Cosmopolitan Council: Difference between revisions

{{quote|We then pan up to get a clear shot of the big shots on the catwalk, and here's what we find: 1) a guy wearing an American army general's uniform, 2) an obviously Russian woman wearing a big Cossack hat, 3) a Yassir Arafat-type with a kaffiyeh on his head, 4) a dead ringer for Fidel Castro, 5) a black guy in a dashiki, and finally, 6) a Japanese guy in a business suit. [[Sarcasm Mode|Nope, not one single stereotype in the whole bunch]].|'''[[The Agony Booth (Website)|The Agony Booth]]''', '' [[Batman and Robin (Filmfilm)|Batman and Robin]] [http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Batman___Robin_1997.aspx recap]''}}

Well what do you know? It's the employers of the [[Equal Opportunity Evil]] [[Mooks]] and the patrons behind the [[Five -Token Band]]! These people can be any kind of congregation, whether to play poker or plot the downfall of western civilization, but are nonetheless [[Alike and Antithetical Adversaries|very heterogeneous.]]

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime)|Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' had such a council meet with Gendo, and thanks to cheesy lighting-effects, they were even color-coded (Instrumentality Commitee), but then opted to be cooler and more mysterious/ominous by turning into a circle of mysterious "SOUND ONLY" black monoliths (SEELE). [[Stanley Kubrick]] was not pleased.

* ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' does this quite a bit.

* The Akatsuki in ''[[Naruto (Manga)|Naruto]]'', originally just fuzzy, indistinct holograms in a dark cave, are eventually revealed to have unique appearances (there's one guy with fish-like skin, one who's a living puppet, one with mouths on the palms of his hands, and let's not even get into the Venus flytrap guy), and with only a couple of exceptions all hail from different ninja villages.

* [[DC Comics]] had the Quintessence, formed by Zeus, Highfather, [[Green Lantern (Comic Book)|Ganthet]], [[The Phantom Stranger]] and [[I Am Not Shazam|Shazam]]. Zeus is depowered, Ganthet took a demotion to join the Green Lanterns, and Highfather is dead. But it ''used'' to qualify.

* It also has The Endless in ''[[The Sandman (Comic Book)|The Sandman]]'', though they all share the same pasty complexion. (Except Destruction.)

* In ''[[Runaways (Comic Book)|Runaways]]'', the Pride is the very model of this: six [[Super Villain]] couples each representing a very different kind of villain (mad scientists, aliens, mutants, etc.)

* In preparation for the slew of events in 2006-2008, Marvel retconned the existence of a [[Cosmopolitan Council]] of superheroes called [[The Illuminati]] ([[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|the name alone raises warning bells]]): Namor, Blackbolt, [[X -Men|Professor Xavier]], Doctor Strange, [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Mr. Fantastic]], and [[Iron Man]].

* The Black Glove from ''[[Grant MorrisonsMorrison's Batman (Comic Book)|Batman RIP]]''.

* The [[Superman (Comic Book)|Kryptonian Science Council]].

* [[James Bond (Filmfilm)|James Bond]]:

** In the Daniel Craig version of ''[[Casino Royale (Film)|Casino Royale]]'', there is a very important poker game with a diverse set of players.

** [[Nebulous Evil Organization|Quantum]] in ''[[Quantum of Solace (Film)|Quantum of Solace]]''. Its members include corrupt French, Japanese and Russian businessmen, a British advisor to the Prime Minister, and other unidentified diverse evil people.

* In the third ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' film, the Pirates Council: all the greatest pirate captains from nine distinct geographic regions are in it-- Caribbeanit—Caribbean (Jack Sparrow), Indochina (Elizabeth Swann), Japan, northwest Europe, North Africa (Corsairs). This is [[Shown Their Work|accurate]] because each of the areas they used were actually known for their large populations of pirates. Several of the pirates in the council were based on real life pirates (although they did not all live at the same time, obviously). Mistress Ching, for example, was most likely based on the Chinese pirate Ching Shih.

* The "United World" representatives in ''[[Batman: theThe Movie]]'' (1966).

* The movie version of ''[[Wild Wild West (Filmfilm)|Wild Wild West]]'' has a [[Cosmopolitan Council]] comprising the [[The Deep South|South]], the Native Americans, the [[Victorian Britain|British]], the [[South of the Border|Mexicans]] and anyone else with a grudge against 1860s America.

* SPECTRE, mainly in the [[James Bond (Filmfilm)|James Bond]] film series, tended to have multinational representation when they were shown meeting. Their successor, Quantum, in the reboot starting with ''[[Casino Royale (Film)|Casino Royale]]'' and revealed in ''[[Quantum of Solace (Film)|Quantum of Solace]]'', are even more multinational and composed of men and women.

* ''[[The Naked Gun (Film)|The Naked Gun]]'' starts with Frank Drebin barging into a meeting of an "anti-American" council consisting of (the film was made in [[The Eighties]]): Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro (IIRC) and Mikhail Gorbachev (who comments on how he fooled the Americans into thinking he's "a good guy").

* The Council of Zion in ''[[The Matrix (Film)|The Matrix]]'' sequels is extremely diverse. Of its 18 members, 12 are women, and the majority of councillors are non-white. Hamman is the only white male.

* The Senior Council from ''[[The Dresden Files (Literature)|The Dresden Files]]'' has The Merlin (who looks like The Merlin and is British), a Scottish wizard who lives in Missouri (Ebenezar McCoy), a small Asian witch (Ancient Mai), an older black witch (Martha Liberty), a hooded Arab wizard (Rashid, the Gatekeeper), an American Indian shaman (Joseph "Injun Joe" Listens-to-Wind) and a French wizard (Aleron [[La Fortier]]). They also used to have a Russian wizard (Simon Petrovich).

* The Council of Elrond in ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' is made up of people who just happened to be in Rivendell at the time. The council members end up representing all the "free peoples," including Elves, Dwarves, Men and Hobbits.

* The Seven in the ''[[Babylon Rising (Literature)|Babylon Rising]]'' series is made up of two British men (one apparently a Roman Catholic priest), a Spanish man, a communist Chinese general, a German woman, a Romanian woman, and an Indian man.

* The Xindi in ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise (TV)|Star Trek Enterprise]]'' were five different alien races from the same planet who were in a council. A [[Five -Token Band]] for the bad guys, basically.

* The Athkatlan Twisted Rune cell from the second ''[[BaldursBaldur's Gate]]'' game. Of course, as a Cosmopolitan Council in a [[Heroic Fantasy]] setting, they consist of a lich, a vampire, a beholder, a male fighter with no armour, and a woman mage with her pet devil.

* The Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission in ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' is one of these for the three evil outsider races. (It currently only has three members, and they all dress identically, though.)

* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance (Roleplay)|The Gamers Alliance]]'', the Crimson Coalition council consists of various leaders of different factions which oppose the Grand Alliance. The current members are [[Dark Messiah|Glaurung]] [[Necessarily Evil|Losstarot]] (leader of the [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Rebels]] and the overall commander of the Coalition), [[Overlord, Jr.|Hannibal]] [[Young Conqueror|Losstarot]], [[Woman Scorned|Adela]] [[Waif Fu|al-Saif]] ([[High Priest]] of the [[Path of Inspiration|Clergy of Artemicia]] and deposed [[God Save Us From the Queen|Sultana]] of Vanna), [[Blood Knight|Yoshimuriko]] ([[High Priest]] of the [[Ax Crazy|Clergy of Nergal]]), [[The Chessmaster|Kamelith]] (lord of the [[The Remnant|Dark Elves]]), [[Evil Mentor|Endoran]] [[Lady of Black Magic|L'Sarius]] (leader of the [[Cult|Mullencamp]]), [[Four -Star Badass|Boris]] [[Cool Old Guy|Ivanov]] (general of the [[Dirty Communists|Proninist Party]]), [[Praetorian Guard|Orestes]] (leader of the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Vulfsatz]]), [[Manipulative Bastard|Simon]] (representative of the [[Religion of Evil|Totenkopfs]]), and last and definitely least, [[Harmless Villain|Craig]] [[Comic Relief|Rimner]] (representative of the [[Butt Monkey|Scunnish rebels]] and author of the horrible yet ear-wormy [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Rimnerian Songs]]).

* The Board of Trustees of [[Super -Hero School]] Whateley Academy in the [[Whateley Universe (Literature)|Whateley Universe]]. They range from Totem (an over-hundred American Indian former superhero) to Lord Paramount (a notorious supervillain who now has his own country in Eastern Europe).

* ''[[Atlantis: theThe Lost Empire (Disney)|Atlantis the Lost Empire]]'' had an example.

* ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'' parodies this with the group that gets together to discuss Sideshow Bob's demands to abolish all of television, which included the [[Doctor Who (TV)|Fourth Doctor]] and [[Family Matters|Steve Urkel]].

{{quote| '''Smithers:''' Even monsters need to breathe sir. }}

* ''[[South Park (Animation)|South Park]]'''s Imaginationland trilogy has a council composed by the nine most important fictional characters: [[The Chronicles of Narnia|Aslan]], [[Star Wars|Luke Skywalker]], [[Greek Mythology|Zeus]], [[Wonder Woman]], [[Popeye]], [[The Matrix|Morpheus]], [[The Lord of the Rings|Gandalf]], [[The Wizard of Oz (Filmfilm)|Glinda the Good Witch]]... and [[The Messiah|Jesus]].

* On ''[[Young Justice (Animationanimation)|Young Justice]],'' the members of [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness|The Light]] turn out to be {{spoiler|[[Vandal Savage]] ([[Ambiguously Brown]] immortal caveman), [[Lex Luthor]] (white American), [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|R'as Al Ghul]] (Asian), [[God Save Us From the Queen|Queen Bee]] (a [[Qurac|Quraci]]i [[The Smurfette Principle|female]] dictator), [[Evil Prince|Ocean Master]] (Atlantean), [[Mad Scientist|the Brain]] ([[French Jerk|French]] [[Brain In Aa Jar]]), and [[Trickster|Klarion]] ([[Creepy Child]] [[Humanoid Abomination]])}}.

* [[Truth in Television]]: The UN Security Council. There are five permanent members: One American (the US, obviously), two Europeans (UK, France), one Eurasian (Russia), one East Asian (China), and a smattering of ten elected [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]]s, which have to be from different regions: They split into 3 from Africa, 2 from Asia, 2 Latin America and Caribbean, 2 Western Europe and Other and 1 Eastern Europe. This has to be maintained, and there also has to be at least 1 Arab country. Subverted, in that the dress is almost universally Western business attire, and that it can't actually do that much, since the Permanent Five are at each others' throats (politely and diplomatically, of course).