Humans Are White/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Human characters are portrayed as universally Caucasian.

  • Straight: The members of the Five-Man Band in Troperia, Bob, John, Benny, Alex, and Alice are all Caucasian.
  • Exaggerated: All members of the Five-Man Band have snowy white skin that would make Snow White ashamed, golden hair, and blue eyes.
  • Up to Eleven: All humans appearing in Troperia have deathly pale skin, albino hair, and red eyes (because they lack skin pigment, the color of blood reflects in the irises.)
  • Downplayed: Although non-Caucasians do appear in Troperia, most of the characters and all main characters are still white.
  • Justified: Since humans live on planets without much sunlight, they have developed fair skin tone to absorb as much ultraviolet ray (which helps the body produce the precious Vitamin D) as possible.
  • Inverted: The Five-Man Band in Troperia all have dark skin.
  • Subverted: Alice turns out to be a spy sent by Emperor Evulz who happens to have black skin and has been using high-tech to conceal her skin tone.
    • Black people return from centuries-long hibernation in a cryogenic facility.
    • The characters, in a space expedition, discover a planet where darker-skinned people live.
    • The characters themselves are actually blacks who have been living in a matrix-like dream world where they are whites.
    • Or their dark skin have been concealed behind false white skin.
  • Double Subverted: ...But Alice is also a humanoid robot.
    • The newly discovered blacks are actually whites who paint their skin black as make-up.
    • When the characters wake up from the dream world, their skin instantly turns white.
  • Parodied: The human characters always have to wear sunglasses because their nigh-translucent skin reflects sunlight everywhere.
  • Deconstructed: The Five-Man Band is incapacitated because they all suffer from skin cancer.
    • A meta example; the audience is offended by all the characters being white, so the rate goes down and the show is ended prematurely,
  • Reconstructed: The Five-Man Band uses sunscreens, latest medical technology, and genetic engineering so that they don't get skin cancer.
    • The audience keeps in mind that Troperia was made in 1960s in U.S. and therefore there is no need to be offended.
  • Zig Zagged: The Five-Man Band has an ability to change their skin color at will.
  • Averted: Only Bob and Alice are white, while Alex is black, John is from Middle East, and Benny is an Asian.
    • There is a Five-Token Band made up of aliens and robots, to avoid the issue of having five white humans as the protagonists.
  • Enforced: Blacks are socially stigmatized in the country where the TV show Troperia is watched, so all actors have to be white.
  • Lampshaded: "Don't you find it strange that everyone in this star system is white?"
  • Invoked: "We the Germans should be proud of our heritage. Exterminate those dark-skinned subhumans!"
  • Exploited: Emperor Evulz brings the Five-Man Band to its knees with strong ultraviolet rays that instantly cause skin cancer.
  • Defied: The Five-Man Band regularly tan their skin to minimize the risk of sunburn.
  • Discussed: "The first humans originated from Africa and had dark skin." "Professor, then why are people today all fair-skinned?"
  • Conversed: "This show has only white people in it as humans. How racist."
  • Played For Laughs: ???
  • Played For Drama: A non-Caucasian astronaut from Earth winds up in the Troperia star system, and everyone assumes he's a Humanoid Alien spy.

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