Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,951
edits
Black Best Friend: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (update links) |
No edit summary |
||
| (11 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 2:
[[File:stevenandalangc3.jpg|link=The Colbert Report|frame| "Can I keep him? I'll feed him!"]]
{{quote|''All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all my white friends have '''one''' black friend!''
|'''[[Chris Rock]]'''}}
▲{{quote|''All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all my white friends have '''one''' black friend!''|'''[[Chris Rock]]'''}}
"Some of my best friends are ''sassy'' black people!"
Line 14:
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* A rare anime example is Tapp Oceano from ''[[Metal Armor Dragonar]]''. In a strange twist, he is a rather grounded individual who came from a childhood of relative poverty living in New York, compared to his friends Kaine Wakaba, the somewhat overzealous hero who grew up in a strangely traditional Japanese village, and Light Newman, [[The Smart Guy]] who happens to be a certified British nobleman (he doesn't like to talk about it).
* Misa Hayase's [[Cool Big Sis]] Claudia LaSalle /Grant from [[Macross]] / [[Robotech]]. In [[Robotech]] continuity, there's also Dana Sterling's childhood friend (and Claudia's nephew), Bowie Grant.
Line 34 ⟶ 33:
* Machiste who, despite being king of his own land, spends most of his time as the loyal companion to Travis Morgan in ''[[The Warlord]]''.
* [[Captain America (comics)]] had the black hero, [[The Falcon]]. They were so tight in the 1970s that Cap's series was retitled as ''Captain America and the Falcon'' for years.
** As revealed by artist/writer [[John Byrne]] on his message board: It was the habit in the [Marvel] Office to refer to CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON as [https://web.archive.org/web/20110712123403/http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?34790-John-Byrne-Describes-Marvel-s-Casual-Racism-In-The-Seventies Captain America and the Fowl Coon].
** When Cap quit being Cap and a new one was appointed by the US government, the replacement John Walker, in that brief interlude before he started getting evil, also had a black best friend, Lemar Hoskins, who was given the costume of and codename of Bucky, Original Cap's [[World War Two]] sidekick. The comics people rapidly realized that there were [[Unfortunate Implications]], and in an unusual move [[Author's Saving Throw|addressed these within the comic]], as the Lemar explained to Walker that 'Bucky' was an unfortunate slang term for black men, and there was something demeaning about a grown man being named after a dead white teenager, so he'd like to pick a new codename. Walker agreed and Lemar became Battlestar.
* In the ''Mysti'' comic books, Mysti has a black best friend named Peaseblossom (though for the first few volumes, she is a white best friend).
Line 53 ⟶ 52:
* Brenda Meeks from the ''Scary Movie'' series is a send-up of this trope.
* In ''[[The Proposition]]'', the only cop other to be trusted by Cpt. Stanley is Jacko, an Australian Aborigine. On the other side of the law, Arthur Burns' right-hand man is another Aborigine named Two-Bob. {{spoiler|Two-Bob considers Jacko to be a sellout, and knifes him to death.}}
* The ''[[High School Musical]]'' TV and big screen movies have Chad as Troy's
* Gina, Honey's best friend in the movie ''Honey''.
* In ''[[District 9]]'', they are not exactly friends, but Wikus' black bureaucratic co-worker got along well enough with him. Furthermore, that co-worker is so inspired by Wikus' sacrifice that he investigated and exposed MNU's evil scientific experiments on the aliens to the world to strike his own blow and willingly pays the price doing so.
Line 68 ⟶ 67:
* In one of the earliest examples in film, Sam is this to Rick in ''[[Casablanca]]''.
* A rare inversion in [[Independence Day]]. The hero is a black fighter pilot and his white best friend is the wise-cracking comic relief who's also one of the first to die.
* In the film ''[[Chronicle]]'', Steve is the
Line 74 ⟶ 73:
* Fred and George from ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' have Lee Jordan.
** Blaise Zabini is indicated to be the only person that Draco respects/sees as an equal. Subverting the usual implication of the character being broad-minded, both Draco and Blaise are pretty big ''[[Fantastic Racism|fantastic racists]]''.
* ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]'' features ''two'' of
* The ''[[Stephanie Plum]]'' novels have Stephanie teamed with black ex-hooker Lula.
* Somewhat parodied in the ''[[Johnny Maxwell Trilogy]]'' with Yo-less, who is "technically black".
Line 95 ⟶ 94:
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Francie, Sydney Bristow's best friend, on ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]''. She had her own plot about a cheating fiance that only served to show Sydney had a normal non-spy-related friend. In the second season, she had a restaurant startup subplot, and even interacted with people Sydney knew outside of their mutual friend Will. But then, she ends up killed and replaced by [[Doppelganger|someone who's been genetically altered to look like her]].
* ''[[Ally McBeal]]'': Renee, until they [[Brother Chuck
* Wes and Gunn on ''[[Angel]]'' for a while.
* This was actually the ''plot'', or at least part of it, of the Lifetime original series ''Any Day Now''. Despite their racial differences, Mary Elizabeth (Annie Potts) and Renee (Lorraise Toussaint) became best friends while growing up in 1960's Alabama, and the show jumped between their present-day lives and flashbacks to their childhoods.
*
** Tigh to Adama
** Boomer to Apollo and Starbuck
Line 123 ⟶ 122:
** And considering that the woman that Carter is in love with is black, uh, yeah. Henry's as far from a token as can be.
* Not a perfect example, but the trope is played for laughs in ''[[Father Ted]]'' where, in an attempt to appeal to the Chinese people of Craggy Island when they all start to believe he is a racist, Ted organizes an event to celebrate their culture. A slide-show is the main event where, before he gets to a cringe-worthy display of examples of "Chinese culture" (including Ted claiming that you can see the Great Wall of China "from anywhere in the world" and Mr. Miyagi) he shows a picture of himself with his arm around a black man and the pair smiling. To this he says "I forget his name now, but I got on very well with him..." before moving on.
** [[Zero Punctuation]] did the exact same joke in his review over [[
* ''[[Felicity]]'': Elena Tyler
* Nick on the 2007 ''[[Flash Gordon (TV series)|Flash Gordon]]'', though thus far he's functioned mostly as a [[Butt Monkey]].
Line 130 ⟶ 129:
* In ''[[Glee]]'', Mercedes is this to Kurt.
* Ivy Wentz on ''[[Good Luck Charlie]]'' is Teddy's [[Recursion|black best friend]]. Also P.J.'s best friend Emmett is [[Black and Nerdy]].
* Averted in ''[[Homicide: Life
* ''Honest'' {{spoiler|features Reza, a ''South Asian'' Best Friend. Subverted in that he's not all that smart.}}
* [[How I Met Your Mother]]: Lily's best friend from high school in the episode "Sand Castles in the Sand".
** Her friend also has an extremely thick, stereotypical "black" accent...and when Lily is talking to her, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|so does she]]. At one point, Lily leaves her friend alone with the main cast, and it turns out she doesn't normally have that accent
* Deacon on ''[[The King of Queens]]''.
* Satirized in ''[[The L.A. Complex]]'' when Raquel goes out for the role of the protagonist's best friend in a new TV show and is told that they're looking for a
* On ''[[Las Vegas]]'', we have Mike Cannon, who is pretty much cool personified, and frequently chases tail. [[Hollywood Nerd|He's also an MIT graduate, idolizes Stephen Hawking, and is one of the smartest guys on the show]]. (James Lesure and Josh Duhamel are actually real-life friends.) There's also Detta, who was Delinda's British BBF, and Sam Marquez, a sassy Hispanic woman(And I use the word "sassy" generously).
* Ramona Platt in ''[[Less Than Perfect]]''.
* ''[[The Walking Dead]]'': Beth becomes friends with Noah when she's sent to Grady Memorial Hospital. Unlike other examples, they're not the same gender. She doesn't take it well when she finds out Dawn beat him up.
* Malcolm's best friend in ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' is Stevie, who is also [[Black and Nerdy]].
* For the first eight or so seasons of ''[[Married... with Children]]'', Al worked alone in the shoe store. Starting in season 9, his friend and fellow NO-MAAMer Griff became his co-worker. In many respects, Griff was a black version of Al, with a bad car and an even worse job, their major difference being that Griff was divorced. Al would probably consider him better off, but as Griff told Bud in one episode, ''she got the car, the dog and the money. I got the right to remain silent.''
Line 145:
* The ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' episode that features the movie ''Werewolf'' mocks this when the only black person in the film, seen for a few seconds, is introduced at a party as "my good friend Elgin."
{{quote|Mike: Elgin is my ''black'' friend.}}
* ''[[Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide]]'' has Simon [[Only Known by Their Nickname|'Cookie']] Cook, who is Ned's '''nerdy''' black best friend. Should be noted that a lot of kids' shows tend to have this geeky [[Family Matters|Urkel]] type of black friend. Other examples include Tucker from [[Danny Phantom]] or AJ from [[Fairly Oddparents]].
* Barb, from ''[[The New Adventures of Old Christine]]'' is this, and it's constantly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Christine.
* One of Michael Scott's quirks from the US version of ''[[The Office]]'' is his bizarre belief, [[Selective Obliviousness|in the face of all evidence]], that sales rep Stanley Hudson is a stereotypical "sassy black mentor" and that Stanley is therefore one of his best friends from work (since Michael is, of course, the protagonist of his little pop-culture fantasy world). Michael has a magical ability to completely ignore all of Stanley's real personality traits while imagining him as a
** Bizarrely, this is why Michael, despite his blatant racism, seems to genuinely like Stanley to the point of being willing to fight Corporate to keep him as an employee, even though everyone else sees Stanley as one of the less likable (or even memorable) people there, and Stanley himself has nothing but disdain for everyone around him.
** The thing about Michael is, he's not a racist out of
* The titular Jimmy of ''[[Out of Jimmy's Head]]'' has a
* Gus on ''[[Psych]]'', though he exerts a lot of effort into ''not'' getting involved in Shawn's latest case. He's also probably a subversion, considering his general dorkiness, especially when compared to Shawn. What's his normal day-job when he's not helping Shawn solve crimes? He's a [[Salaryman|pharmaceutical sales rep]].
* ''[[Rita Rocks]]'': Patti
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'': Dreama from (Also a [[Token Black]].)
* Spoofed in ''[[The Sarah Silverman Program]]'' episode "Batteries" when Sarah meets God depicted as an African-American man and she asks him "Are you God's black friend?"
* ''[[Scrubs]]'': Parodied with J.D. and Turk. J.D. is a total dork whose best friend is a black guy, but Turk is only slightly less, if not ''equally'', dorky despite also possessing several jock characteristics. Generally said, [[Scrubs]] is one of the rare shows that handles the topic "racism" openly, and isn't afraid to do so. Examples are jokes about the white, [[
* Alex Mack from ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]'' has Raymond as her black best friend.
* Parodied in an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'' in which George offends his black boss when he says he resembled Sugar Ray Leonard(He really did). He goes as far as trying to find any black person he's had contact with recently to prove to his boss he's not a racist. He ends up inviting Jerry's black <s>plumber</s> exterminator to a dinner with his boss and pretending they're old high school buddies. Obviously, it blows up in his face.
Line 164:
** Unlike everyone else Pete never had a place (barn, talon, torch office, kitchen) and his only problem was living in Clark's shadow so he left for good reason.
* The worst offender is the extremely WASPy and nationalist and hateful family from ''[[Small Wonder]]'' where the jerkass protagonist kid has a black best friend in Jerry.
* La Donna Frediricks of ''Square Pegs'' was valley girl Jennifer Di Nuccio's best friend and shared the "most popular girl" mantle with her. In spite of her cliché sassy blackness, she thankfully never fell prey to the more boring [[Positive Discrimination]] laws of the day that would've castrated her [[Alpha Bitch|Mean Girl]] evil. While proving marginally smarter and more accomplished than the other popular kids, La Donna was a bully at heart, and was just as cruel, selfish, and shallow as the rest of her
* Huggy Bear to ''[[Starsky and Hutch (TV series)|Starsky and Hutch]]''.
* ''Summerland''; had Susannah, the black best friend of Ava.
Line 170:
* ''[[That's So Raven]]'': [[Inverted]] with Chelsea who's the [[Token White|Best White Friend]]
* Lampshaded in ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]''. When Liz tries to make friends with Tracey's wife, Angie, she asks "Are you looking for a sassy black friend?" When Liz stumbles for words, Angie continues: "Because you just found one, girlfriend!"
* Kenny on ''[['Til Death]]''.
* Jay Leno of [[The Tonight Show]] regularly exchanged banter with Kevin Eubanks.
** Eubanks was the replacement for original music director Branford Marsalis. The awkward and vaguely hostile relationship between Marsalis and Leno subverted this trope pretty effectively.
Line 185:
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* Marcus in ''[[FoxTrot]]'' is both Jason's
* Franklin in ''[[Peanuts]]'', although he's depicted as Shermy's best friend, rather than the protagonist Charlie Brown's.
** Originally, Franklin was a kid from the next neighborhood over who apparently knew Charlie Brown from school and was visiting the Peanuts Gang. He proceeded to become the [[Only Sane Man]] when he realized that all the kids in the neighborhood were so eccentric that he could never possibly be friends with them. (He obviously changed his mind later, though.)
Line 201:
* Barret from [[Final Fantasy VII]] is arguably this to Cloud. You can see them having a man-talk moment if you choose him for the tram ride cut-scene.
* Big Bo to Dan Marshall in ''[[Binary Domain]]''.
* Nakili Abuto in the ''[[Purple Moon]]'' [[The Verse|verse]] hits every note of this, save for not being ''your'' best
* 8-Ball, Lance Vance, and Little Jacob in ''Grand Theft Auto''. 8-Ball is probably the least stereotypical of the three, unfortunate since he's the oldest character (they first appear in GTAIII, Vice City, and GTAIV respectively).
** Little Jacob is Jamaican, so whilst he is black he comes from a totally different culture to a black American.
Line 209:
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Alice in ''[[Loserz]]'' is a Black Girlfriend. See [https://web.archive.org/web/20101213163208/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/277 this] strip.
* [[Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff|intoducing, the new friend................]] [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/?cid=007.jpg GEROMY]
* Jivin in ''[[Asperchu]]''.
Line 230:
* Monique from ''[[Kim Possible]]''.
* Libby Folfax from ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius]]'' to Cindy Vortex.
* And let's not even get started with Trixie of ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]''. Hell, if the race wasn't off, Jake himself would qualify.
* All-around cool kid Gerald Johanssen in ''[[Hey Arnold!]]''. Though unlike most examples, it didn't [[Flanderization|consume]] his entire character.
** Arguably, Nadine counts too as she's Rhonda's best friend.
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' has this as part of a typical [[Token Trio]] set-up; Tucker is a Techno-Geek, and they're all [[Cool Loser
* ''[[Daria]]'' subverts this a bit too. Although Daria gets along better with the two major black kids, Jodie and Mack, than almost anyone else besides Jane, they are much more mainstream than the lead characters, although they envy Daria and Jane's iconoclastic manner.
** They've also served as the [[Only Sane Man|Only Sane Couple]], superseding even Daria Heroine herself. In one episode, Daria [[What the Hell, Hero?|is somewhat taken aback]] when Jodie uses her Dad's reputation to complete an economics assignment. {{spoiler|Daria is later forced to admit that [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|business people use the same tactics in real life]], and lets Jodie of the hook.}}
* Abby in ''[[The Replacements]]''.
* Possibly parodied with ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
** His relatives are even worse. His dad is even more of a nerd then he, but fails to realize it. His Grandma is a Sassy Black Woman who can out funk anyone. One of his Grandpas is...well, a senile old Blacula. His other Grandpa is a Jewish Mummy which doesn't quite work out. His mom is a hideous corpse mummy, about which nobody needs to ask any questions.
* Terry McGinnis' friend Max in ''[[Batman Beyond]]'', one of the few besides him and Old Man Wayne who know his secret identity.
Line 249:
** [[Word of Gay|And gay.]]
* [[Alpha Bitch|Miranda]] on ''[[As Told by Ginger]]'' is Courtney's best friend. Miranda is extremely popular and generally very cool.
* AJ on ''[[The Fairly
** AJ is definitely the smartest both academically (he gets LOTS of A's while Timmy and Chester pretty much fail exclusively) and in terms of common sense, though his attempts to get Timmy to not make ridiculously bad decisions don't really work.
* Quincy from ''[[My Dad the Rock Star]]'' is this to the male lead Willy. Unique in that he is not portrayed as cooler than the already nerdy-looking Willy. In fact, he's a subverted [[Jive Turkey]] who tries to talk in street slang and appear hip hop, but comes off as a clear poser to everyone else.
Line 257:
** [[Animals Hate Him|DJ]] to Geoff.
* In ''[[Stickin' Around]]'', Bradley is precisely this for Stacy.
* ''[[Fillmore!]]'': [[Averted Trope|Averted]]. Fillmore is the main character; Ingrid is ''his'' white (and female) best friend.
* In ''[[Futurama]]'''s [[Show Within a Show]] ''All My Circuits'', Calculon's best friend is a human - who doesn't have a name and is only known as "human friend." Similar in spirit.
* Despite the fact that Tiana is the heroine of [[The Princess and the Frog]], Charlotte is so spoiled that she gets all the fairy tale dresses she wants and when her seamstress shows up she brings her black little girl to play with Charlotte.
Line 269:
* A parody website called [http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/ Black People Love Us]. It goes on about how "well-liked [they are] by Black people," and hangin' out with their black friends.
* Devin Freidman wrote an article called "Will You Be My Black Friend?" on how he realized at a cocktail party that most of his friends were white. He tried to remedy this by putting an ad for himself on Craigslist for a black friend. Oprah's producing a movie with Chris Rock based on it.
* The recent [https://web.archive.org/web/20140325102202/http://www.racialicious.com/2009/10/16/im-not-a-racist-says-pastor-who-refuses-to-marry-interracial-couples/ case] of a justice of the peace in Louisiana who refuses to perform interracial marriages (out of concern, he says, that [[Barack Obama|mixed-race children have no real place in society]]). His justification has to be read to be believed:
{{quote|"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, '''they use my bathroom'''. I treat them just like everyone else."}}
* Chris Rock makes fun of this in one of his standups when he says "All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all my white friends have one black friend!"
** Also inverted and parodied in "How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police" with this advice: "Get A White Friend."
*** "A white friend could be the difference between a ticket--" [black driver is handed a ticket as white friend watches sympathetically; arrow caption says "Ticket"] "--and a bullet in the ass." [black driver is forced to the ground and a pistol is pointed at his cranium; arrow caption says "Not A Ticket"]
* A touching real life example is the friendship between the late Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, both football players. When Piccolo developed cancer and died, Sayers stood by him and
*
{{quote|''No,no,no,no, you misunderstand. Some of my best blacks are friends!''}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Characters As Device]]
[[Category:Older Than Radio]]
Line 285 ⟶ 286:
[[Category:Friendship Tropes]]
[[Category:Race Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||