Five-Token Band: Difference between revisions

* The [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20131207203006/http://sweetcred.com/kidshome.html Sweet Cred Gang]. It's hard to tell whether their efforts were inspired by political correctness, though—the black kid plays basketball, raps, and sports a gold tooth and chains.

== Anime &and Manga ==

* In the early 1990s, before DiC acquired the rights to the North American release of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', an outfit called Toon Makers [[Toon Makers Sailor Moon|made a bid for them]]. As part of their pitch, TM made a short demo film of what they wanted to do with the property. They threw out the original cast and created a painfully politically-correct grouping of girls, right down to a Sailor Senshi in a wheelchair. The result is often called "Saban Moon" or "The Saban Nightmare" due to people mistaking the relatively unknown TM for a more well-known company. (See it [https://web.archive.org/web/20131216174846/http://www.toonamiarsenal.com/download/sailormoon.php here] or [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=saban+sailor+moon&search=Search search YouTube.com].) They've even got a wheelchair that can sail through space.

** A similar thing would have happened to the ''Gundam'' series, but it would have been a decision of [[Sunrise (company)|Sunrise]]. ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8um1N78AhY Doozy Bots]'' was a way to get the Gundam franchise to America, and it would have featured a cast of a Football-playing [[Char Clone|Char look-alike]], a skater/surfer, a cheerleader, a hockey player, and a [[Twofer Token Minority|Token Twofer]] black kid on a wheelchair. For an extra dose of [[Unfortunate Implications]], while the heroes turn into [[Super-Deformed]] versions of various ''Gundam'' mecha, the paraplegic kid turns into... a [http://mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/rx-75-4.htm Guntank].

** The ''[[New Mutants]]'' spinoff is no better. [[Ambiguously Gay|Ambiguously Lesbian]] Vietnamese (Karma), check. Son of Brazilian self-made millionaire (Sunspot), check. Neurotic Scots werewolf (Wolfsbane—devout Calvinist half-convinced she is damned to Hell for bonus [[Wangst]]), check. Angry young Cheyenne [[Action Girl]] (Mirage), check. Appalachian coal-miner's son (Cannonball), check. As for the ones who joined up later, let us say that the only [[Ordinary High School Student]] joined the same night as the shapeshifting alien of living circutrycircuitry (Cypher). Oh, and the Cheyenne later accidentally became a [[Norse Mythology|Valkyrie]] for [[Twofer Token Minority|extra]] [[Bonus Points]].

* ''[[Runaways]]''. They even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade it]] as looking like those [[Equal Opportunity Evil|multi-ethnic gangs you only see on TV]]. Original line up (not counting Old Lace the dinosaur): Alex Wilder (black male), Gertrude Yorkes (Jewish female), Karolina Dean (looks white but actually an alien, female and gay), Molly Hayes (white female, mutant), Nico Minoru (Japanese-American female), and Chase Stein (white male). Later members: Victor Mancha (looks hispanicHispanic but actually a robot, male), Xavin (shapeshifting alien, sometimes looks like a black female, sometimes black male, sometimes Skrull male, involved in lesbian relationship), Klara Prast (white female).

* The main cast of the current ''[[X-Factor (comics)|X-Factor]]'' volume has a black Algerian Muslim, a time-displaced [[Twofer Token Minority|half-black, half-Latino]] teenager, a bisexual Mexican male and a gay futuristic gladiator from another dimension.

* ''[[30 "H"s|Thirty Hs]]'' parodies this when describing a group of children: "They were well-groomed and impeccably attired, and there were 5.8 of them, just enough to represent an array of genders and races that would leave no-one unhappy, save for the Eskimos."

* ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire|Atlantis the Lost Empire]]'': So we have the French geologist, the Italian demolitions expert, the female Hispanic mechanic, the half-black/half-Native American doctor—and the white American guy. He's near-sighted though—does that count? Either way, he's clearly the [[Butt Monkey]], at least for the first half. After that he's the naive idealist before finally becoming the hero.

* ''[[The Secret of Kells]]'' has possibly the most bizarre version of this of all time: a fiveTokenBandFive-Token Band of Irish Catholic monks. We get a French monk, a Russian monk, an English monk, a Chinese monk, and Black monk. It's not even alluded to how they all came to be at the same Irish monastery in the 9th century. The creators state that this was to represent diverse influences in the ''Book of Kells''.

* The ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons (film)||Dungeons and Dragons]]'' movie goes a step further and enforces representation of ''fictional'' minorities. After the white man [[Mighty Whitey|the leader and destined hero, naturally]], there's a white girl as the snobby wizard, a black man as the comic-relief bumbling sidekick, another white man as the ''tallest dwarf in the world'', and a black woman playing the elf (making her a threefer, maybe?). Worst of all, each and every one of them is 100% pure, concentrated stereotype.

** In the novel ''[[Discworld/Men At Arms|Men Atat Arms]]'', the Night Watch is forced to admit a dwarf (other than Carrot), a troll and a female {{spoiler|who is also a werewolf}}. They've had a gnome since ''[[Discworld/Feet of Clay (novel)|Feet of Clay]]'', hired because he was six inches tall and thus had certain capabilities biggers lack (he rides an assortment of birds, buzzards and falcons and such, as the Watch's airborne division). In ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud!]]'', they are forced to enlist another woman (this time a vampire). Though they have a lot of women, but a lot of them are dwarves, who tend to be less open about gender.

** And then there's ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'', where the army recruits are also varied but the title {{spoiler|is, if you know a different title, a deliberate spoiler/FanService[[Fan Service]] of a subversion. Try Googling "First Blast of the Trumpet Against"}}.

* The casts of every incarnation of ''[[Star Trek]].'' To be fair, ''Star Trek'' is supposed to take place in a future where the entire world has become united, and so a multi-racial crew isn't unlikely. Also, there are [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], so you'd expect some variety. And today it's easy to forget how shockingly ''radical'' the original series was to do this. Maybe Uhura was a switchboard operator in a go-go dress, but she did it on the bridge of an (essentially) military spaceship; Martin Luther King Jr. personally told Nichelle Nichols how important it was she keep plugging away at the role. ''Star Trek'' also famously featured one of the first interracial kisses to be shown on TV (Kirk and Uhura) -- but as a sop to the standard 1960s racist Southern audiences made it involuntary, forced to happen by [[Jerkass]] aliens. Of course, every later series developed the characters far beyond their ethnicities. Indeed, they were never brought up outside of the occasional time travel story. This makes them more an aversion of [[Humans Are White]] than Five -Token Bands... except ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]''.

* ''[[Ghostwriter (TV series)|Ghostwriter]]'', which had the black male leader, rich white girl, Hispanic brother and sister, and Vietnamese girl as the original [[Five-Man Band]], and a white boy as the [[Sixth Ranger]]. In one episode, a music company decided to sign cast member Lenny, and the record executive actually said out loud that her multi-ethnic friends would be demographically perfect for the music video.

** The trope is played straight up until this point, as the Spanish 101 study group has two blacks, one guy of Middle Eastern descent, an array of socioeconomic backgrounds, and a massive age range, from 18 to sixtysomethingsixty-something. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that the only factor that unites them originally is their common desire to fulfill their language requirement with the minimum of effort, and they were assembled by Abed, who was raised by TV and [[Genre Savvy|has]] [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|some]] [[Cloudcuckoolander|eccentricities]].

** It's taken even further in the Holiday episode where it's revealed they all have different ''religions'' as well. We have Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Jehovah's Witness, AthiestAtheist, Agnostic and "Buddhist" (Pierce ''thinks'' he's Buddhist, but he's actually in a cult without knowing it).

* Casted girlgroupsgirl groups come to mind; just think [[Sugababes]] (they eventually replaced a white redhead with a white blonde, Filipina girl with a Moroccan girl, and the black one with a biracial girl [black and white parents]).

* British girlbandgirl band [[The Saturdays]] are literally the most diverse group of five women imaginable;,: a blonde, a brunette, a [[Ambiguously Brown|sort of mixed race-looking]] girl, an asianAsian girl and a black girl.

* [[Pentatonix]], the winner of season 3 of NBC's a cappella competition "[[The Sing -Off]]" came to be an organic literal example of this. The group consists of a square-jawed blonde white guy, a black dude, a Jewish fella, a gay guy and a Latina girl.

== ProNewspaper WrestlingComics ==

* ''[[The Young Turks]]''. Let's see, a Turkish host, an Armenian-American female co-host, a black producer, a Mexican director, and a white guy. And occasionally Ben Mankiewicz shows up, who's Jewish.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': Commander Shepard's team could be seen as an in-universe version, especially in the sequel. There's only one of any species per game: Garrus, Mordin and Liara/Samara/Morinth, representing the three most powerful non-human species. The equivalent of token Black/Asian/Hispanic. Tali, whose species has a weak immune system is are sort of a dispossessed race of [[Space Jews]], and Thane, who is suffering from a debilitating lung disease and is polytheistic, could both qualify as either the religious minority or the handicapped member. And Wrex/Grunt {{spoiler|and Legion}} are both different kinds of [[Token Enemy Minority]]: the Krograns are the old enemy now at an uneasy peace (Like, say, Russia or Germany) {{spoiler|and Legion is of the same species as the current enemy, but ideologically opposed to them (Such as an Iraqi member)}}. Just the human squadmatessquad mates are this. The first game had Spanish-American and Malaysian, the second game had African-American, British, Australian, Japanese and crazy biotic test subject. Okay, maybe not that last one...

* Parodied in ''[[The Noob]]'', when the [[Pointy-Haired Boss|loonie boss]] tells the incompetent design team of [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ''"Cliche Quest"'' to show they embrace ethnic diversity in a commercial for their video game, to emphasize to the viewer that they don't follow "the old Fantasy stereotype where everyone is white" ("...or a squid"). Of course, after casting actors for the roles of "a Jewish-American, an Irish-American, an Italian-American, a Latino, an Asian and an African-American" the end results are [http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=197 even worse] - the cast of farcical stereotypes. "GREAT JOB! Now we can be sure that our commercial won't offend anyone!" Oh, and because they forgot to cast the "Caucasian with the rural accent", they come up with a last-minute alternative (on the next page).

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' has six main pony characters—two are unicorns, two are pegasi, and two are earth ponies, thus giving perfectly equal representation to each of the Pony races. Also, because the show aims ''not'' to imply that girls or women have to be limited to any particular stereotypes, and all the characters are different on just about every axis, they also represent different hobbies/professions and social groups—roughly speaking, a farmer, a fashionista, a bookworm, a party girl, an athlete, and, well, someone who likes to take care of little animals. There's also a dragon [[Sidekick]], and a zebra six—er, [[Sixth Ranger|seventh ranger]].

[[Category:Five-TokenEsoteric BandTrope Names]]