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Tragic Mulatto: Difference between revisions
Went to the wikipedia page for the trope. Adding examples from there.
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This is largely a [[Discredited Trope]] these days, due to the unsettling frequency with which authors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used it to talk about racial prejudice without having [[But Not Too Black|an 'excessively black' protagonist]]. The assumption that having mixed-raced blood dooms you to misfortune is also a rich source of [[Unfortunate Implications]], much in the same way as [[Bury Your Gays]]. Nevertheless, examples do still crop up in media, usually seeking (with varying degrees of success) to avoid the trope's more obviously problematic aspects by using fantastic races like elves or demons instead of the real-world sort.
See also [[Pass Fail]]. Compare [[Halfbreed]]. A [[Chocolate Baby]] can be a lighting rod for this trope.
{{examples}}
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== Comic Books ==
* Namor the [[Sub-Mariner]]'s cousin Namorita, of ''[[The New Warriors]]''. She had major angst over being half Atlantean and half Human. She's also has the [[Cloning Blues]] on top of that.
* Some versions of [[Aquaman]] have also had this problem; i.e. when he's half-human. Man doesn't even have a consistent first name, and he's been retconned so many times he's hit [[Mutliple Choice Past]] territory.
* The [[Cloning Blues]] version of [[Superboy]], Conner, turned out to have this problem. Although since the human genetic donor was retconned into being ''[[Lex Luthor]]'', there were much better things to worry about than mere race.
== Film ==
* Many half-breed Indians in the old Westerns. Especially the post-[[The Lone Ranger|Tonto]] Westerns where tragic mulattos were common.
* ''Imitation
* The classic British film ''Sapphire'' concerns the murder of a mixed-race girl who had been passing for white and hoping to marry a white guy.
* Senator John Ambrose Fauntroy in ''[[CSA: Confederate States of America]]'' is finally [[Driven to Suicide]] when it is suspected he has black blood. But he was a [[Complete Monster]] in life, and it's revealed {{spoiler|after his death that he was 100% Caucasian. His black slave made up that rumor to get revenge on his master. It's [[An Aesop]] that racism harms the perpetrators as well as the victims.}}
* Dutch movie ''Sonny Boy'' (2011) is an example of this set in [[WW 2]].
* The film ''[[Australia (2008 film)|Australia]]'' explores the plight of half-Aboriginal children.
* The Mexican film ''Angelitos Negros'' (and its remake), when a racist white woman gives birth to a dark skinned girl, and immediately neglects and rejects her, causing a lot of heartbreak in the child. She also mistreats her husband, to whom she accuses of having black ancestry, and her black nanny. Then it's revealed that the woman's nanny is actually her real mother; the woman only discovers it {{spoiler|after she accidentally trew the nanny down the stairs, prompting the dying woman to come clear in her deathbed}}.
== Literature ==
* Subverted in Alex Haley's ''Queen'', who looks to turn out like this but makes her own way in the world, accepting her heritage.
* Discussed in ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]''. Jem explains this to his sister. "They don't belong anywhere. Colored folks won't have 'em because they're half white; white folks won't have 'em 'cause they're colored, so they're just in-betweens, don't belong anywhere."
* Joe Christmas in ''[[A Light in August]]'' .
* Tharkay in the ''[[Temeraire]]'' series. Justified by the time period: since it's set in the early 19th century, he really ''wouldn't'' be accepted by English society, despite being the son of a gentleman.
* Tanis Half-Elven in ''[[Dragonlance]]'', whose Elven mother was raped by a human soldier. To hide his Elven side he grows a [[Badass Beard]], which elves can't in this setting, but his eyes and ears still give him away at times.
* Catherine Cookson's ''Colourblind'' is this. It's protagonist Rose Angela encounters a lot of discrimination, mostly from her (white) uncle Matt. It has a happy ending for her when she finds acceptance with a man who "Only hates Arabs".
* In ''[[The Full Matilda]]'' by David Haynes, Jacob is like this, though it's arguably more of a modern take on the subject, with both sides finding him "exotic", "[[But Not Too Black|not too black]]" or "not black enough".
* In Ellery Queen's novel ''The Roman Hat Mystery'', this is the murderer's motive. {{spoiler|He was passing for white, and the victim threatened to expose him. The detective, instead of criticizing racism at the end, says something along the lines of "Well, we all know they're more violent anyway." Yuck.}}
* This turns out to hide in the backstory of Faulkner's ''[[Absalom, Absalom!]]'' Well, more like Tragic Octoroon, actually. One drop is still too much.
* The setting of [[Robin McKinley]]'s novel ''[[Sunshine (novel)|Sunshine]]'' includes the fantasy version of these, with emphasis on passing for all part-demons. Miscegenation is illegal, so if passing fails you just blame it on a dead ancestor no one told you about till now, register as partblood, and cope with severe prejudice the rest of your life. Mentioned are:
** Middle-aged bank manager suddenly grew horns; was fired. Appealed and won, because that's illegal, but they still fired him.
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** And the crowner: Strong human magic and strong demon magic inherited by the same person gives a 90% chance of superpowered psychotic killer. These persons are known as 'bad magic crosses.' Sunshine spends a lot of the middle of the book worried she's this, since she has weird magic, has an alliance with a vampire against other vampires, and her father was suspected of being a sorcerer.
* ''[[The Autobiography Of An Ex Colored Man]]'' by James Weldon Johnson ([[Literary Agent Hypothesis|actually a novel]]) tells the story of a man (he remains unnamed) who is 1/4 or 1/8 black and can thus pass for white fairly easily. Raised in the North sometime after the Civil War among upper-class blacks and mostly-benevolent whites, he learns and excels at classical piano. He eventually ends up living in Atlanta and then Harlem, where he acclimates easily enough to both upper- and working-class black life, at first teaching and then performing piano. He picks up [[Ragtime]], combines it with his Classical chops, and gets quite a reputation—even touring turn-of-the-century Europe as a black man as part of the entourage of a businessman. And then he has a [[Eureka Moment]] regarding music, goes to the [[Deep South]] to connect to his black roots...and then sees a lynching. He quickly returns to New York, takes a job at an office, and marries and has children with a white woman, never telling wife or children about his heritage, and feeling awful about it. Hence the title.
* The Brazilian novel ''A Escrava Isaura'' ("Isaura, The Slave Girl"), about a mulatto woman so light skinned that can pass for white (and was raised as a daughter by her white owner because of it), but because she was born as an slave and her first master dies before feeing her, she cannot have her own fate on her hands.
* The short story ''Désirée's Baby'', by Kate Chopin. A woman of unkown ancestry marries a white man and gives birth an "octoroon" baby, and in consequence she is rejected by her husband and ostracised by her social circle. {{Spoiler|Turns out that the one with actual black ascendency is her husband, but he keeps mum about it.}}
== Live Action TV ==
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* Sherman Alexie's character Zits in ''[[Flight (novel)|Flight]]''.
* Doyle in ''[[Angel]]'', who manages to really screw his life up this way. Given he's introduced as a shady, alcoholic failure of a gambler and conman, it is fascinating to discover that five years ago he was a stable, successful ''kindergarten teacher'' called by his first name, Francis, who'd met his fiancee while they were volunteering at a soup kitchen. Then the demon blood showed... He did it to himself, though. He could have kept everything, even the hot fiancee, he just freaked out and bolted.
* The TV adaptations of ''A Escrava Isaura'' feature this trope prominetly in the heroine.
* The mexican soap opera ''El alma no tiene color'' recycles the plot of ''Angelitos Negros'' above.
== Music ==
* The Jeff Bates song "Rainbow Man" is about a man suffering from this trope who comes to embrace his nature. "I never really fit in any place/'Cause there's always a part of me to hate."
* Cher's song "Halfbreed", about a half white half Cherokee child rejected by both societies.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'': Depending on the campaign and the individual in question, [[Half-Human Hybrid|half-races]] in D&D are either shunned by both sides of their heritage or they end up becoming liasons between the two.
** The two most common half-races—Half-Elves and Half-Orcs—respectively play up the positive and negative aspects of being mixed. In general, Half-Elves are seen as beautiful and socially accepted by both sides (if a little condescended by full elves), while Half-Orcs are considered brutes by humans and weaklings by full orcs...and are often products of [[Child by Rape|war atrocities]].
== Theatre ==
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* The character Robert in Langston Hughes 1927 play ''The Mulatto''.
* The character Zoey in the Dion Boucicault 1859 play ''The Octoroon''.
* In ''[[Miss Saigon]]'', one of many reasons Kim is so
** Even the Engineer could be an example of this. One wonders if he might have become more than a pimp were it not for the fact he himself is the illegitimate son of a prostitute and her European customer.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The Branded in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': Parodied in "The Griffin Family History" which contains a ''[[Roots]]'' spoof.
{{quote|Stewie: "You know the best part of being half white and half black. When I grow up I'll be accepted by everyone."}}
* Uncle Ruckus (no relation) on ''[[Boondocks]]''. Sorta. He ''thinks'' he's white and has re-vitiligo. He's also claimed to be Indian and numerous white ethnicities.
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* Many first-generation mixed children even in America today can suffer a lot over it one way and another, not so much in public contexts as in questions of identity, extended families that object to one another strenuously, and things like people refusing to believe they're actually related to their white parent when they're *clearly* black.
* This started from as far back as slavery days. While being light-skinned often meant a more coveted position as a house slave (and the ability to pass for white if necessary), it was also obvious that you were the result of your mother's rape by a white man, and thus, your complexion was viewed as something to be ashamed of.
* For various reasons<ref>such as preserving a minority culture undiluted, keeping a community together, the number of White or Black identified Americans who have or believe they have some kind of Native ancestry, trying to figure out who has certain rights like voting in tribal elections or owning an eagle feather under US laws which make exceptions for tribally enrolled Natives, ad nauseum</ref> it can be very difficult for urban Natives and Natives of mixed descent to claim indigenous identity in the United States. The legal status of tribal enrollment has requirements that have been criticized for being rigid, arbitrary, and sometimes arcane - This Troper knows of one example in his tribe where one man got on the rolls but his brother was rejected - and if you can't produce your papers sometimes that means you can't fully participate in some aspects of your religion and culture, like being able to legally use controlled substances like peyote which belong to your tradition, be able to take classes in your language which are enrolled-only, or be allowed to attend some
{{reflist}}
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