyes. In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueCrisisOnTwoEarths'', Rose became a red-haired Caucasian girl (although she was basically an InNameOnly incarnation) who had Adeline Kane as her mother). In post-Flashpoint comics continuity, Rose is now also entirely Caucasian with Adeline Kane as her mother, although as said before, since Rose's ethnicity was barely drawn consistently, there is little visual difference and she retains her white hair. The change was undone in ''ComicBook/DCRebirth'', with Rose once again being of mixed white and Cambodian descent.

* The ''Manga/DeathNote'' adaptations vary between depicting Rodd Loss as black or white. In the black and white manga pages, his skin is light though his exaggerated facial features are similar to a few other darker-skinned gang members, suggesting that he could possibly be biracial. In the anime, he definitely appears more on the white side. The DS game goes in the opposite direction and depicts him as an unambiguously dark-skinned black man.

** The [[Film/DeathNote2017 American version]] depicts the originally pale-skinned and biracial (European and Asian, by the way) L as a black man.

* In Creator/ArthurCClarke's novel ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact'', the scientist responsible for the HAL 9000, Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai -- or Dr. Chandra -- is from India. In the film version, he's Creator/BobBalaban. But still named Dr. Chandra.

* Master Miller, FOX HOUND's drill instructor in the Franchise/MetalGear series, had a distinctively Asian appearance in his debut in the [=MSX2=] version of ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake''. When he "returned" in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', he was turned into a blond haired and fair-skinned man with a Japanese heritage [[spoiler:making it easier for Liquid Snake to impersonate Miller by simply giving himself a ponytail and sunglasses.]]

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': Akila, a dark skinned black haired Amazon who has always had Arabic features in the past, is depicted as a blonde white woman. It's unlikely to just be a coloring mistake as her appearance is radically altered.

** In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', BigBad ComicBook/{{Bane}}, half-British and half-Hispanic[[note]]British father and Santa Priscan mother, born and raised in a ''high-security prison'' in Santa Prisca, a Spanish-colonized Caribbean island. The trait is important to the character but not established in his first appearance.[[/note]] in the comics, is played by Brit Creator/TomHardy. Hardy's features and accent are ambiguous and distorted, so his race could go any which way. Except as it turns out, he's from a Chinese/Arab prison instead of a South American one, [[spoiler: and the protector of [[BigBadDuumvirate fellow villain]] [=Talia Al Ghul/Miranda Tate=], daughter of Ra's. Interestingly, Talia is only a downplayed example; her actress Creator/MarionCotillard has some amount of Kabyle (North African) ancestry.]].

-->Trillian was a girl that Zaphod had picked up recently whilst visiting a planet, just for fun, incognito. She was slim, darkish, humanoid, with long waves of black hair, a full mouth, an odd little nob of a nose and ridiculously brown eyes. With her red head scarf knotted in that particular way and her long flowing silky brown dress she looked vaguely Arabic.

* Creator/LiamNeeson plays the Arabic villain Comicbook/RasAlGhul in Film/BatmanBegins.

* ''Film/Tekken2010'' had Brazilian Christie played by white Creator/KellyOverton. When she was cast, cue dozens of internet arguments claiming that Christie was really black, Hispanic or even Asian ethnicity. In what may count as an inversion, the Irish Anna Williams was played by a Spanish actress but Anna's background is never stated.

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', BigBad ComicBook/{{Bane}}, half-British and half-Hispanic[[note]]British father and Santa Priscan mother, born and raised in a ''high-security prison'' in Santa Prisca, a Spanish-colonized Caribbean island. The trait is important to the character but not established in his first appearance.[[/note]] in the comics, is played by Brit Creator/TomHardy. Hardy's features and accent are ambiguous and distorted, so his race could go any which way. Except as it turns out, he's from a Chinese\Arabic prison instead of a South American one, [[spoiler: and the protector from [[BigBadDuumvirate fellow villain]] and example of this trope [=Talia Al Ghul/Miranda Tate=]. Her father, ComicBook/RasAlGhul, who in the comics is Chinese and/or Arabic, is played by Irish actor Creator/LiamNeeson and Talia is played by Creator/MarionCotillard, who is French]].
** Bane was also played by white wrestler Creator/RobertSwenson in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', but as a stereotypical DumbMuscle character (with ''green'' skin). The less said about it, the better.
** Blonde haired, blue eyed actress Teresa Palmer was going to play Talia in the cancelled ''Script/JusticeLeagueMortal'' film even though she's described in the script as being "exotic" and "from some other country, some other world, maybe".

* The wrestling BioPic ''Film/FightingWithMyFamily'' features Wrestling/AJLee submitting a blonde woman at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania XXX'' to retain her Diva's Championship for the final time before losing it to protagonist Wrestling/{{Paige}} the very next night. In the actual event, AJ submitted Wrestling/{{Naomi}}, who is African-American.

* Almost happened during the production of ''WesternAnimation/JorelsBrother''. In the series' early lineup, one of the main characters was a black housemaid, who was inspired by a housemaid who worked at the show's creator's house. She made it to the show's pilot, but then the executives demanded her to be altered to a white woman, as having the only black character being the housemaid could potentially be inspired as a racial stereotype, even if inspired on real people. However, they decided that a housemaid character as a whole, regardless of race, wouldn't be really appropriate for a children's show, so they replaced her with an octopus babysitter.

* Mike [=McMahon=] drew ComicBook/JudgeDredd as a black man for a while during his early years. Because the comic was in black and white, nobody noticed and [[AbortedArc he abandoned the idea after a while]]. Judge Guthrie is a more straight example, starting off as AmbiguouslyBrown DependingOnTheArtist (Carlos Ezquerra drew him as out and out black). In more recent years, he's been unambiguously white.