Talk:The Great White North

We don't have racial slurs in other trope names - why is this trope an exception?

Suggestions for a meaningful replacement name are welcome.

"The Great White North", which comes with an extra bonus SCTV reference

Is Eskimo an slur? I didn't knew; I'm only acquainted by its neutral, if outdated, meaning to encompass the Inuit, Yupik and other tribes living around the north polar circle. The Wikipedia article cites instances of this neutral use of the word. Then again, I'm not Canadian, so there is a cultural gap there.

Since the trope is about the stereotype of the Inuit person living in an igloo and hunting seals with their husky dogs-powered sleds, rename the trope "Igloo Land". It may be still offensive, but if the problem is the slur, it removes it neatly

It's definitely a slur. Nestle couldn't even sell "Eskimo Pie" ice cream novelties now because of the backlash (so they sold the brand), and the Edmonton football team gets the same reaction for using "Eskimos" as the Washington football team gets for using "Redskins" in the 21st century.

I have never heard eskimo be called a racial slur. As for "We don't have racial slurs in other trope names", Magical Negro.

I had never heard of Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred until today, either, but it looks like you knew about that one. These are both examples of Small Reference Pools.

As for that other trope, let's fix that name, too - I just added "Needs a Better Name" to that page and started a thread on its Talk page.

Unfortunately "Magical Negro" is not a phrase just used on TvTropes and is splinters. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro . Which makes me hesitant to change it.

Of course the 2nd paragraph of the wikipedia article states that the word choice in the name isn't universally endorsed.

I believe all the "Magical Minority" tropes were patterned the same as the "original" Magical Negro trope, with Spike Lee (who coined the latter) deliberately choosing the archaic term to evoke a similarly outdated and offensive caricature that persists in the modern day.

The names make complete sense to me for that reason, though I wouldn't particularly object to a name change and might actually be willing to suggest something in at least a few cases.

While I still don't consider eskimo a dirty word, if that is the wiki policy, you might want to look at the trope name of Eskimos Aren't Real.

We started that conversation at the same time we started this one. And I just renamed that page. EDIT: Which means it's time to rename this one. Looney Toons's suggestion is the only one here, so it wins.

I did make a new name suggestion, "Igloo Land"! It was under my comment over my ignorance on why the original name of this trope was an slur despite Wikipedia being "well, technically it is not but..." But I guess the controversy overshadowed it, and Admins have an advance over ordinary users. (not that I'm against the new name of the trope, it's still appropriate and better than the former one. It's just that it is less international for ESL who don't get the reference)

Oh, sorry - I completely missed that on re-reading the thread.

We can still use Igloo Land as a redirect, if you'd like.

You spend a day driving from Cape Cod to New Jersey and all kinds of things happen... <grin>