Where Da White Women At?: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''Little Boy''' (serving coffee): Cream?<br />

 

 

This one is a bit more controversial, even to this day in some parts of the world. In [[Real Life]], black man/white woman pairs are very common and both racial groups have their own views about it, some positive, some negative, most neutral. White man/black woman pairs don't get as much attention (either positive or negative). There's a [[Double Standard]] in effect here dating back to American slavery: sexual relationships between female slaves and white men were (if not tolerated) left unspoken. The alternate relationship, of a white woman and a male slave, could result in death for the black male and the public shaming of the white female. Obviously, much of this has died down, though old biases still linger. These days, black women also have to contend with the stereotype that they're angry, unattractive man-haters, to the point that the news media [http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/06/21/the-media-v-black-women-the-peculiar-case-of-the-media’s-obsession-with-unmarried-black-women/ actually runs stories] about why unmarried black women are unmarried.

The [[Trope Namer]] comes from ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''. It's also worth noting that the affection isn't one-sided in the least. There are plenty of white women on the prowl, wondering if [[Bigger Is Better in Bed|what they heard]] is true. And you know what they say after ''that''. This trope used to be nicknamed ''Jungle Fever'', until [[Spike Lee]] made a film deconstructing the term.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Film ==

* A deleted scene in ''[[American History X]]'' features an interracial couple being harassed by two of the bad guys. The black guy manages to keep his cool and delivers insults that actually sting the villains.

** In a surprise bit of [[Values Dissonance]], there's another reason to object to the marriage: Poitier's character is at least ''fifteen years'' older than Hepburn's daughter, plus they've only met several weeks earlier. The writers intentionally made Poitier's character as perfect as possible so that there would be no reason for anyone to object to the marriage other than the racial difference, as well as the other two mentioned.

* Another Poitier film, ''A Patch of Blue'', has his character befriending and then falling in love with a blind white teenager.

* [[Spike Lee]]'s ''Jungle Fever''. The main couple in the film, a black man and a white woman, face discrimination and resentment from almost everyone, especially family members. [[Unfortunate Implications]] also come into play, since the man was already married and cheated on his wife.

* One of the better chick flicks ''Save the Last Dance'' is about a young white girl moving to the inner city and falling in love with a black youth with a bright future. A black female character criticizes her for this and says she hates how white girls always snatch up the good black men, leaving black girls with the black men that are criminals and gang members.

*** Jimmy's wife, Bonnie (despite only being seen for a matter of seconds) is African American.

*** The above-mentioned Ordelle & Melanie.

* This is played for laughs in ''[[Undercover Brother]]''. Sistah Girl informs the team that the Undercover Brother has slept with Penelope Snow, {{spoiler|AKA White She-Devil, aka Black Man's Kryptonite}}. Conspiracy Brother asks "Was it everything I dreamed of?" and "She had pink nipples, didn't she?" and [[Da Chief]] asks "Carpet match the drapes?" However, having sex with him eventually turns her [[Sex Face Turn|over to their side]], since she rather enjoyed the encounter. Of course Lance (the only white guy there) was doing it, too.

* In ''[[White Chicks]]'', the main characters are black men [[Disguised in Drag|disguised as white chicks]], and one of them is [[Attractive Bent Gender|romantically pursued]] by another black man. When he finds out the truth, he rants about how he was deceived into dating someone who isn't white, apparently not even caring [[Bi the Way|that he was attracted to another man]].

** Unrelated, but one of the characters actually yells, "Where da white women at?" at one point in the film.

* ''[[Hancock]]'': {{spoiler|Hancock and Mary have been together for centuries in a mixed marriage. In fact, Hancock's amnesia is a result of being assaulted by bigots because [[Maligned Mixed Marriage|he was with a white woman]] in pre-[[Civil Rights Movement]] era Florida.}}

* Surprisingly, not one of the many jokes in ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''. The Trope Name comes from a line dropped in a shenanigan Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid pull to get the attention of a [[A Worldwide Punomenon|kouple]] of Klan members.

** That is not twue.

* While not the [[Ur Example]], one of the earliest [[Trope Codifier|trope codifiers]] for films of this trope is ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'' (aka ''The Clansman''), a controversial but influential 1915 film in which the Ku Klux Klan is founded in large part because the white men need to defend the honor of their women, who are being taken away to be raped by [[Always Chaotic Evil]] [[Scary Black Man|black men]]. For those who aren't film scholars or aficionados of silent film, it should be noted that the controversy and influence are due to two ''entirely'' different things: the controversy due to the extremely vile racism, the influence due to the style of the movie, which set a few trends in motion.

* ''[[The Blind Side]]'': A drug dealer makes sexual comments suggesting he thinks this way about Leigh Anne and Collins, {{spoiler|setting off Michael's [[Berserk Button]]}}. Also, Leigh Anne's [[Rich Bitch|snobbish]] salad luncheon friends warn Leigh Anne of this.

* Exaggerated in the romantic comedy ''The Brothers.'' Bill Bellamy's character only dates white women after a nasty turn with a black ex, since he sees them as timid and docile. It doesn't help that the black women in his subplot (his mother and ex) are both racist, ball-busting shrews. The white girl comes across as ironically sensible; she defends herself against his ex, and calls Bellamy out on his bullshit when he chides her for being "no different" after the two ladies fight.

* The infamous 1975 [[Blaxploitation]] movie ''Mandingo'', which is about a horny slaveowner's wife (named Blanche, FFS) seducing a [[Scary Black Man]] on the plantation. It ends with a black baby being born and the white owner murdering both his wife and his slave in revenge.

* The 1968 British-French film ''The Girl on a Motorcycle'' (AKA ''[[Vapor Wear|Naked]] [[Hell-Bent for Leather|Under Leather]]''). At the French/German border a smiling black customs officer makes a point of taking the title character aside and patting her down in an intimate fashion. When she has to go through the same customs station later on in the movie she comments, "That black man had better not try touching me up again" [[Hypocritical Humor|only to be disappointed]] when she sees the customs officer is an elderly white guy.

* An early example is Harry Belafonte and Joan Fontaine in the 1957 film ''Island in the Sun''. {{spoiler|Unsurprising for the time, they don't end up together}}

* There is a tragic example in ''[[Holes]]''. The relationship between Sam, a black man, and Kate, a white woman, causes another man after Kate to kill Sam, {{spoiler|provoking Kate into becoming the notorious bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow}}.

* John Updike's ''Brazil'' is about an affair between a rich white girl and poor black man who later run away together. Later they switch colours by mystic means (it's a long story). It does not end well.

* In ''[[The Poisonwood Bible]]'', Leah (a white girl who came to the Congo with her missionary family) ends up marrying Anatole (a black citizen of the Congo). There are a lot of awkward moments, to say the least, over Leah's skin color, as she is the minority in the country where she lives, and because her race defines her as a citizen of an imperialist country.

* ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'': "White trash" Mayella Ewell comes on to Tom Robinson, a black man, in 1930s Alabama. As he tries to get away, her father comes in, witnesses this, beats the shit out of her, and then forces her to claim Robinson raped her.

* In the short story ''Spawn of Satan'' by Charles Birkin, a black man and his white wife move to a town ruled by neo-Nazi street gangs. He is horribly and gruesomely lynched by the gangs in revenge for his wife accidentally killing a white child when she had a heart attack while driving.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'': Joy was afraid of her father's reaction to her marrying Darnell, since he'd objected to her dating a black guy in high school. In reality, he knew that the unfortunate youth was actually his illegitimate son.

{{quote| '''Leonard''': "Where are all the white women at?"<br />

'''Jeff''': No Leonard! There are no white women here!" }}

* Brazilian historical [[Soap Opera]] ''Xica da Silva'', period. And it was [[Based on a True Story]].

* Since their groundbreaking roles in 1992's soap ''Por estas Calles'', Venezuelan actors Gledys Ibarra and Franklin Virguez tends to end in roles with this kind of relationship, given that they are two of the most prominent black actors in a country where most of the acting pool is fair-skinned (and Ms. Ibarra herself [[But Not Too Black|has lighter skin and green eyes]]). They are helped by the fact that Venezuela is more accepting of interracial couples.

** For that matter, Lt. Dangle (white gay man) is obsessed with Dep. Jones as well.

** "... no, wait. [[Hannibal Lecture|Desdemona wasn't in love with the other guy.]]"

* ''[[Oz]]''. Kareem Said's attraction to a white woman gets him ousted as leader of the Muslims. In an earlier episode he briefly encounters his former fiancee, who's also white -- a fact that caused a rift with his own sister, who accused Kareem of "trying to be something he's not." (i.e. white)

* In Charles S Dutton's sitcom ''Roc'', a long lost relative gets engaged, and carefully breaks it to Roc's racist black father that his fiance is white, though forgets to mention that it's a man.

* Everton and Renee on ''Chef!''. The only outside opposition they got (not counting Renee being a bit of a [[Rich Bitch]]) was the Chef himself, who didn't think they should date because they were colleagues.

* ''704 Hauser'', a belated [[Spin-Off]] of ''[[All in The Family]]'', showed a black family living in the Bunkers' former home. The son was in a relationship with a Jewish girl, which the father tolerated about as much as Archie tolerated Meathead (or perhaps a little less).

* Deliberately averted in [[The Sixties]] spy series ''[[I Spy]]'', at the insistence of [[Bill Cosby]].

* In ''[[The 4400]]'', Richard Tyler was abducted from 1951 during the Korean War, where his secret relationship with a white woman had gotten him beaten up by his fellow officers. In the present, his relationship with fellow abductee Lily, the [[Identical Grandson|Identical Granddaughter]] of that woman, is seen as totally mundane... well, apart from their superpowered [[Fetus Terrible]].

{{quote| '''Sophia:''' There's nothing romantic about it -- I've never even thought of him that way. Which is surprising, because I've always wondered about that particular myth.<br />

'''[[The Ditz|Rose:]]''' What myth?<br />

{{quote| '''Dad:''' Gosh, Tony. I've got to tell you... you're a pleasant change from the usual riff-raff Susan usually brings home.<br />

'''Susan:''' (furiously) Dad! He's not armed! }}

 

 

* "KKK Bitch" by Ice-T's band Body Count. Also, on the album, a skit before the song states that "the real issue isn't the lyrics on the record, but the risk of the white kid identifying with a black artist, or a white girl, falling in love with a black man".

** Also, "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight", where the protagonist kills his racist mother after she negatively reacts to his white girlfriend.

{{quote| And they gone keep calling and trying / But you stay right girl / But when you get on he leave your ass for a white girl.}}

** The video for "Touch the Sky" has a scene in which his black ex-girlfriend yells at him for dating a white girl. When said girlfriend (played by Pamela Anderson) runs out and kisses him, the ex-girlfriend and her friend are seen looking annoyed and shocked.

"Had a few white girls..." from "HAM" }}

* Madness - Embarrassment, which was a real life story about a sister of one of the band. Happily, [[wikipedia:Embarrassment chr(28)songchr(29)|it ended well]].

 

 

== Theatre ==

** The argument that Othello is Semitic rather than African [[Unfortunate Implications|more political than textual]], given that the villain [[Politically-Incorrect Villain|Iago]] refers to him as "thick lips" and "a black ram", which aren't terribly ambiguous...

{{quote| "[[Politically-Incorrect Villain|I am one]], sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making '''[[Unusual Euphemism|the beast with two backs!]]"'''<br />

"Even now, now, very now, an '''old black ram''' / [[Unusual Euphemism|Is tupping]] '''your white ewe!"''' }}

* ''[[The Merchant of Venice]]'' has two examples:

** One of Portia's wealthy suitors is the Prince of Morocco, who begs her to "mislike me not for my complexion". When he loses the [[Engagement Challenge]], she is quite glad: "Let all of his complexion choose me so."

* [[Hairspray|''In my ivory tower, life was just a Hostess snack/ But now I've tasted chocolate, and I'm never going back!'']]

{{quote| Und ich soll die Liebe meiden,/weil ein Schwarzer hässlich ist!/[...]Eine Weisse nahm mich ein;/Weiss ist schön, ich muss sie küssen!<br />

And I must forgo love, because a black man is ugly![...]A white woman has captivated me; white is beautiful, I must kiss her! }}

 

== Western Animation ==

** In the comics, they've had many discussions about the baggage that comes with being such a couple. Sara was upset when she found out Tom had only dated white women before ("I'm your little Barbie doll, an embodiment of the European standards of beauty!" "Oh but what I really love you for is your sense of modesty, miss 'embodiment of the European standards of beauty!'"), until he points out that all HER boyfriends in the past have been black. He even quotes the trope title jokingly which does not amuse Sara.

** The comics also lampshades the trope by having them dress as Othello and Desdemona, which turns out to be the only disguise they ever put on for Halloween.

** There is also a deleted scene on the Season One DVD, where Granddad imagines the worst case scenario at the Wuncler party, Huey calling the host a "Cracker Devil", and Riley asking "Where all the white bitches at?"

** Several episodes of the series imply that black men with power or money will naturally try to score white women. Several episodes also imply that the whitest of women can't get enough of their Nubian Romeos ([[Ann Coulter]] for one).

** In "Brian the Bachelor", Cleveland goes on the prowl at a local bar. He asks a potential mate "Hey baby, how'd you like to go black and then make the difficult decision on whether to go back? " she replies "I already went Burnt Sienna and never went back." The Burnt Sienna crayon she is dating starts to threaten Cleveland.

** Peter worries that Jerome will steal Lois from him in "Jerome is the New Black", as they used to date. Jerome says he would never do such a thing but admits that he did have lots of sex with Meg. Peter is not concerned about that.

** [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] in "Untitled Griffin Family History", when Peter says [[Sarcasm Mode|"Of course, ordinarily black guys aren't attracted to white women, but she was something different."]] Then played straight.

* On ''[[Robot Chicken]]'', a scientist programs his Afrobot to say this.

 

** As the article itself shows though, the judge's reasoning for denying interracial couples marriage licenses, while flawed and somewhat cowardly, was not exactly racist: he was concerned about the damaging affect that the prejudice of their peers would have on the children of interracial couples, which unfortunately remains a very serious problem in America, among both races. Thus, this could be considered a partial aversion of the trope.

* O.J. Simpson would not be worth mentioning that he happened to have been accused of murdering his ex-wife, who was white...except for the fact that his attorneys removed pictures of white women from the walls of his house for a visit by the jury. THAT invokes this trope.

** If nothing else, we might as well bring up the Interracial system of [[Literotica]], which is on this trope like white on rice (or black on white.)

* There was a race-bait ad for the '06 Tennessee Senator race between Republican Bob Corker and Black Democrat Harold Ford. So what happens? Air an ad with a white airhead saying "I met Ford at the Playboy mansion!" then ending with her saying "Call me." This ad does nothing but feed off interracial relationships towards backwoods Tennesseans. The kicker? The state party who put on the ad was unapologetic, while the national RNC as well as Corker, the actual candidate, begged them to ditch the ad.

* According to some bozos, [http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/34288353/ns/sports-golf/ Tiger Woods]. You've gotta love how the article sees nothing at all screwed up about his ''actual infidelity''. And since Woods is a quarter-black, quarter white, and half-Thai, ''someone'' is going to be offended no matter who he has sex with.

* Historically, white (or at least "pale") women have been considered the most attractive almost universally, because if your skin was pale it meant you were rich enough that you could afford to stay indoors all day, instead of being out working in the sun. Since this put you in a distinct minority, lighter skin tones were considered alluring and exotic. Even today, with [[But Not Too White|changing standards of skin beauty]], there is still an expectation that women be fairer of feature than their [[Tall, Dark and Handsome]] men.

** And she's [[Matzo Fever|Jewish]], so most of the people threatening them probably hate her anyway.

* One can only imagine how horribly people treated (or wanted to treat) African-American boxer Jack Johnson, as he apparently exclusively dated and married white women during the Aughties -- the ''Ninteen-Aughties''.