Positive Discrimination: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

When the [[Token Minority]] can do no wrong. She (this is most often seen with the [[The Smurfette Principle|lone female character]]) will never bumble or make a mistake, even in a show where the majority of the team does. She will be much smarter and have [[Only Sane Man|more common sense]] than average, she has more knowledge and skill than she has any reason to possess given her background, she will ''definitely'' be of [[Closer to Earth|superior moral character]], [[Action Girl|and she can probably kick your ass too]].

Contrast with [[Closer to Earth]]. Almost all instances of [[You Go, Girl!]] are this, when women are displayed as superior to their male competitors in sports or other traditionally male domains. The [[Innocent Bigot]] may display Positive Discrimination, but in this case it will be [[Lampshaded]] as a bad thing. [[You Are a Credit to Your Race]] is a related trope. Taking the polar opposite tack leads to [[Mighty Whitey]]. A very frequent character trait of the [[Gamer Chick]].

 

 

{{examples}}

* Used widely in kid-directed commercials. Picture this scenario: Two kids are having a race in an RC car commercial. As their two cars near the finish line, a third comes out of nowhere and beats them to the punch, doing flashy maneuvers the all the way. Mouths gaping, the two boys exchange awestruck glances and the camera panels to the mystery racer. If you hadn't guessed already, yes, [[Samus Is a Girl|it turns out to be some random girl]] holding the controller.

* Also works for minorities. Some white kid will be sitting around, wearing bland clothes, with a bland haircut, and looking horribly bored while holding a product. Then, with a burst of hip-hop, in sweeps the black kid, wearing trendy clothes with plenty of bling, and of course he's got the far superior version of the product! The white kid looks on with resigned, mournful envy as the black kid dances up a storm. No, really, Gogurt did this exact commercial, and slightly milder variations are quite popular, especially for food products.

** Though early on, Panther's main trait was his being a [[Determinator]] (he worked hard to impress his racist coach, misinterpreted the racism as his not being good enough, and worked even ''harder''). While his race did come into it as described, it's not like they had the "he's awesome 'cuz he's black!" attitude the whole time.

* There are two female Espada in ''[[Bleach]]'', past and current.<ref>And Cirucci but she isn't considered one anymore.</ref> Apart from Starrk, they're the only nice ones. They're also stronger with only two Espada stronger and {{spoiler|Harribel is the last Espada defeated, taken down personally by Aizen. And the two female Espada seem to be the only ones that actually get to live.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

** ''[[The Waterboy]]'' subverts this, too: Sandler's love interest is good-hearted, but also somewhat trashy and a petty criminal to boot.

* [[George Lucas]]' ''[[Red Tails]]'' does this with the African-American Tuskegee Airmen, not by making them unusually good but by making their white counterparts incredibly incompetent.

 

== Literature ==

** It should also be pointed out that<ref>until a certain point in the plot</ref> any male [[Our Monsters Are Different|Aes Sedai]] are (now) slowly driven insane by the Dark One's tainting of saidin.<ref>the male half of all magical energy</ref> All these men, back in the Age of Legends, going immediately insane was responsible for the [[Apocalypse How|Breaking of the World]]. Also worth nothing is that the women of the time stubbornly refused to help even when their own plan had pretty much collapsed around their ears. Then again, they make it a point that if the women had joined in, it could have been even worse as both sexes would have gone wild. Or the men's plan could have worked and the Breaking never would have happened. It's left ambiguous.

* Of the four protagonists of Patrick Tilley's ''The Amtrak Wars'', the two guys are pretty deeply flawed, get slightly better or a lot worse, and die. The two girls wind up more or less saints by the end, and live.

** Though arguably the Watch books do err slightly towards this trope when it comes to sex: while you have capable male officers and capable female officers the more [[The Fool|bumbling comedic roles]] like Colon or Nobby are all male.

*** Part of that is to show how Fred and Nobby are part of the "old" Watch rather than the "new" Watch. In the first Watch book a) Fred and Nobby were literally half the force, and b) the other two weren't much better (Carrot was a [[Naive Newcomer]] and Vimes was a drunk).

* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], after Jacen's death, the Moffs are caught using biological weapons against the Hapan royal family, and part of the terms of their amnesty are that a certain percentage of Moffs be female.

* The saintly Uncle Tom in ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'': Harriet Beecher Stowe intended him to be a model of a perfect Christian. Many other examples in that work.

 

* The seventh season of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' introduced a female crewmember who quickly proved the most competent of any of them (not a challenge given the competition, granted...) They thankfully backed off this some in later episodes. It should be pointed out, however, that she came from an alternate universe where the Red Dwarf crew were ''all'' more competent than their "regular" universe counterparts. A recurring theme had Kochanski berating Lister for not being as competent as ''her'' Dave. However, there was a lot of implication that they were more competent ''because'' of her, so it still stands.

** A subversion was Holly from Series 3-5, played by Hattie Hayridge. The character admitted in one episode to being a "deranged, half-witted computer" and in another couldn't even count without banging her head on the screen.

** ''Spin City'' mostly managed to avert this by making almost all of its characters heavily flawed, though the voice of reason was usually given to Carter or one of the female characters. Caitlin started out as an example of this, portrayed as being just as ruthless and scheming as Mike but much, much smarter and thwarting and subverting him at every turn. Apparently they eventually realized this was not only not very funny but annoying as hell and both toned her back and made her more neurotic.

* In the BBC version of ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'', the character of Djaq is a [[Twofer Token Minority|double token minority]]- the one non-white outlaw and the only female member of the group. She is frequently shown to be more intelligent than the other characters and is usually the one to tell them off for being idiots, kicks butt while fighting, has incredible healing powers, and can always get herself out of a fix with her Saracen know-how.

* Pretty much any family sitcom involves a wife who is far more intelligent and level headed than her spouse. This usually leads to one or two episodes where the trend is reversed so the husband can be right at least once. This one pretty much goes back to ''[[The Honeymooners]]''.

** Although sometimes they make it so the wife is ''still'' right anyway because the husband starts flaunting the fact he was right and messes up again. If you are a man on one of these shows, you simply cannot win.

* "Broken Heels" by Alexandra Burke is about how much better at everything women are than men.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7c16swRoMU Daniel] [[Tosh.0|Tosh]] would like to have a word with her.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

** In perhaps her most notable appearance, Beth was more of a [[Wild Card]] than a straight face or heel. Still officially a heel at the time, she entered the 2010 Royal Rumble Match (which only two other Divas, Chyna and Kharma, have ever done) and foreshadowed her [[Heel Face Turn]] by easily eliminating Great Khali (who was a face at the time, albeit not a very sympathetic one). She then attempted to eliminate then-heel (and her [[Real Life]] boyfriend) [[CM Punk]], but he got the best of her. It's doubtful she would have won in any case, since one of the last entrants in that match (and the eventual winner) was [[Edge]], who has demonstrated in the past that he [[Would Hit a Girl]].

** A special case occurred early in 2004, when [[Trish Stratus]] was a face and [[Christian]] was a heel, and Christian brutalized Trish with a submission hold [[I Lied|after promising to throw the match]]. But when Chris Jericho (Trish's boyfriend at the time) tried to come to her rescue, she inexplicably sided with Christian and became a heel herself (and yes, the [[Unfortunate Implications]] were thick).

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius]]'', [[Fantastic Racism]] between humans and the shapeshifting beast-men races called the Laguz are a major theme. While there are many senselessly evil or stupid human characters, in the first installment of the verse there was not a single evil Laguz. They were either outright heroic, brutally tortured and crazily brainwashed into attacking the heroes, or had a [[Anti-Villain|very good reason]] for opposing the good guys.<ref>Yes, this includes Naesala and his ravens, considering that all the piracy and mercenary work they do is for the sake of feeding their people at home.</ref> It got a bit better in the sequel, with a few Laguz bandits, some Laguz too big on the whole [[Blood Knight]] thing etc., but not exceptionally either.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' began its existence with Marge and Lisa being clearly smarter and more sensible than their male relatives. This was taken to the extreme in an episode where it was revealed that there was a "Simpson gene" for stupidity which only affected males ([[Discontinuity|we don't mention that episode much]], [[Canon Discontinuity|and the writers seem to have retconned it]]). As the series progressed, Marge developed her own idiotic habits, but so did everyone else in Springfield... save Lisa, who apparently absorbed every ounce of common sense and intelligence in the city. Of course, it didn't have anywhere else to ''go''. It was [[Early Installment Weirdness|much different in the very earliest episodes]]: Homer was relatively well-adjusted (if a bit naive), Marge was a [[Lady Drunk]], and Bart and Lisa were equally annoying, bratty nitwits.

** The episode "The Last Temptation of Homer" played this trope ridiculously straight, especially in comparison to the farcical depiction of female characters in earlier episodes. Facing a string of lawsuits, Mr. Burns is forced to adopt an affirmative action hiring policy so he at least won't get hit with an anti-discrimination lawsuit (though why he wouldn't have been forced to do this before 1993 is never explained). As a result, the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant hires its first-ever female technician, Mindy Simmons (voiced by guest star Michelle Pfeiffer). Much to Homer's consternation, he discovers that [[Distaff Counterpart|Mindy shares all of his good qualities]] (proudly working-class, friendly, fun-loving) and none of his bad ones. Indeed, despite being shown [[Big Eater|eating at least as much as Homer does]], Mindy never gains any weight and remains forever a sexy babe. And while she does have at least ''some'' flaws, Mindy seems downright perfect compared to silly, pathetic, bumbling, stupid Homer. She's definitely the more grown-up and sensible of the two, and all the humiliating gags in the episode are at Homer's expense. All this, of course, is to test Homer's morality: can he remain faithful to Marge while in the constant presence of this goddess (quite literally, as Homer imagines Mindy as Venus the first time he sees her)? A subversion of the trope finally came in a later episode, in which [[Continuity Nod|Homer finally confessed to his family his temptation to sleep with Mindy]] (which he didn't do), and assured everyone that they never see each other anymore, because Mindy [[Not So Above It All|"hit the bottle pretty hard and lost her job."]]

*** Amusingly this was despite the episode seemingly trying to subvert the trope and displaying Mindy as a bumbling, more compatable female for Homer, however many of her flaws mirroring Homer's are minor or merely implied. The show doesn't seem to know how to get away from this trope, even when it's ''trying it's hardest to avoid it''.

* ''Barbie in [[A Christmas Carol]]'' has Barbie's [[Black Best Friend]] Christi playing a living saint while Barbie is in the role of [[The Grinch]].

* Played with and then mocked in a ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch where they play a skit once, then play it with the races reversed. Then they do something completely unrelated to the previous two skits. Each is bookended by a scientist asking what the audience feels about the skits, then concluding something completely nonsensical.

** Done again immediately afterwards when the other minority juror (a dog) gives a technical explanation and another juror interrupts him with, "Uh, you're a f**king dog."

* Abby from ''[[The Replacements (animation)|The Replacements]]''. In addition to being rich, she also seems to be the [[Straight Man]] in her [[Girl Posse]], and is rarely the butt of anyone's joke.

* In the eighties cartoon ''[[Bionic Six]]'', the family started out with three children, two of their own (a boy and a girl) and an adopted child who was black. The male son was a jock, and [[Butt Monkey|go-to guy for saying or doing anything stupid]]. The adopted black son was not only just as big of a school hero jock as the white son, but was a ''supergenius'' on top of that.

 

* In the Lego series ''[[Bionicle]]'', each Toa team has only one female on it, the main three so far being Gali, Nokama and Hahli. In each case they are the least flawed and the wisest members of their teams. Particularly noticeable in ''Legends Of Metru Nui'' in which each Toa Metru is given a major character flaw which they must overcome to unlock their individual mask powers, such as Vakama's lack of confidence and Matau's inability to stop and think before rushing in. Not only is Nokama's flaw relatively small (not admitting when she's wrong), it is only referenced once and she overcomes it very early on, extremely quickly.

** It gets better after a [[Retool]] that switches settings to focus on a world with [[Gladiator Games]]. The one girl there, Kiina, is brash, aggressive, and blunt; traits that help her in the arena but make her a pain to deal with outside of it.

* Melvin Udall ([[Jack Nicholson]]) in ''[[As Good as It Gets]]'' is a lonely romance novelist afflicted with a serious case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (which, granted, isn't a "traditional" disability but still can - and often does - wreak quite a bit of havoc with its victims' daily lives). In a more trite or inoffensive film he'd come off as [[The Woobie]] due to this trope. But director James L. Brooks turns him into more of a [[Jerkass Woobie]] whose extreme shortage of social skills has made him unbearably rude and misanthropic. (He's been prescribed pills for his disorder, but never takes them because he's too ashamed to.) Much of the movie is concerned with Melvin slowly becoming friendlier and more sensitive, especially to a gay neighbor whom he had mocked earlier in the film. Especially shocking is a scene in which Melvin, irritated that his daily breakfast at the diner just down the street from his apartment is not going as planned, offhandedly mocks a waitress for being [[Hollywood Pudgy|"fat."]] The restaurant owner immediately flies into a rage and [[Break the Haughty|forces Melvin to leave the building]], prompting ''everyone'' else in the diner to [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|burst into wild applause]] - a humiliating punishment that would ''never'' be administered to any disabled character suffering from any ailment more serious than OCD, unless said character blatantly crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]].

** But it can also be seen as a straight white guy needing a gay man and a woman to make him less of a jerk so he can be happy.

* The disabled protagonists of ''[[Rory O'Shea Was Here]]'' are as flawed and human as everyone else in the film.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Meta Concepts]]

[[Category:Race Tropes]]

[[Category:Hentai Tropes]]