Token Minority Couple/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The Token Minority falls in love with someone who "just so happens" to be a minority as well.

  • Straight: Alicia is the token black girl in the Four-Girl Ensemble and meets Bobby, who's funny, smart, handsome, and is black himself.
  • Exaggerated: The Four Girl Ensemble meet their Spear Counterpart quartet, who correspond to the girls' races.
  • Justified: Alicia is only attracted to black men, and thus those are the only men she considers for relationships.
    • Or they live in a society where interracial relationship considered immoral.
  • Inverted: Alicia and Bobby are each in a relationship with a white person, instead of each other.
  • Subverted: Alicia is friends with Bobby, but ends up dating Carl, who's white.
  • Double Subverted: But then she has an affair with Bobby.
  • Parodied: Bobby is literally bussed in from another town by Alice's friends so she can have someone to date.
  • Deconstructed: Alicia lives in a time and place where racism is prevalent and mixed marriage is frowned on, and her family are keen for her to marry Bobby, although she secretly loves Carl. She's not very happy about it, and considers running away with Carl after all.
  • Reconstructed: Alicia runs away with Carl, only to realise that she only loves him because he's the Forbidden Fruit -- they don't have much in common at all. When she comes back to her family and talks it over, they explain that they didn't just pick the first black guy they saw; they really think he's a good match. (Whether they get together or not is left ambiguous to lessen the inevitable Unfortunate Implications of "So you see, kids, you should never marry out!")
  • Zig Zagged: She has the affair with Bobby or comes close, but realizes she truly loves Carl after all. A Betty and Veronica love triangle ensues between "acceptable-to-the-family" Bobby and Star Crossed Lover|s Carl.
  • Averted: There is more than one minority on the show, but there's no particular connection between them, and they don't solely date "matching" people.
  • Enforced: It's The Sixties or earlier, and Executive Meddling outright forbids anyone on the show from dating outside their race.
    • It's now, but the executives are aware that Token Shipping is still the less controversial option and will probably get fewer and less rabid complaints.
  • Lampshaded: Bobby asks Alicia out, and she thinks about how he's the only black guy her age in the whole town.
  • Invoked: Bobby flat-out says, "We are the only black people in Orange County..."
  • Defied: Alicia replies, "You're an even bigger jackass if you think I'd date you for that reason alone."
  • Discussed: Bobby is a new student at Alicia's school, and one day they talk about how everyone expects them to start dating.
  • Conversed: Alicia is watching her favorite soap opera and is annoyed at how, out of all the men on the show, the black nurse is arbitrarily paired off with the black police officer.

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