Black Vikings: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

It is possible that when a Black Viking appears in film or TV, the character is not intended to be seen as the same race as the actor. The actor used might have simply been the best available for the role, and the writers are merely asking us to use our imagination to make the actor's physical appearance fit the character's. (This is actually standard doctrine for modern theatrical productions.) Whiteface would of course be unthinkable.

{{examples}}

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* ''A Kid in King Arthur's Court'' had black people fully integrated into a [[The Theme Park Version|Theme Park Version]] of [[King Arthur]]'s court with no explanation given whatsoever. Although considering the [[King Arthur]] we know is almost certainly a myth, we can excuse the writers for stretching reality a bit, considering that there's no history there to be true to.

* In the feature film adaption of ''[[Wild Wild West (Film)|Wild Wild West]]'', Will Smith, a black man, is cast as the protagonist, James West, a U.S. Army officer at the start of the film, notwithstanding the fact that at that time in US history there were no black army officers (''Wild Wild West'' is set in 1869; the first black U.S. Army officer, Henry O. Flipper, was commissioned on his graduation from West Point in 1877). This is probably excusable, considering that the movie also features [[Cattle Punk|a giant mechanical tarantula]].

* Averted and played straight at the same time in ''[[Black Knight]]''. When [[Martin Lawrence]] travels to medieval England and becomes a [[Fish Out of Temporal Water]], he is called a "Moor" in a despective tone and runs into conflict a few times because of his skin color. Yet when he arrives at the castle there is a black chambermaid there and nobody seem to care. {{spoiler|Somewhat subverted at the end, as it is revealed it was [[All Just a Dream]]}}.

* Eartha Kitt as Freya the Norn in ''[[Erik the Viking (Film)|Erik the Viking]]''. Her performance is so well done, though, that most people key to the fact that Eartha Kitt is a ''black'' woman playing a Norse soothsayer [[Fridge Logic|only after the movie is over]]. The fact that Eartha is [[But Not Too Black|Not Too Black]] also helps a little.

* ''[[The Mummy Trilogy (Film)|The Mummy Trilogy]]'' has a few [[Ancient Egypt|Ancient Egyptian]] played by white actors -- mostly avoided, but Nefertiti and the Pharaoh stand out.

* There's a whole [[Friendly Local Chinatown]] in ''[[Gangs of New York]]'', and half the story is set in a Chinese cathouse, which historians were quick to point out the Chinese population was nonexistent at the time.

* In ''[[Hoosiers (Film)|Hoosiers]]'', the state championship game features the Hickory Huskers playing the "David" role to the "Goliath" South Bend Central Bears. However, South Bend apparently toppled a few giants as well. Look at the South Bend bench and their section of the stands. Racially integrated basketball team, racially integrated cheerleader squad, black head coach(!), and all this happening not in 1960s New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, but in Indiana, in 1952.

== Live-Action TV ==

* In the 1997 Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Cinderella'' Cinderella was black (and played by Brandy) her stepmother was white, and the Philipino prince had a black mother and a white father. Very jarring.

** The episode "Human Nature", set in England just before World War One, averts this trope, as one of the students starts saying offensive things to Martha, and John Smith seems to find it utterly believable that Martha might not understand the concept of fiction. Smith's love interest understandably is rather incredulous when Martha claims to be a doctor, remarking that a ''woman'' doctor was conceivable but not "one of your colour" as said to Martha's face.

** The 2008 Christmas special had the Next Doctor have a black female companion, Rosita, in 1851. She gets treated like anyone else in the story except for two brief, almost missable, moments. The first is when the {{spoiler|villainess asks whether the Doctor "paid [her] to speak," which could be either a servitude reference or merely an implied suggestion that she thinks Rosita is a prostitute. The second is at the end when they live happily ever after and Jackson Lake makes a comment about her being his son's nursemaid.}}

* The viking helmet Flava Flav wore became grist for the mill in his [[Comedy Central]] roast.

* Both ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' and ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' showed black Greeks wandering about their various cities/towns/villages/what-have-you. Knowing the extent of the Mediterranean trade in the Antiquity, there was a slight possibility for Ethiopian, Nubian, or darker-skinned Egyptian people to settle in Greek lands, even more so in port cities, as traders, sailors, mercenaries or former slaves. However, their numbers could not be great. Given that both shows are filmed in New Zealand, whenever they needed "ethnic" mooks (for example, to represent Egyptians), they would usually cast Maori or other Pacific Islanders and hope that audiences percieved them as just being [[Ambiguously Brown]].

* On the ''[[MST3K]]'' episode "[[Warrior of the Lost World]]", the guys remark on how the [[Gang of Hats|gangs of hats]] include black Nazis and white ninjas.

* A sketch on the CBBC show ''[[Horrible Histories (TV)|Horrible Histories]]'' about Vikings actually featured a Black Viking as an extra. There was also a black pirate on Black Bart's ship.

* The [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/living/article7042984.ece "Ivory Bangle Lady"]; a high-status black woman who received a lavish burial in [[Oop North|4th century York]]. The ''Times'' states:

{{quote| Archaeologists have discovered that wealthy black Africans lived in Roman Britain in one of the country's earliest examples of multiculturalism. "Analysis... contradicts assumptions about the make-up of Roman-British populations as well as the view that African immigrants were of low status... The link between slavery and Africans is an early modern one. In the Roman world this simply was not the case. Slaves in Roman times could come from any area." ... African men had immigrated to Britain, invariably with the Roman Army, and had brought their wives and children. "We're looking at a population mix which is much closer to contemporary Britain than previous historians had suspected. [[Aluminium Christmas Trees|In the case of York, the Roman population may have had more diverse origins than the city has now."]]}}

* The thing is, back in those days, travellers from far-off lands were ''assumed'' to be exotic. So they'd be just as fascinated by one foreigner as another, regardless of where they're from; see [[City of Weirdos]].

* This effect is certainly older than the past two millennia, it's just hard to see clear examples after that long. When the armies of Alexander the Great marched across Central Asia, they buggered everything in sight and left garrisons and deserters in their wake, drawn from every corner of the conquest, but most have disappeared into the population at large since then. But high in the Hindu Kush mountains, there still exist tiny villages of almost pure-ethnic Greeks in isolated valleys, wholly integrated with local culture but still instantly recognizable. Journalists who've encountered them remark that, even 2300 years on, they look like Europeans doing a poor imitation of Afghans.

* DNA analysis has recently suggested that not one but four or five African and Indian groups may be (as they claim) Lost Tribes of Israel. Besides the famous Ethiopian and Ugandan Jews who got airlifted by Israel in the 70s, a full-blown ''tribe'' in Tanzania recently got themselves tested to prove their claim that the tribe itself were a lost tribe of Hebrews, since the Roman era. (Being cut off, they didn't know any other Jews existed, so they adopted local language and customs.) And the Indian group had become a caste claiming Hebrew descent, although they had more contact with the west.

* [http://news.discovery.com/history/vikings-native-american-woman.html DNA analysis of Icelandic people] has recently revealed that the Norse may have brought back a native american woman with them to Iceland, well before Columbus. Native American Viking indeed.

* In a more recent example, Victorian Britain is portrayed as being completly white, yet Carribean people have been have been [http://www.itzcaribbean.com/black_people_history.php living in Britain since slavery was abolished.] They are possibly overlooked because many people in power preferred not to mention them at all.

* Due to ancient migrations of Indo-Europeans throughout Eurasia, people with "European" traits can be found in some quite surprising places. Green eyes are very common among some tribes in Afghanistan, the most famous example being [http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text Sharbat Gula], the Afghan girl on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic. Blue eyes can be found in [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0706787/ India]. There are blond [http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/KavehFarrokh/300/image051.jpg Iranians], blond [http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/8721/girlfromkalashpakistanw.jpg Pakistanis], and ''even blond [http://pastmist.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/blond-mongol-girl.jpg Mongols]''. Well, the Mongols did capture and enslave Slavs when they invaded Eastern Europe.

* The Black Seminoles are a controversial section of the Seminole tribe who are descended from escaped American slaves who sought refuge with the Seminoles in Spanish Florida. Many interbred with the Creek descended natives, while others remain genetically separate. The debate continues today as to whether they count as a true part of the tribe as they have little or no genetic connection, but upwards of two hundred years of cultural connection.

* The Sami people (indigenous, non-Germanic people of Scandinavia), despite being very fair-skinned and usually blond, have a culture extremely similar to that of Inuit and Native Americans. Their genetics suggest an Asian origin.

[[Category:Race Tropes]]

[[Category:Black Vikings]]