Fantastic Racism/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Fantastic Racism in Live-Action TV include:

  • This was a favorite subject for Star Trek the Original Series. Probably the most Anvilicious example was "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", which featured an alien who was black on the left side and white on the right being chased by an alien who was white on the left and black on the right.
    • Then there was Star Trek the Next Generation episode with an Aesop about homophobia delivered by a genderless species. Who were all played by women so that the audience wouldn't be subjected to Riker kissing someone played by a guy.
    • Star Trek Voyager: In "Dragon's Teeth" one clue that the Vaadwaur aliens they've woken from stasis are villains is that Naomi Wildman overhears the Vaadwaur children making derogatory comments about Neelix. Good thing she never logged onto a fan forum.
    • In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, The Cardassian occupation of Bajor was unabashedly portrayed by the Cardassians as being racially based. And, in turn, Major Kira serves to show that most Bajorans consequently despise Cardassians with a rasist-like fervor, although it's more understandable because she views them much as a 1945 Jew would view the Gestapo.
      • On a few occasions in both Star Trek the Next Generation and DS9 Chief O'Brien has to deal with the question of whether or not he developed a racist dislike of Cardassians as a result of his experiences of fighting against them as a combat soldier in an earlier war.
    • Quark and other Ferengi constantly gripe about stereotyped traits they dislike about various races, especially humans, who they refer to as "Hu-maans" in what appears to be a mild epithet.
      • In a Take That to Sisko, Quark makes the point that citizens of the Federation hold the Ferengi in contempt since they're a reminder of their capitalist history.
    • Genetically engineered humans are treated as potential mass-murderers in the supposedly prejudice-free Federation, to the point of being legally forbidden to have certain jobs. Despite having superhuman aliens and even nearly-indestructible, superstrong, computer-brained androids serving in every position of Starfleet. My wall hurts. This is because several hundred years previously, some genetically-engineered humans led by Khan attempted to take over the world, and Ambition Is Evil, therefore all other genetically-engineered humans are evil too.
    • AIs tend to get the short end of the stick too; characters routinely refuse to believe that Data or the Doctor could have similar rights to biological organisms, and other Zimmerman holograms are subjected to a form of slavery.
    • An episode of DS9 "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" featured a Vulcan Starfleet captain who openly espouses Vulcan superiority to humans, has written dozens of academic papers on the topic, and even commands a Starfleet starship with an all-Vulcan crew. And yet, amazingly, no-one in Starfleet seems to have a problem with this other than Sisko, for whom it is personal rather than on principle. This flagrantly racist behaviour is never labelled as such, even when the captain challenges Sisko and his crew to a game of baseball just to further underscore the point that Vulcans are so superior, they can even beat humans at their own game. Sisko's crew naturally lose, since Vulcans are biologically faster and stronger than humans and most of the Niners have never played baseball before, but they achieve a moral victory nonetheless.
    • A continuing theme of Star Trek Enterprise, as this Prequel series dealt with mankind's initial reactions to new life and new civilisations. Early season episodes include the Suliban being treated like potential terrorists because of the actions of the Cabal, the Vulcans' patronising attitude towards humans (and the human response to it), and Commander Shran -- an Andorian who despises Vulcans and Tellarians, and even refers to his friend Captain Archer as "pinkskin". He refers to all humans as "pinkskins" -- did he not notice the variety of human skin? In "The Breach" Dr Phlox has to persuade a patient to receive treatment from him as the Denobulans committed atrocities against his species in the past, while Trip's attempt to help a repressed minority in a tri-gendered species has a tragic end. Virtually the entire fourth season touched on this trope in one way or another. Xenophobia on Earth increases after the Xindi attack, radical group Terra Prime tries to make political capital over the Trip/T'Pol relationship by squicking out humanity over the idea of Vulcan-human hybrids (even T'Pol's mother brings up "the shame" that such a mixed-race child would feel). And the whole Ubermensch thing naturally comes up with the genetically-superior Augments. And let's not even get into Vulcans shunning those who use their telepathic powers because they spread Vulcan AIDS...
  • In Doctor Who, the homophobia version is used when the Doctor is uncomfortable around the time-travelling omnisexual Captain Jack Harkness, not because of his sexuality, but because he finds Jack's immortality to be "just wrong".

Jack: So, you're saying that you're...prejudiced?
The Doctor: ...Never thought of it like that.
Jack: (smiles) Shame on you.

    • The Doctor shows his dislike of true immortality in earlier serials as well. For example, in The Brain of Morbius, he blasts the Sisterhood of Karn for using an elixir to extend their lives because they've completely stagnated, and says that regeneration is preferable because it brings change. This attitude seems to be shared by other Time Lords, who use the same elixir as medicine, but not to prevent their final death.
    • This is the entire premise of the climax of "The Five Doctors". When they encounter the Tomb of Rassilon and Borusa is condemned to eternal stasis as the price of true immortality; the First Doctor clearly knew what the fate of anyone who sought such immortality would be, and states that Rassilon knew that "immortality is a trap", and therefore set up his game to ensnare anyone who actively sought it.
    • The best example in Doctor Who is the Daleks, especially since Terry Nation based them on the Nazis. Also, Genesis of the Daleks, shows that on pre-Dalek Skaro, the Kaleds (the race that became the Daleks) and the Thals hated each other, and both of them hated the mutants, to the point that the Thals (who were usually shown as pacifist allies of the Doctor) used them as slave labor.
      • The Daleks' commitment to their own racial purity was demonstrated in "Victory of the Daleks". The older, less "pure" Daleks willingly allow themselves to be disintegrated by the newly created Daleks made from the pure DNA in the Progenitor device.
      • In the first season of New Who, the Daleks have been reborn from human DNA, and hate themselves as much as humans. It's stated that this prejudice makes them even more angry at the world, in the manner of the stereotypical homophobic gay person.
  • This is actually part of the setup of Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock. The Gorgs mostly treat Fraggles as garden pests and the Fraggles thus see the Gorgs as ogrish monsters. The Fraggles mostly treat Doozers as being on the level of social insects, and conversely, the Doozers have... let's say complicated feelings towards the Fraggles eating their constructions. On top of all of this, the humans don't even know any of the other races really exist. Many of the episodes dealt with the various characters getting to understand each other, and were often quite poignant.
  • Lampshaded in the Babylon 5 episode "The Geometry of Shadows", where it is revealed that the Drazi randomly split up into two groups - the "green" and the "purple" - every few years by drawing pieces of cloth out of a barrel. The two groups then fight for supremacy. Attempts by Ivanova to solve this diplomatically and get them to see the other side's view don't work, since there are no differing views, just "Green fights Purple". Fortunately, she solves it by putting the murderous faction in their opponents' shoes (or should we say, sashes) as she accidentally usurps the position of local leader and upon finding this out, promptly orders them to dye their sashes to their opposing color.
    • The show also has a backstory that in the face of all kinds of alien races, humans decided that all humans are pretty much like one another and did away with 20th century prejudices, so we get scenes like two male characters going undercover as a married couple with no one batting an eye, and a passing reference to the Pope being female (which resulted in more letters to the show than anything else in it). However, there are a sizable number of humans prejudiced against aliens, and we also get something of the "new black" in humans born on Mars.
    • Racism wasn't too far below the surface in inter-species relations, however. The Centauri and Narn regarded each other as mutually unfit to live. Anti-alien racism appeared commonplace among humans not associated with either the station or the Rangers. The Minbari had anti-miscegenation laws and considered purity of the species so important that they forced Valen's children to flee Minbar.
  • The half-wolves of The Tenth Kingdom. Granted, wolves are predators and are traditionally viewed as evil and vicious (at least sometimes). But the at-times Anvilicious words and actions of the Little Lamb Villagers (and Wendell) more than once left this editor feeling a bit ill. (Which was surely the intended effect--just an example where the writer did their work a bit too well.) Choice examples:
    • From the rigged trial (itself hearkening back to the legal woes of many a black man in the South between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Era):

Virginia: Look at my client! Is he a killer? No! But he is a stranger, and stranger equals wolf, and wolf equals killer. Is that what we're saying?
Judge: Very well put, on to the sentencing!

    • After Virginia agrees to defend Wolf:

Virginia: I don't think he killed anyone!
Tony: That's what you want to think. There's a dead girl out there, that could've been you! He's a wolf, that's what wolves do!
Wendell: That's the first intelligent thing you've said, Anthony.

    • At the same time, Sally and the other shepherdesses' (all noticeably Caucasian and mostly blondes) lustful pursuit of (dark-haired) Wolf despite his fake surname and his bushy wolf tail suggests the supposed irresistible temptation of an exotic race... while the Peep boys' apparently violent defense of their sisters' purity, and Wendell's assumption in Kissing Town that Wolf would "have [Virginia] on her back before you can say Happy Ever After" resonate far too strongly with the sort of black-man-rapes-white-woman fears exemplified in Birth of a Nation to be coincidence. Again, this would be simply an Anvilicious way of addressing racism in a fantasy setting, the entire point of this trope--in this case, in order to make it relevant to any children in the audience. Basically, Simon Moore showed his work, and the fact the treatment of wolves/half-wolves comes off as so disturbingly familiar is due to the blatant, but entirely necessary, use of this trope to make a point.
  • Sometimes used in Buffy and Angel, particularly Lorne in the latter. Anyone who sees a green-skinned, horned demon immediately assumes he's a big nasty killer, when of course he's a lovable lounge lizard. Not entirely their fault, though, since most demons are indeed the people-killing kind.
    • There's a very Anvilicious treatment in "That Old Gang of Mine" (Angel season 3 ep 3), in which Gunn's former gang are slow to learn that Not All Demons Are Evil, while all the major characters had caught on long ago and quickly.
    • The Buffy episode "Family" revealed that Tara's family harbors an incredible hatred for magic-users and raised her to believe that she was part demon on her dead witch mother's side. Shockingly, Tara's racist cousin Beth was played by Amy Adams.
    • An early episode of Angel featured a group called The Scourge, a demonic Ku Klux Klan of sorts toward half-breed demons (much like Doyle) who would gladly die for their cause, making them hard to fight. They consider all half-human demons to be "no better" than humans, and seek to kill every last one. Especially ironic if you're a Buffyverse fanatic and know that in this particular universe, the only pureblood demons are the enormous, monstrous Old Ones, and that humanoid demons with mildly scary faces aren't exactly superior to the other "tainted" ones.
    • It's worth noting that even the main characters aren't immune to this trope, being that they have less issues killing a demon than they do a human, even if their human enemies are Complete Monsters but the demons are simply following a tradition, ritual or their inborn nature - there are references to particular demon species being extinct and in one Buffy Season Six episode, 'As You Were', Riley Finn mentions a demon species which is unfortunately not extinct yet. It was never made clear whether this species was peaceful or not, though.
    • A lot of demons look down on vampires, presumably as a result of how near they are to human, and because they're fairly low on the demonic totem pole due to their modest supernatural capabilities and large number of weaknesses. Some demons might also be jealous that vampires get all the press, while their immense variety is grouped under "demons".
  • Smallville's Kara Zor-El dropped a few rungs on the likeability ladder when she called Martian Manhunter "Red-Eyes." As seen here.
  • Danko of Heroes is the poster thug for this trope. Anyone with an ability is automatically a threat as far as he's concerned.
    • Noah was this at first. When his first wife was killed by a telekinetic, he automatically gains an irrational hatred for all evolved humans, which gets the attention of Thompson and the Company. However, it begins to subside when he realizes that his own daughter, Claire, is an evolved human herself. However, he still shows hints of it from time to time, particularly in Volume 5, which Samuel attempts to exploit for all its worth to convince Claire to turn against Noah and to convince the others at the Carnival to join him in trying to change their status as "second class citizens" by making their identity known and trying to become the dominant humans on Earth.
    • Samuel Sullivan is the opposite end of the spectrum. He wants to kill all humans.
  • In the new Battlestar Galactica (and arguably the old one too), Humans and Cylons don't get along very well. As it goes, we discover that Humans and Cylons can reproduce! The humanoid Cylons are constructs of a completely fleshy nature, which makes the "toaster" epiphet just stupid. Like real-world epiphets. They call all Cylons, humanoid or mechanical, "toasters", and the humanoids also get called "skinjobs".
    • There's the Sagittarons as well, who are looked down on by the other Colonials for their primitive, isolationist ways. Ironically "skinjob" Athena is grateful for their presence on Galactica, as it diverts attention from her.
    • Taurons are frequently referred to as "dirt-eaters" in "Caprica".
  • In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the relations between humans and machines are strained, to say the least, especially between the human Techcom resistance fighters and the reprogrammed Terminators working under them. This is especially prevalent among Sarah Connor and Derek Reese, who are both prejudiced against machines (for good reason). At one point late in the second season, when Riley is killed, both Sarah and Derek immediately blame Cameron for it despite a lack of real evidence she was behind it, and both consider destroying her because of it.
    • Also, the disapproval expressed by pretty much everyone towards John and Cameron's relationship seems rather reminiscent of the prejudices against interracial relationships. Sarah implicitly states that she does not believe that Cameron actually loves John, and the idea that the two might be having sex plays a role in an extended dream sequence meant to represent her anxieties; Derek is openly hostile to their relationship; and Jesse even goes out of her way in order to try and break them up.
    • One entire episode, "The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter," dealt with the inherent distrust between humans and the machines. It got to the point where the human Too Dumb to Live submarine crew, under the command of a Terminator with specific orders from John Connor, began to mutiny because they did not trust the submarine's captain.
      • It's that distrust that causes all the deaths among the crew and the loss of the submarine.
  • Happens quite a bit in Farscape, especially with the Peacekeepers - all of whom are Sebacean (with the exception of half-Sebacean, half-Scarran Scorpius), and who deem other species to be inferior. If a Peacekeeper is to spend prolonged time and contact with another species, they will be deemed "irreversibly contaminated" and rejected.
    • Half-breeds are also the subject of considerable discrimination by the Peacekeepers, with at least one honor killing on record. Once again, Scorpius is the exception, having proven himself too valuable to execute. Of course, anti-hybrid sentiment is discouraged among Scorpius' troops and officers:

Akkor: A Luxan-Sebacean hybrid?
Braca: Despite Peacekeeper Command efforts to keep the bloodlines pure, there seems to be a few more of them every cycle.
Scorpius: (Emerging from the shadows) Have you got something against hybrids, hmmm?
Braca: (very quickly) No! Of course not sir. Not at all.

  • On Dark Angel, the transgenics become targets of Fantastic Racism as soon as their existence is made public. The Familiar breeding cult are posterchildren for this, looking at humans as inferiors and transgenics as scum.
  • Get Smart's Hymie the Robot complains that people look at him funny in the street, he can't get a cab, and even Max never takes him to his club.
  • On Wizards of Waverly Place there are definite problems between wizards, werewolves and vampires. Giants seem to be more accepted but there are still tasteless jokes.
  • True Blood is drama-series with classical 'Vampires vs Humans' theme. Vampires stand in for a number of groups. Vampires resemble homosexuals by "coming out of the coffin" to reveal their presence to humanity, and are opposed by fundamentalist Christian groups, who call them evil. Sometimes they resemble racial minorities. In one scene, Bill is mistreated and called "boy" by an classic, racist southern cop. Humans who have sex with vampires are dubbed fang-bangers and looked upon with scorn by most people, as mixed-race couples were in the past.
    • There's also racism within the supernatural community. Shifters such as Sam hate werewolves, and werewolves hate werepanthers (weres tend to stick to their own species).
      • Sookie lampshaded this in a recent episode where she says it's hard to keep track of which supes hate which.
  • Uther's pogrom against magic users in Merlin.
  • Parodied in the Mr. Show sketch "Byron De La Beckwith VII: Racist in the Year 3000."
  • The Alien Nation TV series is largely devoted to the allegory of race relations through Newcomer/Human relations. Matt has a bad habit of using the nickname "Slagtown" for the Newcomer part of L.A., even after his Newcomer partner has made it clear he finds the term offensive. Naturally, the anti-Newcomer groups are fantastically multicultural.
  • In Power Rangers Time Force, in the future most humans look down on mutants, genetically inferior beings that are the trash and leftovers of the Designer Babies program. This is not aided by the fact that the most prominent mutants in the series are anarchist terrorists, although how much of that is caused by growing up in a society that hates them, and how much is the cause of society hating them is very, very debatable.
  • The old Disney Channel show Adventures in Wonderland had an episode centered around this, when the residents of Wonderland were nervous about a walrus moving into the neighborhood because they had heard a lot of bad stereotypes about walruses. But Alice herself meets the Walrus and finds out that he's actually a Pretty Cool Guy.
  • Being Human (UK) certainly plays up the "vampires think of werewolves as mere animals" angle; but there was also this quote invoking the trope directly (after introducing a zombie):

Annie: Don't be so deadist!
George: 'Scuse me?
Annie: It's like racist, but for dead people!

  • With the notable exception of Samantha herself, the witches and warlocks of Bewitched hold mortals in contempt to one degree or another. Except for Serena, Aunt Clara and Esmerelda and Uncle Arthur.
    • And Darrin returns the prejudice with interest. He's much like someone who marries a (fill in the blank with favorite minority) woman but wants her to keep it hidden.
  • In Space: Above and Beyond there was considerable prejudice towards artificially grown humans, called "tanks".
    • One episode actually subverted it, which involved an armored vehicle, whose driver insisted on calling it a tank, while everyone else referred to it as an APC. At one point, the driver blows up when one of the main characters calls it an APC, screaming out "tank", causing T. C. McQueen (one of the two "in vitros" on the show) to say there's no need for insults, when the guy was just correcting them.
  • The humans and angels in Supernatural tend to dislike each other on principle. One angels or another is always calling humans filthy and primitive worms or maggots, due to their mammalian biology, short lives and to protest how angels were created by god to be the indentured servants of mankind. Humans (particular the main characters) mainly just hate the angels because they are sick of getting messed around, and because monster hunters instinctively hate sentient non-human beings. Dean repeatedly calls them "dicks with wings". Most angels behave pretty badly in-series but lots of them aren't totally evil or are as sympathetic as the humans( Cas, Anna, the members of Cas' garrison who disapproved of the apocalyptic plans got slaughtered, the Cupids) and they are all able to feel and express humanlike emotions.
    • Despite Dean and Castiel being fairly close friends, Dean continually makes racist comments about the angels, often when Cas is standing right next to him. This might be justified given Dean's experiences and personality, but sometimes you have to wonder why Cas doesn't call him out on it, or physically assault him more often. It's almost like Cas agrees with Dean's assessment. Maybe he's just a Boomerang Bigot?
  • Surprisingly, probably the biggest factor in the creation of The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling was fed up with not being able to tackle contemporary issues (such as race relations) on television, but found out that the censors and networks would let it air if it was fantasy or sci-fi oriented.
  • The various Fae in Lost Girl have very low opinions on humans. They barely tolerate Kenzi, think she's Bo's property, and often snub her.
  • Stargate Atlantis: When Michael reverts back to Wraith(ish) and escapes the humans, he expects to easily realign himself with the Wraith. To his dismay, they treat him with the same amount of disdain as they do humans (possibly more since he's not even useful as food); this causes him to reject both humans and Wraith and try to wipe them both out as a result.
  • In a somewhat screwy application of this trope, KITT on the original Knight Rider is prejudiced against motorcycles. I repeat: not against bikers, against their vehicles. This is played for laughs, not unreasonably.
  • While this plays a part in many versions of The Addams Family, with unsavory types disliking the Family for being, well, strange, nowhere is it more apparent than the Netflix series Wednesday. Joseph Crackstone, the founder of the town of Jericho was an unapologetic puritan who falsely implicated "outcasts" (as in, vampires, werewolves, and other denizens of supernatural origin) for no reason other than hating him. Ironically, when he finally appears in person during the season one finale, still referring to the Nevermore students as "abominations", he is obviously not human anymore himself, having been resurrected as an undead monstrosity who uses dark sorcery. He’s a chauvinist on top of it, given how he threatens Laurel - who resurrected him and saved him from a Fate Worse Than Death - to rip her tongue out.
    • Speaking of which, Laurel is no better, not even pretending to be the Well-Intentioned Extremist he is, flat out admitting that her motives are hate and revenge.
    • Sheriff Donovan doesn't like the Nevermore students either, but he is more like a Noble Bigot with a Badge.
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