Sassy Black Woman

aka: Sassy Black Girl

"Mmm-MMM, treat yo'self!"

I got this Black chick that don't know how to act
She's always talking out her neck, making her fingers snap
She like, "Listen, Jiggaman, I don't care if you rap
You better R-E-S-P-E-C-T me"

— Jay-Z, "Girls, Girls, Girls"

Since the era of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, Black people were more visible and could be more outspoken — to a point, particularly if they were female. To illustrate this, sassy "Mammy" figures could scold the family they worked for and playfully berate their employers (so the authors could show that Blacks were not being oppressed). And because of the feminism movement, this was especially the case for Black women. Combine these, and you get the sassy Black woman. It started with the heroines of blaxploitation movies, like Coffy and Foxy Brown (both played by Pam Grier), and continued into the 1980s.

She's defined by her vivaciousness, humor and joie de vivre, and can make a good counterpoint to the more grim or snarky members of the cast. In complete contrast to her other variation, is not only a pleasure to be around, but is also so the go to girl for advice and help. These characters usually make good leaders, because though generally fun, insightful, they are still firm in decisions, trustworthy, and speak their minds. Also like the Spicy Latina, the character will usually be sexually liberated and have no qualms acting in a sexual manner, though usually in a less pronounced manner. The positive version is now portrayed a lot more than the negative version, mainly because of the Unfortunate Implications that portraying Black women in only this way had. It's also rather common for the positive variant to be the Only Sane Woman of a group, in which case her "sass" will be more like "exasperated sarcasm".

Might also be a white character's Token Black Friend, often in female-led shows. Close cousin to the Spicy Latina.

There is a variation on this, more subdued but no less expressive: the regal Deadpan Snarker, who will often be well-spoken and articulate, with a more highbrow vocabulary and a regal, imperious manner of expressing herself, but still willing to toss subtle (or unsubtle) barbs and make herself heard. Perhaps the best known of this "African Queen" variation is the X-Man Storm.

Note that this trope might well be on its way to becoming a Discredited Trope - it's seen as stereotypical and lazy writing and people want to see minority characters given the same nuanced characterisation as anyone else.

noreallife

---

Strong, Independent Examples That Don't Need No Tropes! *snap*:

Advertising

• A fried chicken restaurant in Philadelphia invokes this trope by having the cashier be a sassy Black lady who'll insult you if you take too long in ordering, amongst other things. The place has loyal customers, and tourists go just for the experience.
• Implied in a commercial for Little Caesar's, where an off-camera woman (probably the one facing away from the camera) certainly has the right accent and attitude.
  Man: No calling... no waiting...? THERE'S NO RULES! [starts taking off shirt]
  Offscreen Sassy Black Woman: Put your shirt back on!
  Man: [backpedaling] THERE'S ONE RULE!

Anime & Manga

• Chouchou, Chouji's and Karui's daughter, from Naruto and Boruto. She's half-Ambiguously Brown, Fat and Proud, and quite sassy.
• Being essentially Afro-Brazilian, Michiko Malandro from Michiko & Hatchin is both this and a Spicy Latina. She's very Hot-Blooded and sarcastic.

Comic Books

• Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller.
  Amanda Waller: [While threatening murderous convicts to back down] I am fat, Black, and menopausal. You do NOT want to mess with me!
• Vixen, even on her worst days is a sassy, level-headed woman. Which led to interesting verbal conflicts with Amanda Waller, noted above, when they bickered at the time Vixen served in her Suicide Squad.
• Black Panther:
  • One of Black Panther's Dora Milaje (personal bodyguards) was a Sassy Black Woman, introduced giving The Hulk a Character Filibuster about social injustice.
• Misty Knight, mainly because of her no nonsense attitude.
• In the Anvilicious Batman: Seduction of the Gun one of the kids Tim befriends at the school he's infiltrating is a sassy African American girl who loves dance.
• Aisha Campbell is always right. Disagree with her at your own risk.

Comic Strips

• Eve Sisulu of Madam And Eve plays this trope quietly, serving up her sass through small acts of rebellion and wry expressions.

Fan Works

• Big Biz from We Can Be Heroes! (Steven Universe) is the Gem equivalent to one, albeit far more of a cool-headed Deadpan Snarker than outright fiery and sassy. She does have her moments though, usually when her Berserk Button regarding the lives lost in the Homeworld/Nova Veluti war is pressed.

Films — Animation

• Eema the Styracosaurus from Dinosaur, right down to her accent (compare hers to that of Baylene's, who is supposed to be British).
• Honey, Frozone's wife from The Incredibles, and its sequel.
  Honey: Uh-uh! Don't you think about running off doing no derrin'-do. We've been planning this dinner for two months!
  Frozone: The public is in danger!
  Honey: My evening's in danger!
  Frozone: You tell me where my suit is, woman! We are talking about the greater good!
  Honey: 'Greater good'? I am your wife! I'm the greatest good you're ever gonna get!
• Big Mama was an owl version of this in The Fox and the Hound. It helps that she was voiced by Pearl Bailey.
• The Muses in Hercules fit this trope: especially Thalia, the short comic relief.
• Rita the Afghan hound from Oliver & Company.
• The female cop from ParaNorman. Salma could count too, but her sassiness mostly comes from her Insufferable Genius tendencies.
• The Princess and the Frog:
  • Both played straight and inverted with Tiana. While also a Nice Girl and an Only Sane Woman, Tiana can be very sassy sometimes.
  • While Eudora is a Nice Girl just like her daughter, there's visible tone of sass in her voice when she tells Tiana that she wants grandkids during "Almost There".

Films — Live-Action

• Inverted in the start of Last Holiday. Georgia Byrd is shy and timid, and it's her petite (white) friend, Rochelle, that is constantly trying to push her out of her shell with antics like yelling her crush's name across the department store. Once Georgia's Character Development kicks in, though, this trope is in full swing.
• The 2008 drama Fireproof has an entire posse of these characters working at the hospital. Of course, they spend an inordinate amount of time gossiping about the (white) heroine's love life.
• Possible early example: Annie the maid in It's a Wonderful Life, who certainly wasn't shy about speaking her mind. "I heard it; it's about time one'a you lunkheads SAID it!"
• Mammy, as played by Hattie McDaniel, from Gone with the Wind. She does such an awesome job as Mammy that she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year. What a character.
• Hattie McDaniel reprised that exact role for Song of the South.
• Jackie Brown, by Quentin Tarantino. The film is a throwback to movies like Coffy and Foxy Brown and also stars Pam Grier as the epononymous Jackie Brown.
• Rosario Dawson has been called by some the Y-Generation's Pam Grier.
• An odd variation, in Psycho Beach Party Chicklet's second Split Personality is one of these... even though Chicklet is a white surfer chick.
• D.E.B.S. has the team's leader Max.
  Max: Who's your best friend?
  Amy: You are my best friend.
  Max: And what did I say to you the very first day at the Academy?
  Amy: That's my bunk, bitch.
• Maggie from Thir13en Ghosts, who spends most of the film being a complaining and ineffectual baby sitter but accidentally saves the day in the end.
• Trixie's maid Imogene in Paper Moon is a subdued example; while she won't sass Miss Trixie to her face, she doesn't hesitate to perform small acts of subversion, such as recklessly tossing the bags right after Trixie warns her to be gentle with them.
• Ghostbusters (2016): The trailers suggest Patty Tolan (played by comedian Leslie Jones) is one of these. This didn't go down too well — the Unfortunate Implications of having the three white actors play highly qualified scientists and making the sole Black character this lazy stereotype caused a backlash before the film was even released. Thankfully, it turned out to be an example of Never Trust a Trailer. Patty isn't much snarkier than the other characters, and her encyclopedic knowledge of New York landmarks is invaluable when ghosts are running around, allowing her to become the Ghostbusters' resident Haunted House Historian.
• Dina from Girls Trip comes off as opinionated and loud most of the time. Of course since the other three protagonists are Black women themselves, it's a marginal example.
• The Ladykillers (2004): Mrs. Munson exemplifies the "Southern, Christian, Colored Old Lady (Who Don't Take No Lip From Anybody)" version of the trope, proving more than enough of a bother for the casino thieves operating under her nose out of her basement. That said, she's clearly a goodhearted, albeit eccentric person.
• The Butchers has Auntie May, who takes guff from no one, even if they are a resurrected serial killer. And she is prepared to go one on one against the Zodiac Killer if she has to.
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes: Investigating a stolen bust of Napoleon, and a murder, Holmes and Watson visit Burrows Bordello, run by sassy Black woman Mrs. Burrows. Initially assuming they are reporters, she delivers a long spiel about how she doesn't have time to indulge them, before Holmes manages to get a word in edgeways to tell her they are not reporters.
• Linda in Varsity Blood. is a teen version. The only Black girl on the cheerleading team, she has an 'in-your-face' and 'take-no-shit' attitude, and prides herself on being 'urban', despite living in a hick town in the middle of nowhere.
• Antebellum: Veronica's friend Dawn has a 'take no shit' attitude and has no issue with taking task a restaurant hostess who tries to seat them at the worst table because they are Black.

Literature

• Lula in the Stephanie Plum novels is a fellow bounty hunter. She's a larger woman who wears tight, brightly coloured spandex, and tends to provide running commentary on what's going on. Her attitude can annoy Stephanie at times, but she's always there when the chips are down.
• Older Than Print: Perhaps the most unlikely example of this is the eponymous Brunhild the Moor, official prosecuting attorney for the goddess Venus, in a 15th century German poem, Die Mörin, who spends most of the poem shamelessly abusing the author-hero, Hermann von Sachsenheim.
• Ray Epps' wife in the novelization of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen fits this. She managed to get the good guys a piece of very vital, hard-to-relay-without-getting-caught information under the guise of wanting her husband to pay for plastic surgery.
• Kyra Davies from the Allys World series fits the trope, but is portrayed almost unwaveringly positively.
• Ardelia Mapp: Clarice's roommate at the FBI Academy in The Silence of the Lambs

Live-Action TV

• The Jeffersons: Florence Johnston (Marla Gibbs), who was outspoken and not afraid to speak her mind ... especially to her boss, George. Much of the humor came from the chemistry between Sherman Hemsley and Gibbs. To a lesser extent, Louise (Isabel Sanford) also stood her ground, particularly to George.
• Rebecca De Mornay on Seinfeld. Her threats are played for comedy.
• Saturday Night Live:
  • A skit about The View where "Barbara Walters" was calling out all the stereotypes that the hosts fit into. Star Jones was "a sassy Black woman like I've seen on TV."
  • Leslie Jones, who joined the cast in Season 40, seems prone to playing this. One sketch features her as the trash-talking manager of a Sprint store, and Louis C.K. as an employee she catches mocking her. The employee tries to keep his job by pretending that he always talks like that. After he keeps this front for six years, the store manager confesses to him that she's not really that sassy, but put on an act to pass the interview. The employee proceeds to confess that he doesn't really talk like a sassy Black woman, either. The store manager then reveals that she really is a sassy Black woman, and since the employee confirmed her suspicions that he was only mocking her, she boots him from her store.
• 3rd Rock from the Sun further combines this with Sassy Secretary, and Nina is the result.
• Psych has Marlowe’s former cellmate/maid of honor, Big Wendy. She drags the reluctant bridesmaids out to party hard, speaks in a stereotypically “sassy” manner, and is violent when angered (which is what landed her in jail in the first place).
• Noah's Arc: Similar to the Lafayette example above, the feminine, outspoken, sassy Alex fits the trope flawlessly.
• In Ugly Betty, Ignacio's case worker is a sassy Black woman who falls in love with him, much to his chagrin.
• Harriette Winslow, the elevator operator, in Perfect Strangers. Family Matters was originally supposed to be a show centering on her, since she was a particularly popular Sassy Black Woman. It didn't work. Seems to be a family trait, because both Estelle Winslow ("Mama" Winslow) and Laura are textbook examples of the Sassy Black Woman Syndrome.
• Nurse Laverne Roberts of Scrubs. (mmmmmmmhmm!) Invoked and discussed in "My Best Friend's Mistake" when Carla and Laverne lecture J.D. on why he is not allowed to give attitude.
  Carla: First, you do the head, then you do the finger, then you talk through the nose...and then you give a lot of attitude. That's how it works. But if you're not from there, you don't understand, so I'm not gonna even 'axe' you-
• Rochelle, the mom, from Everybody Hates Chris. Tichina Arnold's character on Martin was pretty much the same.
• Heylia in Weeds. One episode begins with her busting Conrad's balls about something and segues directly into Nancy lecturing Shane. It's made clear that Heylia gives Conrad less space than Nancy gives Shane, even though Shane's eleven and Conrad's a grown man.
• Original Cindy on Dark Angel.
• The Chief from Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego is a non-Jive Turkey-ing version of this. Lynne Thigpen was good.
• Rosita from the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special "The Next Doctor".
  • Queen Nefertiti from "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" is a more regal example, but can hold her own with the Doctor and the Ponds in the banter department.
• Destiny in One Life to Live; one of the more positive examples as he was introduced as a Foil/girlfriend for Matthew just as he's going through a very grim plotline.
• Prosecutor Caroline Julian on Bones, in all her scene-stealing glory, is very much this.
• Mercedes, of Glee.
  Mercedes: Why does everyone assume I'm angry all the time? It's called being sassy.
• Two episodes of Frasier feature "Dr." Mary Thomas, initially hired as a part-time producer for Frasier's own show but whose witty interruptions, humorous asides and home-spun wisdom quickly come to dominate his show. Much mileage is wrought from Frasier's procrastination over putting a stop to this as he's terrified of being thought of as racist. Interestingly, off the air, she is perky and polite, so this is likely a persona she puts on to make the show more interesting (her "home-spun wisdom" is made up on the spot, and attributed to elderly relatives who don't exist).
• Clarice from Boston Legal - even though Clarice was just a persona (and costume) adopted by super-shy man Clarence, Clarice was pretty much a stereotype of a sassy black woman.
• Community:
  • Shirley flip-flops between this and overdosing on cute most of the time. Unlike most sassy black women, she's quite well-rounded (especially for a half-hour Sitcom). Referred to as such in S01 E22. "Oh No! Sassy Black Schmitty is out of the group."
    Dean: Shirley. The voice. Can you make it more... I thought it would be more sssss... what's another word that means more "happy threatening?"
    Shirley: [on Confession Cam, smiling] The word he's looking for is "sassy". [stops smiling] He better pray he don't find it.
  • Honestly, while she does have her moments of sassiness, mostly in the beginning of the first season, she's usually non-confrontational/passive-aggressive. Her defining traits are that of a Stepford Smiler well-trained in Passive-Aggressive Kombat with a Hair-Trigger Temper.
• Monk had Sharona get a friend from her creative writing class to replace her temporairly while she was suffering from a murderer's plot to make her think she was crazy.
• Basically everyone on Girlfriends at one time or another, but mostly Toni.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:
  • Aunt Viv, although more when she was played by Janet Hubert-Whitten than when she was played by Daphne Maxwell Reid.
  • Never as much as her sister Helen, played by Jenifer Lewis:
    Aunt Janice: [about her white fiancé] I guess I was hoping... no-one would notice?
    Aunt Helen: Honey, who'd you think you was bringin' him home to, Stevie Wonder?
• Roz of Night Court partially subverted this, being, basically the Scary Black Woman. She was more of a Deadpan Snarker, but could be quite sensitive and shy compared to Cloudcuckoolander Bull.
• From what little we see of Doakes' family (his mother and sisters) in the TV version of Dexter, they're all sassy.
• One of the earliest examples on TV was Geraldine Jones, a recurring character played by Flip Wilson (in drag) on his 1970s sketch comedy show. She originated the expression "What you see is what you get."
• Tasha Mack on The Game (2006). In a rare display on this trope, she's repeatedly called out and mocked for her behavior. Though everyone who does is only doing it in jest, there is at least one example of her sassyness causing her multi-episode relationship to fall out. Tasha Mack is easisly the most negative version of this trope there is. Not only is she loud, she's also negative, jeolous, profane, ignorant, racist, over bearing, and generally a Bitch, as stated above.
• Maxine, Khadijah, and Regine, from Living Single.
• The Black women on Reality Shows tend to be of this variety, especially those on MTV. Unfortunately, it's annoyingly hard to find Black female roommates/contestants who don't fit this stereotype.
  • Gladys from Road Rules: Latin America stands out in particular, as she was booted early in the show for fighting.
  • Alicia Calaway from Survivor is a notable example. This famous scene pretty much exemplifies her sassiness.
  • Other Survivor alums of note include Sherea of China, Ghandia of Thailand, Candace of Tocantins, Yasmin of Samoa, and three-time competitor Cirie, though Cirie tends to be portrayed more often as friendly and sweet but quippy than outright sassy, and is also given considerable character depth.
  • Naonka of Nicaragua is one of the extreme negative versions, having taken an instant and vocal (to the Confession Cam) dislike to Jud (dubbed "Fabio" by his tribe, a male Dumb Blonde but a nice guy) and Kelly (who had her leg amputated at birth).
  • Not every Black contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race is sassy, but there's at least one in each season who is ^note Except Season 6, where Vivacious was mostly good-natured and Trinity K. Bonet's sass was limited to her rivalry with Bianca Del Rio. One of the most memorable is Season 4's Lashauwn Beyond. She may have been eliminated in the second episode, but not before giving this now-classic line:
  "I'm not here to be best buddies, bitch! This is not RuPaul's Best Friend Race!"
• Mother and daughter Mary Lou and Ivy are both Sassy Black Women on Good Luck Charlie though Ivy has a bit of an edge on her mother since Mary Lou likes jigsaw puzzles and likes to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in German.
• Cheryl, Kenan's mother on Kenan & Kel is fairly mellow but she shows signs of this in the episode where Chris moves into the house.
• That's So Raven: Raven, though it got exaggerated when she guest starred on The Suite Life as the same character. Loca from Alana's Girl Posse manages to be both this and a Brawn Hilda as well.
• Monday Mornings: One Patient of the Week from the pilot episode is an obese Black woman, and very outspoken, sometimes downright rude. It seems she's a hypochondriac and a chronic complainer, but Dr. Napur, who is a surgeon and doesn't really have to deal with this case, pushes doctors into other tests or looking for possibilities. The sassy patient was indeed seriously ill. She thanked Dr. Napur for saving her life before the surgery, but was as outspoken and rude-ish as ever.
• Belma Eugene Buttons and Tovah McQueen in the "Reality Check" sketch on MADtv (1995).
• Liberty Washington from My Name Is Earl. Justified, as she is an Expy of her half-sister Joy. Liberty also exploits the trope: she is an aspiring pro-wrestler, and uses the trope as part of her Kayfabe persona. (Earl is helping Randy to rehearse his lines by reading off Liberty's lines.)
  • Earlier, one of Joy's neighbors, who warned Joy about The Peeping Tom terrorizing the trailer park, and smashed her potted fern on Donny's head when he was mistaken for the culprit.
• On Blue Bloods, Danny Reagan's replacement supervisor (after Sgt. Gormley is promoted to a position in Frank's office) at the 54th Precinct Detective Squad is one of these in the form of Lt. Dee Ann Carver, played by LaTanya Richardson.
• The Mr. Potato Head Show: Given her voice and personality, Queenie Sweet Potato comes across this way, though she's an anthropomorphic yam.
• In Cape Town, Betsy, the office worker at the precinct, chews out Snook after his incredulous question whether a prostitute can be raped.
• Schitt's Creek has a deadpan version in Town Council member Ronnie Lee, whose patience for the Rose family's antics has been limited since the first season. In Season 5, she also develops into a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis for Patrick, though it's an affectionate rivalry.
• Ruby from Supernatural doesn't usually qualify, but she briefly possess an African-American maid in "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and her natural sass comes through. Hilarity Ensues.
• Yolanda the housekeeper from Young & Hungry. She is a large, black woman with a large amount of sass.
• Parodied without mercy on The Late Show with David Letterman with "Pat and Kenny Read Oprah Transcripts", in which the very white, very male Pat and Kenny do Dramatic Readings of Oprah's interviews with celebrities, which always start with Oprah saying "Girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl..."
• Comedy sketch show Three Non-Blondes presented a very British version on this theme.
• Squeak on The Wire.
• High Fidelity: Cherise embodies this. She's black, loud, outspoken and very forward, to the point of telling strangers off quite frequently.

Music

• The band role of Scary Spice aka. Mel B of the Spice Girls.
• The Weather Girls, known for their hit song "It's Raining Men".
• Lyn Inaizumi of Persona 5 fame is often mistaken for this due to her very powerful, jazzy voice. If you look up a video of her performing live on YouTube, a lot of the comments will exclaim that they thought she was Black.

Professional Wrestling

• Jacqueline Moore, when she actually spoke, managed the cigar smoking, beer chugging, poker playing APA and joined in just as well. In TNA she was also with their carbon copies Beer Money Inc.
• Jazz, who was inspired to become a wrestler after watching Jacqueline and was just as hammy and sassy.
• Sharmell Huffman, Booker T's wife, was this in her initial face persona. "Can you dig it, sucka" sounded so much better when coming out of her mouth. This made it all the funnier when, after Booker became King of the Ring, the two of them tried to pass themselves as Upper Class Twits.
• Shelton's momma. She was pretty subdued when WWE showed vintages of Shelton Benjamin's past growing up in a crime ridden area and his All American victories wrestling in the NCAA but when she became an onscreen "character" in 2005, she was loud, boastful and constantly brow beat Shelton for all his shortcomings.
• "The Queen Of Philly" Sienna Duvall, or back when she was really high on herself, Simply Divine. She loves her voice almost as much as she loves beating "divas" so expect to hear a lot of it.
• Amazing Kong is silent more often than not in Ring of Honor, TNA and WSU, for sample. In many other promotions she only spoke Japanese. Her first and especially her HUSTLE gimmick were just goofy, but sometimes, such as in NWA\Zero 1, she was very much this trope, even starting a political campaign to get an NWA World Heavyweight Title shot, arguing that being a woman was the only reason she wasn't immediately considered. Her sassy Black woman side came back out in SHINE after she saw Jazz get screwed out of a SHIMMER title match.
• Naomi Night in WWE's FCW revival. On NXT season 3 she went so far as to call out Michael Cole. On Total Divas, she fits the bill of the Only Sane Man variant - as the most level-headed member of the cast.
• Black Rose in the WWC, during 2010 with Los Fugitivos De La Calle anyway. Since being hand picked by Vinny Vice in the Pro Wrestling Syndicate La Rosa Negra showed heavy shades of it, having a put down or quip for almost anything that comes up, which at times have also been seen in her NWA run.
• Epiphany was more of a cackling brute, condescending bully in Ohio Valley Wrestling or a no nonsense wrestler after a Heel–Face Turn, but became a straight as imaginable example whenever she had to deal with the antics of her boyfriend, "white kryptonite" Eddie Diamond, in public.
• Layla was occasionally portrayed as this, although not often. Firstly due to her being Moroccan and Spanish (not to mention English) and secondly due to her finding more affinity as a hammy ditz.
• Nina Monet was initially a sweet Georgia peach, but a combination of getting knocked around in a dangerous business, and spending too much time in New Jersey changed her into a brasher, more confrontational and more sarcastic woman. In LLF she turned another sweet type, "Superhero" Aja Perera, into one too, becoming their first successful use of Foreign Wrestling Heel since American Angel in the process. When Monet and most persistent rival Dementia D'Rose put their differences aside for the Sparkle showcase, she also caused some of Rose's sass, which had largely been lost as she slowly became a knife user, to come back.
• Sasha Banks nearly played this - if a leaked vignette from a promo class is anything to go by. She spoke in a stereotypical sassy ghetto accent and had tacky jewellery. While she did turn heel on TV, she played a Beta Bitch to Summer Rae and eventually evolved into someone who was ruthless and spiteful as opposed to sassy.

Radio

• The Kevin And Bean Show has Ralph Garmin playing a recurring character called Laquisha, a sassy, middle-aged Black woman who reviews reality television shows. She basically expresses whatever Ralph's actual opinions are on the show, skewering the banal production and idiotic people, but with a funny voice.

Theatre

• Bloody Mary from South Pacific is an example of this trope before it became popular. She speaks in You No Take Candle, but she's very spunky! The character is supposed to be Polynesian rather than "Black", but the role is often given to an African-American actress because in the US at least those are easier to come by.
• Queenie from Show Boat, originally portrayed in Blackface.
• Maria from Porgy and Bess.
• Little Shop of Horrors has three of them, Crystal, Ronnette, and Chiffon, who serve as the show's Greek Chorus.
• Sophia from The Color Purple. She even has a song titled "Hell No!"
• Sister Chantelle from Bare: A Pop Opera The Virgin Mary who is also portrayed by her is played as this as well.
• In Shrek: The Musical, Dragon's singing voice often sounds like one.
• Shucked: Lulu, at least as portrayed by Alex Newell. She's a large black woman who owns her sexuality and can seem like the Only Sane Woman.

Video Games

• Action Girlz Racing has one, called Latisha. "Move ovah, sista", indeed.
• In Baten Kaitos Origins Half of Guillo's voice is composed of one, the other half being a Samuel L. Jackson sound-alike. This works rather well for Guillo's near constant snark.
• Civilization VI has a couple of female African queens who lean into the stereotype with their animation quotes, though as royalty they keep it classy.
  Amanitore: (upon having war declared upon her) As predicted, you know only how to take. Come, then — choose the manner of your defeat.
  Nzinga Mbande: (first meeting with player) I am Queen Nzinga. Please sit anywhere.^note This is a Historical In-Joke from her first meeting with the Portuguese governor of Luanda — she was not given a chair to sit on but only a floor mat like a servant, so she had one of her own servants get on his hands and knees and sat on his back so that she could speak eye-to-eye with rhe governor.
• Taye and her sister Li'l T from Dance Central and its sequels.
  Taye: A'ight, whatevah. But ours was better.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream has Ellen, whose sassy vernacular creates considerable cognitive dissonance in an incredibly bleak game about the end of the world. When confronted with a disembodied jumpsuit taking on the identity of her former rapist, Ellen calls him a "muthuh" and punches him out, to considerable Narm effect.
• Marz in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is Black and was cocky and bossy as a child, but she grows out of it as she takes on the leadership role in her teen years.
• Downplayed with Rochelle in Left 4 Dead 2, who's only really sassy if provoked. Normally she acts sisterly or, if things aren't going her way, low-key sarcastic.
• Jade from Mortal Kombat can be a variation of this, especially in the ninth installment.
  • Jacqui Briggs is practically made of sass.
• Sagitta Weinberg/Cheiron Archer from Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love can be this at times.
• ToeJam & Earl III features Latisha, who's a Sassy... Blue Alien, which is close enough, since she's from a planet whose hat is Funk/Hip-Hop culture.
• The Walking Dead (Telltale) features Clementine, who gives a tremendous amount of snarky responses in Season 2, and she only gets more sassy and hotheaded as she grows older.

Web Animation

• Keisha Fabo: Keisha Fabo and Breadquanda are incredibly sassy.
• Strong Sad assumes the role of one in Strong Bad Email #189, "pet show", while he's brushing The Cheat. Complete with declarative finger and "mm-hmm"!

Webcomics

• Tigerlily Jones in Skin Horse. "When she goes into the truck, she's in Institute Grey. We let her out, she's Foxy Brown. We have no idea how."
• Lenora of Black Adventures managed to scold a legendary Pokémon into a Heel–Face Turn.
• Mammy Serol of End Of Infinity.

Web Original

• Parodied by web-comedian Pia Glenn in this skit.
• The "Oh, hell no!" lady, a Running Gag in Smosh's If Movies Were Real 2.
• Discussed on the ''Stereotypology'' series from Stuff Your Mom Never Told You, this trope is discussed as very inconvenient at the least at when it comes to Black women getting to be taken seriously and the label is often slapped on any Black woman, whether fictional or real.
• This Buzzfeed article discusses why there isn't such a thing as a Sassy White Woman, especially since white (and one half Puerto Rican) female characters are portrayed with full characters and described with adjectives as: "funny", "powerful", "brilliant", "clever", "subtle", "passionate", "likable", "enthusastic", "sarcastic", "vulnerable", "feminist", and "snarky".
• Escape the Night has GloZell. She is the biggest source of comic relief in the first half of the show.
• Fight of the Living Dead's Shanna is basically GloZell, but without her rude behaviour.

Western Animation

• Cake the cat, Jake's Distaff Counterpart in the Fionna and Cake episodes of Adventure Time. Despite, ironically, being a white cat, it's rather obvious from her voice and mannerisms that she's meant to be this trope.
• Libby from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, who's actually the Token Black Friend of the Alpha Bitch, Cindy Vortex.
• American Dad!:
  • Roger pretends to be one in an episode where he and Francine spy on Stan's mom while she's out on a date (and this persona apparently works as a teacher of some kind, because Roger mentions grading term papers):
    Roger: What's goin' on? I can't hardly see! Hey Easter Island, move your fat head!
  • He gets in it with Francine and Hayley in one episode. "You do NOT tell me how to raise my child!"
  • They made fun of the sassy Black woman in the workplace stereotype. An overweight Black woman named Lorraine, displays all the negative stereotypes in an extreme sense, resulting her throwing acid in Francine's face.
• Trixie in American Dragon: Jake Long.^note Odd bit of background on this one: the executives tried to tone her down, but most of her characterization came from her voice actress, Miss Kittie. The execs didn't have the sheer Balzac it took to ask a Black woman to act less like herself to her face, and dropped the issue.
• Lana Kane of Archer Sassy? Yup. Black-ish? Yuup. Can snap your neck with her man hands? Yuuuuuup!
• Lampshaded in one episode of Batman Beyond, Terry's best friend Max gets kidnapped by Kobra (no, not that Cobra). And Terry, in camouflage, overhears Max's kidnappers:
  Kobra Advisor: She's rude, she's sarcastic, and she has absolutely no respect.
  Terry: Gotta be Max.
• Big Mouth: The Hormone Monstress (AKA Connie) may not be as over the top as other examples on this list, but she will not hesitate to snap back or cause utter chaos when the situation demands. Appropriate for a being that embodies all things hormonal.

"That's right, Maury - I can't be tamed!"

• The Boondocks has covered this one with "Crazy Bitch"
• Tamika Jones from Class of 3000, who is also acknowledged by her classmates and teacher to be the toughest of the bunch, even if she can be a bit of a Jerkass.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh Five and her big sister, Cree. Both are voiced by Cree Summer.
• Bumblebee in DC Super Hero Girls is an inversion, being a Shrinking Violet.
• Foxxy Love on Drawn Together is all sass — and yet another Cree Summer voice role.
• Loretta Brown, Cleveland's deceased ex-wife on Family Guy. Also used for comedic effect in some of their one-shot bits. Peter even got into it at one point. Especially towards the end of her run on the show, Loretta often came across as more "bitchy" or "surly" than "sassy". Donna (Tubbs) Brown, Cleveland's new wife on The Cleveland Show, is a considerably better fit. (Donna's daughter Roberta also fits the trope sometimes, but not always.) Donna justifies her behaviour, explaining that the circumstances of her life made this an inevitability.
• Gravity Falls magically juxtaposes 70-year-old Grunkle Stan with the voice of one of these for a gag. Hilarity Ensues.
  Grunkle Stan: Where my girdle at?!
• Velvette from Hazbin Hotel is a dark-skinned Bad Influencer and a sassy Smug Snake with a whole Alto Villainess song based around her mouthing off to beings far stronger than she is.
• Aka Pella from Histeria! is younger than most examples, but she still has a tendency to make snippy remarks.
• Mark's first girlfriend Amber in Invincible (2021). An assertive Deadpan Snarker who in her first appearance defends Mark from the school bully with a Groin Attack, and later she even blackmails him into giving Mark her number for her.
• Jamal's little sister Polly in the Jamal the Funny Frog shorts from Oh Yeah! Cartoons may be a tadpole, but she definitely isn't above cracking wise to her older brother. She was also voiced by Black television host Kiki Shepard.
• Inverted with Shana from Jem. She's soft-spoken and shy.
• Monique in Kim Possible. More fun and less serious than Kim. She even sassed villains when she filled in as Ron's sidekick.
• Even though Witch Lezah on The Looney Tunes Show has green skin, she still has the mannerisms and personality of a sassy Black woman, right down to a Mammy Two-Shoes -esque voice.
• Bubbie in The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is the whale version of this, though primarily to Captain K'nuckles, whom she dislikes.
• Downplayed with Kira from Phantom Investigators. She can break out the sass in spades if properly motivated, but is otherwise more of a Deadpan Snarker than this trope.
• Phineas and Ferb: Downplayed with Holly. She has a few moments of snark throughout the series, but it isn't a front-and-center character trait.
• Most of the female characters in The PJs embody this trope, Bebe in particular.
• Suga Mama and Dijonay in The Proud Family. However, whereas Suga Mama can actually be likeable (though not so much when it comes to Oscar, her son), Dijonay is just loud, obnoxious, and rude, and almost always very unlikeable.
• Ms. Pancakes from an in-universe sitcom in Rick and Morty. Not only does she have loads of sass under her belt, the only thing she ever says is "You don't knooooooooow me."
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: April gets a Race Lift, becoming a sassy black teenager with an inner-city accent.
• Susie Carmichael from Rugrats and All Grown Up! sometimes slips into this, more often in the latter. However she's also portrayed as a Cool Big Sis and mentor to the younger characters, and is a positive foil to the brattier (and therefore sassier) Angelica. Cree Summer was even told to avoid making her too sassy, as they wanted her to sound well-spoken and intelligent.
• Sabrina: The Animated Series gives us Chloe, Sabrina's Token Black Friend. Depending on the Writer she'll either be more level-headed than Sabrina or Not So Above It All. When she's angry, the sass comes out full force — particularly when a spell causes Sabrina to have Brutal Honesty.
  Chloe: Crummy? Big butt? Uh-uh! Might I suggest when you get home that you take a looooong nap, grumpy!
• Cassidy Williams uses this as her act as Angel Dynamite in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
• Principal Sue Sezno in Sit Down, Shut Up is a bit of a toned down version of this, but she still fits.
• Lance gets one of these as a driving instructor in Sym-Bionic Titan when he is trying to get his license. Hilarity Ensues as he has to not only keep her happy, but deal with the gang leader harassing him in the middle of the test, then the Monster of the Week trying to kill them. However, she has nothing but praise when Lance manages to survive all this and keep her alive in doing so, and passes him.
• Mammy Two-Shoes of Tom and Jerry illustrates what this trope was like in the 1940's. Values Dissonance abound. In the shorts shown on TV now, they at least dub over her voice, making it more of a current example, just barely.
• Total Drama:
  • Leshawna. Her label is the "Sister with 'Tude". Her first appearance is a great example of the trope.
  • Stephanie from the Spin-Off Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race is another good example. She's basically Leshawna with a slimmer figure and a much worse attitude.
• Bumblebee from Teen Titans (2003) is immune to mind control because "There's not a man alive who can tell me what to do."
• In Craig of the Creek, Craig's mother, Nicole, occasionally acts like this, as does Craig's Aunt Kim.

---

(snap!) You GO, girl!

---