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Named for 1978's ''The Norseman,'' starring Lee Majors, costarring the greatest pass rusher in [[wikipedia:National Football League|NFL]] history, African-American Deacon Jones.
Subtrope of [[Politically-Correct History]]. See also [[Not Even Bothering
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* A 1995-200? multimedia ad campaign for Three Musketeers candy bars portrayed the Musketeers in claymation and comic book art. One of the Musketeers was black. Later commercials replaced the short white Musketeer with a [[Race Lift|short latino]]. Interestingly, Alexandre Dumas himself was 1/4 black, so maybe the commercial creators were paying him the ultimate tribute.
* [[
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== Comics -- Books ==
* Subverted in an issue of ''[[The Sandman]]'' featured the immortal Hob Gadling attending a Renaissance fair with his current girlfriend (and [[Deadpan Snarker|making a lot of cutting comments about it]].) When Hob asks his girlfriend why she isn't the Queen of the Fair, she points out her ethnicity (she's black) and the fact that the fair is trying to be at least ''a little'' authentic (she specifically says "There were no black Queens of England.") To which Hob immediately replies "Catherine of Aragon. Had she been living in Selma, Alabama in the early 60s, they'd have made her ride at the back of the bus." This statement isn't actually true, as Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of Mary I (Bloody Mary), is alternately recorded as having "golden hair, blue eyes and pale complexion," or, rarely, "auburn hair". Similarly, some accounts have Elizabeth I as blonde, as there are very few trustworthy accounts of the appearance of historical figures this far back. He might be referring to the "just one drop" rule and it has been claimed that Catherine of Aragon had a black (or Moorish) ancestor just a few generations back, presumably Hob would know. Being a former Slaver, he may have keep an ear out about those kind of things. Also keep in mind that from the perspective of the story, what he knows first-hand is more reliable than our history books. Hence the whole point of this trope.
* Since the 1980's, the ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' series has featured various non-white Amazons living on Themyscira, despite the island being based heavily on Greek myths and the women all having Greek names (such as Philippus, the black captain of the Royal Guard). This is explained by a [[Crisis
* One of the supporting characters in ''[[The Mighty Thor]]'' is Hogun the Grim, a Mongolian-looking man amongst a Norse-inspired cast. This is usually explained as him being a foreigner to Asgard.
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== 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.
* Moors in the Merry Men of ''[[Robin Hood]]'', something introduced with the character of Nasir in [[ITV]]'s ''[[Robin of Sherwood]]'', and subsequently taken-up in the film ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]'' with [[Morgan Freeman|Azeem]], and the latest series from [[The BBC]] (not to mention [[Dave Chappelle|Achoo]] in ''[[Robin Hood: Men in Tights|Men in Tights]]''). The BBC version takes this trend a step further, as there is at least one black character working for the Sheriff, and a black thief is unquestioned when she claims to be the leader of an order of nuns; unlike the Arabic characters, the black characters are portrayed as fully accepted members of medieval English society.
* In the feature film adaption of ''[[Wild Wild West (
* 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]]}}.
* In the film adaptation of ''[[Much Ado About Nothing]]'', the character Don Pedro is the Prince of Aragon and played by [[Denzel Washington]]. While Spain was occupied for several centuries by the Moors, Medieval Spaniards were nearly obsessed with ''limpieza de sangre'' -- purity of blood, and the aristocratic class was the worst. It might have been a stylishic choice to make his illegimate brother's deep hatred for him more obvious. Otherwise, this would have to get across by [[Keanu Reeves]]'s acting ability.
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* ''[[MASH]]'', set during the Korean War, featured a black surgeon (the TV show followed suit for a few episodes until the anachronism of the idea was pointed out to the producers). Ultimately ''M*A*S*H'' is pretty much a [[Vietnam War]] story [[In Space|backdated 20 years]] anyway. Presumably the producers never bothered to check any sources about the 8055th MASH, the real unit in Korea the movie was based on: they ''did'' have a black surgeon on staff.
* ''[[Force Ten From Navarone|Force 10 From Navarone]]'' does its best to avert this trope and use it too. Carl "Apollo Creed" Weathers unknowingly forces his way into the middle of a plane full of commandos flying to Yugoslavia to fight the Nazis. The frustrated commandos immediately point out how much Weathers will stick out in Yugoslavia, complete with a snide comment about a Zulu invasion. When they land, the leader of the native force they join up with is bemused by his appearance to the point of pretending to wipe the blackness off of Weathers' face.
* The 2011 film ''[[Thor (
** If you examine the religious art of the Vikings, you may note that the symbols of Thor (such as the hammer) have particular prominence. If you look at the movie's Asgardians in that context, it seems that the Vikings liked Thor so much because he looked like them.
* The 1998 movie adaption of ''[[Les Misérables (
* The [[Julia Roberts]] film ''Mona Lisa Smile'' was criticized for not having a token black among the cast, despite the film being set in a New England College in the 1950's. Part of the problem was a bad line in the auditioning papers, where they wanted girls who were [[But Not Too Black|not too tan]], to portray the time period accurately. Seeing as it was a real women's college that ''did'' have black women in the time period, the supposed ratio would have had about 3 tokens in a crowd of 200.
* German actor Günther Kaufmann, whose father was an African-American GI, plays one of the Vikings in ''Wickie und die starken Männer'' (''Wickie and the strong Men''), thus [[Exactly What It Says
* In one DVD version of ''[[Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat]]'', two of the brothers (Judah and Benjamin) are played by black actors. This is something of a characterization problem, since the two were born to different mothers, according to Genesis. The other ten brothers are pretty much all over the apparent ethnicity map (the twelve had the same father, who had four wives). And Joseph's father Jacob did have concubines who may have been of different ethnicities than his two wives (who were sisters). Jacob having had black sons is not impossible. On the other hand, Benjamin is supposed to be ''full'' brother of Joseph. In any case, that particular version is [[Rule of Funny|a comedy]].
* In ''[[Jesus Christ Superstar]]'', Judas (the [[Villain Protagonist]]) is famously black, while Jesus is white. Although a lot has been read into this about demonization and the [[Civil Rights Movement]], it turns out Carl Anderson was simply the [[Chewing the Scenery|best man for the role]]. [[Norman Jewison]] may have also been a bit color blind, being from [[Canada, Eh?|Canada]], where racial tensions are a little different. Regardless, Carl Anderson and Ted Neely (as Jesus) are both excellently cast and turn in virtuoso performances.
* This might allude to ''The Robe'' from the 1950s, where [[Finding Judas|Judas]] was played by ''[[Unfortunate Implications|the only middle eastern guy]]'' in the cast!
* In a flashback in ''[[Transformers (
* Eartha Kitt as Freya the Norn in ''[[
* ''[[
* The famously controversial ''[[
* 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 (
* Played for laughs in [[Woody Allen]]'s ''[[Love and Death]]'', with a shouting black drill sergeant in 1812 Russia.
* Played for laughs again in [[Woody Allen]]'s ''Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were too Afraid to Ask'', with a black sperm standing among all the white sperm about to be ejaculated.
{{quote| '''Black Sperm:''' What am I doing here?}}
* In ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]'', one of the knights in the group lead by Liam Neeson's character at the beginning appears to be of African descent. Considering that the group travels to and fro the Middle East at the time of the Crusades, it's not exactly unthinkable.
* Invoked in-universe in ''[[Captain America:
* [[Queen Latifah]] as Mama Morton in the movie ''[[Chicago]]''. An African-American jail warden in charge of white prisoners in 1920s America? That wouldn't happen. The prison itself is fully integrated and not segregated by race, again, something that would not have happened in the 1920's.
* In [[Christopher And His Kind]], there is at least one Black man in the gay club Isherwood frequents. Given that this happened in early 1930's Berlin, it is a little jarring, though possible.
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** The Amazons are described as similarly having children with whatever males they happen to conquer, with the queen, Pretty Little Flower, being notably mixed-race.
* ''[[The Inheritance Cycle]]'' has two black characters living in a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] that's loosely based on medieval Europe, specifically Norse culture. It's eventually explained that "dark-skinned tribes" live in the desert to the southeast, and possibly the neighboring country - some of these join with the Varden in the third book. Before that, characters do sometimes consider them unusual for the colour of their skin, but they do not act as if it was completely unheard of.
* ''Day Watch'', the second book in [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s [[Night Watch (
* A [[Sassy Black Woman|Black Moorish woman prosecuting attorney]] named [[Valkyries|Brunhild]] (!) appears in the eponymous ''Die Morin'', written by [[Holy Roman Empire|German]] poet Hermann von Sachsenheim in the year ''[[The Late Middle Ages|1453]]''. She is supposed to prosecute love cases for the goddess Venus and her lover, King [[Tannhaeuser]] (!!), who, according to legend, lived in a subterranean kingdom under some mountain in Germany. Probably Sachsenheim assumed that a servant of Venus was a pagan, and a pagan was a Muslim, and a Muslim was a Moor, and that "Brun-hild" meant "brown-maiden" (instead of "byrnie (=mail-coat)-warrior").
* Averted in ''[[The Warlord Chronicles]]'' by [[Bernard Cornwell]]. One of Arthur's lieutenants, [[Scary Black Man|Sagramor]], is a black Numidian, in stark contrast to the Britons, Gaels and Saxons around him, but this is both acknowledged and justified -- he was a former Roman auxiliary who joined Arthur's band after his own unit was dissolved.
* A [[Peter David]] novel about King Arthur in modern times, ''Knight Life'', casts Percival, the Grail Knight, as a Moor. Everyone is totally surprised by this in the novel (and a scholar or two "refutes" it in front of him).
* Ranec, from Jean M. Auel's ''[[
* Both played straight and inverted in [[
* Sanya, one of the [[Paladin|knights of the Cross]] in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', is a black Russian. He himself notes that he's a rarity, and mentions how he couldn't go into certain rural villages without becoming the town spectacle.
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* 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.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]''
** "The Girl in the Fireplace" has a black noblewoman in the Court of Louis XVI. Some fans have [[Fan Wank|attempted to explain]] this by pointing out the existence of the [[wikipedia:Chevalier de Saint-Georges|Chevalier de Saint Georges]], a real eighteenth-century composer and musician known as "the black Mozart", who did in fact perform at Versailles. It's especially jarring considering there is an Orientalist portrait of Madame de Pompadour dressed like a Turkish sultana and being served by a black slave girl -- an exotic possession, for crying out loud.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C._van_Loo_Sultane.jpg\] Angel Coulby, the actress who played the black noblewoman, appears to be a repeat offender, considering that her biggest role (Gwen on ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'') is a bit further down on this list.
** 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.}}
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** Isabella and her father from "The Vampires of Venice" are an exception: As a nexus of trade all across the Mediterranean, Venice would have been home to all sorts.
** Several viewers considered the black Secret Service agent in [[Richard Nixon]]'s security detail to be this trope. In reality, Nixon really did have at least one black agent.
* This is all over ''[[Mortal Kombat: Conquest
* In the 2006 series of ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'', one early episode feature [[The Dragon|Guy of Gisbourne's]] political scheming against the [[Big Bad|Sheriff's]] current Master at Arms. The fact that the Master at Arms is black in 12th century England is never mentioned nor influence the plot. [[Word of God|The producers have mentioned]] that originally there was no intention for the character to be black, but that the actor gave such a damned fine audition and performance that they felt he could pull it off regardless of the fact that that he would seem out of place, and gave him the part as-written, without any changes to make reference to his color. In Season 3, Friar Tuck is black.
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' has been accused of this; Guinevere is black, as are several courtiers and some of the royal knights. The production team has [[Hand Wave|hand waved]] this, and apparent anachronisms, by stating in interviews that the show is set in a mythical land that's not intended to be historically accurate. The Arthurian myths are already pretty anachronistic. French chivalry in dark age Britain? Come on...
* The start of season 2 of ''[[Sir Arthur Conan
* NBC's ''[[
* ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]'' had Brenda Song playing an ancestor of London Tipton... during the American Revolutionary War. Hilariously but subtly lampshaded in that she seems to be (or believe that she is) French. Whether it was intentional and she really was supposed to be London's French paternal ancestor, it was intentional and she was absurdly somewhere in London's Thai ancestry, or it was completely unintended, it was completely [[Handwaved]] by being [[All Just a Dream]] had by [[Book Dumb|Zach]]. Also, Mr.Mosby, who is black, is seen as a rich man. Most blacks in the revolutionary war were slaves, but it is possible he was a freeman.
* In ''[[
* Like ''The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog'', the short-lived ''Roar'' -- which starred Heath Ledger -- is also set in pre-Christian Ireland, and also features a black character, Tully, amid Ledger's band of Celtic chieftains. Unlike ''The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog'', there's no justification given.
* 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]].
* Suggested but not confirmed in ''[[Power Rangers Samurai]]'', as out of five descendants of Japanese samurai, only one is Asian. It's either this trope, or the equally unlikely scenario that the families mingled with other races in just the right way to make a [[Five-Token Band]].
* On the ''[[
* A sketch on the CBBC show ''[[Horrible Histories (TV series)|Horrible Histories]]'' about Vikings actually featured a Black Viking as an extra. There was also a black pirate on Black Bart's ship.
== Myths & Religion ==
* Any depiction of [[Jesus]] that makes him look Caucasian. Or black. Or even Asian. As the central figure in a religion spanning culture and geography, Jesus is often depicted with more resemblance to the local population then to any historical accuracy. As a Galilean Jew, Jesus mostly likely had a darker olive complexion similar to that of modern Middle East peoples.
* This also happens with other major figures of [[
* Andromeda, the [[Damsel in Distress]] in the [[Greek Mythology|myth about Perseus]], is the daughter of the Ethiopian king Cepheus. But [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Persus_wiewael.jpg in most illustrations], [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_011.jpg her skin colour] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/1840_Chasseriau_Theodore_-_Andromeda_Chained_to_the_Rock_by_the_Nereids.jpg is decidedly] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Paul_Gustave_Dore_Andromeda.jpg very un-Ethiopian]. (NSFW, if your boss doesn't like nipples!) [[Justified Trope|Although:]] According to the [[Tangled Family Tree]] of the Greek mythological characters, she wasn't ethnically Ethiopian anyway, at least not 100 %. (Her father's ancestry can be traced back to Poseidon, but there is no information about where her mother Cassiopeia comes from.) Also, some people speculate that Cepheus' kingdom wasn't ''that'' Ethiopia.
** At several times throughout history, "Ethiopia" meant literally any place in Africa, so it's entirely possible she came from a northern pre-Muslim African nation -- the people there would have had skin and hair colors much closer to ancient Greeks, and when one factors in how many mixed marriages there were between the various cultures, it makes more sense. The problem is that there were text describing Andromeda's dark skin. Possibly not black, but not actually until later artists decided not to depict her as such.
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== Web Comics ==
* Shebi from ''[[
** [[Word of God]] is that she is an ancient Egyptian who was recruited by the norse gods.
* Lothar, echidna from ''[[Exterminatus Now]]'' [http://exterminatusnow.co.uk/2005-03-22/comic/non-storyline/randoms/he-loses-more-roles-that-way/ tried] to get a role in a [[Sonic the Hedgehog|video game]]. Then tried a scandal when reminded that their notice specifically said a hedgehog is needed. He discovered that video games and martial arts communities do intersect.
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