A variation on the Odd Couple, especially popular in Buddy Pictures of The '70s and The '80s, where the contrast between the leads is black-and-white in more ways than one.
The white bread is the Straight Man of the duo. He's from a respectable middle-class or white-collar background, a stickler for rules, and has no real history of troublemaking. He's likely a Family Man, too. He takes his work seriously, possibly to the point of being The Stoic or The Killjoy when on the job, and doesn't take it well when someone tries to upend his precise routine. Exaggerations may make him awkward, nerdy, neurotic, or way less hip than he thinks he is.
The black brotha, on the other hand, is the Wise Guy. He's a jive-talking, wisecracking Soul Brotha from the Wrong Side of the Tracks who's more cool, crude, casual, and culturally in touch than the white bread character. He's defined by his Street Smarts (often in lieu of higher education), disdain for authority, and willingness to say Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! He may be a current or former criminal, but usually something nonviolent that'll allow him to be portrayed as a Lovable Rogue—Con Man is a popular choice. Exaggerations may give him a Hair-Trigger Temper or Plucky Comic Relief, but risk verging into racial stereotypes like the Scary Black Man or Uncle Tomfoolery.
Normally, these two people would never work alongside one another, but circumstances force them together. In a Buddy Cop scenario, the white bread is the By-the-Book Cop and the black brotha is the Cowboy Cop or a Reformed Criminal. As they begrudgingly work together, debate whether To Be Lawful or Good, and learn to navigate each others' worlds, they succeed thanks to their combined skills, and possibly grow to become Heterosexual Life-Partners too. They often learn An Aesop by the end, with the white bread learning the necessity of bending the rules sometimes, and the black brotha gaining some respect for authority.
This trope peaked in prominence due to several factors in 1970s Hollywood: the cross-racial success of white-led blockbusters, the decline of Blaxploitation films, the shift from urban single-screen theaters to suburban multiplexes, and the failure of big-budget black-led movies like The Wiz. The studios' takeaway from all this? "Nobody wants to pay to see an all-black cast." For the next decade, they followed this conventional wisdom by only casting black protagonists alongside white co-leads, and often relegating them to the Comedy Ghetto, to boot.
Its lifespan as a trend was relatively short, falling well into Dead Horse territory by the mid-1990s. This was thanks to the success of stars like Eddie Murphy proving that black-led films were still economically viable, which removed the main incentive for studios to push this trope. In the 21st century, it's far more likely to appear as a subversion, inversion, or parody rather than be played straight—most commonly, the black partner is Black and Nerdy while the white partner is the Reckless Sidekick.
A subtrope of Odd Couple. Compare Wunza Plot, Straight Man and Wise Guy, Snobs Versus Slobs, Irishman and a Jew, Minority Police Officer, Token Black Friend, and Red Oni, Blue Oni. Not to be confused with White Dude, Black Dude, though they often cover the same subject matter—i.e., differences between white and black subcultures being Played for Laughs.
Note: The difference in social or economic background is key to this trope. Do not simply list any biracial duo with a personality difference.
Examples:
- One 2006 commercial for Twinings tea
features Stephen Fry (the face of the brand at the time) running a tea shop with a younger black American named Tyrone, chastising him for writing a slogan that Twinings' Earl Grey makes you "feel the zing in your ding-a-ling."
- Quantum and Woody: Inverted; Eric (who's black) is the straight-laced, middle-class serious hero, while his white partner Woody is the irreverent street-smart punk. Despite barely being able to stand each other, they're forced to work together to clear their names after being falsely accused of murder, and then to work together as superheroes.
- 48 Hrs.: The Trope Codifier, spurring the rise of this trope's popularity in Buddy Cop films, as well as the buddy cop genre as a whole. Inspector Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) decides to Recruit The Criminal Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) to help track down and stop Reggie's old criminal partner. Something of an Unbuilt case, though, as Jack is a hard-boiled Cowboy Cop, and the differences between him and Reggie are rarely Played for Laughs.
- Inverted in Amos & Andrew: Andrew (Samuel L. Jackson) is a straight-laced playwright and academic; Amos (Nicolas Cage) is a petty criminal. They're forced to work together when a corrupt police chief tries to stage a hostage crisis with Andrew as the victim and make Amos take the fall.
- Blue Streak: The film both invokes and parodies this dynamic. Jewel thief Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence) poses as undercover LAPD detective Kevin Malone and actually works with a more straight-laced legitimate detective Carson (Luke Wilson). Being a thief, Miles/"Kevin" is more aware of the inner workings of criminals, which greatly impresses the more bureaucratic Carlson.
- Day Shift: Vampire Hunter Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx), a black blue-collar worker, ends up paired with nervous, straight-laced Seth (Dave Franco) during his hunts.
- Die Hard with a Vengeance: Subverted with Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) and John McClane (Bruce Willis). While Zeus is originally from the hood and has shades of Malcolm Xerox, he's a civilian and far more of a normal person compared to John McClane and his Cowboy Cop behavior.
- Played With in Get Hard: The wealthy but meek and cowardly James (Will Ferrell) turns to the struggling, working-class Darnell (Kevin Hart) to give him lessons on acting tough in prison after the former gets sentenced to spend time there. Darnell, however, has never been to prison before and is more the Straight Man of the duo, so after getting some tips from a cousin who actually went to jail, he pretends to be an intimidating street gangster to teach James how to toughen up.
- Ghosts of Mars: In the second half of the film, straightlaced blonde cop Melanie (Natasha Henstridge) teams up with wisecracking black criminal Desolation Williams (Ice Cube) to kick ass and fight Martian zombies.
- G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Conrad "Duke" Hauser (Channing Tatum) is the straight-laced white protagonist and Wallace "Ripcord" Weems (Marlon Wayans) is his wise-cracking Black Best Friend. Duke has a personal issue with pre-Cobra Mars Industries, whose members include his ex-girlfriend the Baroness and her brother the Doctor, both believed to be dead; while Ripcord spends most of his time trying to impress Scarlett.
- I Spy: The 2002 remake is a Wunza Plot where Owen Wilson plays a relatively straightlaced CIA agent, while Eddie Murphy plays an outsider boxing champion who gets dragged into the spy plot.
- The Kentucky Fried Movie: Parodied in the fake trailer for "Cleopatra Schwarz," where an overly violent and sexual blaxploitation Action Girl (a parody of Cleopatra Jones) is married to a Nice Jewish Boy who's clearly not cut out for violence at all—until it shows him helping her subdue bad guys and fire machine guns at gangbangers.
- Inverted in the Lethal Weapon films, with the black Roger Murtaugh being a by-the-book Family Man and the white Martin Riggs being a near-suicidal loose cannon with nothing to lose. As the series goes on, the two's policing styles grow more similar, with Riggs becoming an honorary part of Murtaugh's family and Murtaugh becoming more willing to go outside his comfort zone.
- Zig-zagged in The Long Kiss Goodnight. Mitch Hennessy (Samuel L. Jackson) is an unscrupulous low-rent PI and Samantha Cain (Geena Davis) is a nice teacher in a small town. Then amnesiac Samantha remembers her old life as an assassin and if anything their positions are reversed.
Mitch Hennessy: Back when we first met, you were all like "Oh phooey, I burned the darn muffins". Now, you go into a bar, ten minutes later, sailors come runnin' out. What's up with that?
- The Man: ATF Special Agent Vann (Samuel L. Jackson) accidentally ropes nerdy dental supply salesman Andy Fiddler (Eugene Levy) into his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the arms dealers who killed his partner.
- The Man from Toronto plays with this one. The titular Man from Toronto is the white straight man to black Teddy Jackson's wise guy. However, in this case, it's Teddy who's playing the role of the goofy everyman to Toronto's cold-blooded (at first) killer.
- Men in Black: Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is a cynical veteran of the Men in Black who recruits Agent J (Will Smith), a gung-ho New York cop, precisely because of his subversive attitude and outside-the-box mentality.
- Osmosis Jones: Parodied with Cowboy Cop white blood cell Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones (played by Chris Rock), who's paired with By-the-Book Cop cold pill Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff (David Hyde Pierce). Once the two adjust to each other's drastically different approaches to fighting infection, they become a good team.
- Parodied in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, where Cary Elwes' traditionally refined Robin Hood is accompanied by Dave Chappelle's Ahchoo, a snapback cap and Jordans-wearing black man who speaks in modern slang and quotes Malcolm X.
- Played With in the Rush Hour films, with Jackie Chan's Inspector Lee taking the place of the white bread, acting polite and stoic when he's on the mission. Chris Tucker's Detective Carter is the black brotha, being a wisecracking Motor Mouth who's despised by his superiors for his recklessness.
- Tower Heist: In order to get revenge on a millionaire who defrauded him and his employees, apartment building manager Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) tracks down Slide (Eddie Murphy), a childhood friend who's since become a petty thief and carjacker, to plan a heist and steal the employees' money back.
- Trading Places: Wealthy Philadelphia commodities broker Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and small-time con man Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) team up after they both have their lives upended by the machinations of the Duke Brothers, Winthorpe's bosses. Thanks to Winthorpe's financial acumen and Valentine's experience running cons, they pull off a scheme that leaves the Dukes bankrupt and themselves fabulously wealthy.
- Training Day: Subverted. The rookie LAPD officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) is partnered for evaluation with Detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), a corrupt and murderous Dirty Cop who patrols and terrorizes LA's hood. Alonzo forces Jake to participate in his crimes as Betrayal Insurance and tries to have Jake killed by a gang at the end of the night. However, Jake survives, and Alonzo ends up dead at the hands of the Russian mob.
- Robinson Crusoe and Friday are probably the Ur-Example. It should be noted that Friday was a native Caribnote in the original novel, but so many adaptations over the centuries have racelifted him as black that most people now think of him as such. Crusoe and Friday also share the traditional characteristics of this trope as a straight-laced, rather stodgy white man and his more flamboyant, exotic, and "ethnic" sidekick.
- 30 Rock: Implied to be the plot of one of Tracy's in-universe movies. One poster in Tracy's room is for a movie called Black Cop White Cop, featuring him Acting for Two as both a black cop and a white cop. The film's tagline is "One does the duty, the other gets the booty".
- Angie Tribeca: In "Tribeca's Day Off," the straight-edge white Geils gets partnered up with the streetwise and intimidating Tanner. Lampshaded by Atkins, who says that a white man and black man figuring out how to be partners has never happened in the history of police work.
- Inverted in Cagney & Lacey with Marcus Petrie and Victor Isbecki. The black Petrie is the firmly middle-class buttoned by-the-book cop, while the white Isbecki is the streetwise rebel.
- Inverted in Cape Town with white Defective Detective Mat Joubert and black By-the-Book Cop Sanctus Snook. Joubert is a self-destructive alcoholic, while Snook, coming from an elite investigation unit called the Hawks, is there to keep an eye on him.
- The short-lived sitcom Listen Up starred Jason Alexander as an uptight white sports broadcaster alongside Malcolm-Jamal Warner as his younger and hipper cohost, a former NFL player turned commentator. It was loosely based on Pardon The Interruption, a real ESPN commentary show.
- Miami Vice: Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) is a white Good Ol' Boy and By-the-Book Cop, while Rico Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) is a black Cowboy Cop from New York who comes to Miami on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Psych: Inverted and parodied in the dynamic between private detectives Shawn and Gus. Shawn is white, Brilliant, but Lazy, and leads an elaborate con to convince the police that he's a psychic investigator. Gus is his Black and Nerdy partner who reluctantly participates in Sean's scheme and cautions against many of his ideas.
- Reacher: Inverted with the white Reacher and the black Finlay who more or less fulfil the opposite stereotypes: the former is The Drifter, prone to being somewhat impulsive and reckless, while being built like an armoured vehicle and completely unstoppable in combat, while the latter is a Harvard-educated, bespectacled and besuited, vegetarian By-the-Book Cop.
- Red Dwarf: Rimmer and Lister serve as foils for one another. Rimmer is white, from an upper-class background, and an obsessive stickler for rules, while Lister is half-black, a lazy slob, and proud of his working-class roots. Despite this, the two are solidly Heterosexual Life-Partners.
- Rush Hour: Similar to the original film series, John Lee (Jon Foo) is a By-the-Book Cop from Hong Kong, while James Carter (Justin Hires) is a smack-talking hothead with a criminal past before he became a cop.
- Played with in Sanford and Son where Token White Officer Hoppy, in spite of using a lot of police jargon to sound like he's pretty smart, also seems desperate to appear cool by throwing what he thinks is hip-speak. But he always flubs it and gets corrected by his partner, Officer Smitty, who is black. Once, when they're leaving the Sanford home, Hoppy says:
Hoppy: All right, let's crack!Smitty: You mean "split".Hoppy: Uh, right, split!
- Saturday Night Live: The Weekend Update segments utilise this dynamic between Colin Jost (white, middle-class background, from Long Island) and Michael Che (Black, working class background, from the city). It actually deconstruct this by acknowledging the problematic undertones, with Colin frequently being implied to be racist and hold right-wing political views.
- Tenspeed and Brown Shoe: Lionel Whitney (Jeff Goldblum), a stockbroker who's obsessed with detective books, goes into the private investigation business alongside E.L. Turner (Ben Vereen), a former con artist who keeps coming up with get-rich-quick schemes. The former's almost naïve idealism and the latter's skill for subterfuge both help and hurt them throughout the series.
- Inverted in The Wire with Herc and Carver. While many of the Baltimore cops are dirty and brutalize suspects from time to time, Herc is worse than most; he also goes undercover with White Gangbangers in a working-class Polish neighborhood. Meanwhile, the black Carver increasingly becomes a By-the-Book Cop over the course of the series.
- Parodied in Concession with a fake advertisement for a movie titled The Black Guy, starring Chris Tucker as Cowboy Cop Tom Black and Bruce Willis as hardened ex-federal agent Alex White. "So when they're teamed up, the results are surely hilarious! And not racist at all!"
