History Main / CulturalPersonalityMakeover

* Played for laughs on ''Series/WillAndGrace'', when Jack gets a postcard from his mother briefly saying that his father was "a black boy". He doesn't change how he acts, but insists that everyone treat him differently. [[spoiler:Turns out his father was one of a family of Irish-Catholic brothers whose surname was Black.]]

* Kimmie from ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'', despite knowing she was Japanese her entire life, really only has it click for her while working on a family tree. She begins to wear kimonos and decorates her bedroom with Japanese furniture and decorations. She changes her mind after seeing her stepbrother Chuckie is upset by her excluding him from her background.

See also ForeignCultureFetish, OneDropRule.

See also OneDropRule.

* Worf from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was orphaned at a young age and raised by humans in the Federation. He should normally have the same morals and cultural bias as any other Federation citizen, but instead he acts like a transplanted foreigner because he's so into being a Klingon. Other Klingons are nowhere near as honorable as he is.

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* Worf from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', big-time. He was orphaned at a young age and raised by humans in the Federation. He should normally have the same morals and cultural bias as any other Federation citizen but instead he acts like a transplanted foreigner because he's so into being a Klingon. Other Klingons are nowhere near as honorable as he is.

* ''WesternAnimaton/KingOfTheHill'': In "Orange You Sad I Did Say Banana?", Kahn gets a pool as a way to impress [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter Ted Wassanasong]], but is alarmed after Ted criticizes him for being too Americanized and calls him a [[OutsideInsideSlur "banana" (yellow outside, white inside)]]. Afterwards, Kahn goes to extremes in making his family reconnect to their Laotian roots, e.g. turning their new pool into a reflecting pond and only eating Laotian dishes, much to their frustration. However, when he's talked into joining a guerilla squad planning to overthrow the communist government, he remembers he left Laos because he wanted to escape people telling him how to live, so he tells Ted off and embraces his American lifestyle again.

* Ginger Foutley of ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'' finds a photograph of her paternal grandfather in an album and realizes she's one-quarter Jewish. Upon discovering this, she asks her family to celebrate Hanukkah in lieu of celebrating Christmas that year, until her friends declare she's taking the whole Jewish thing too far and Ginger hastily corrects this so she can celebrate both at the same time. Meanwhile, Carl, who already doesn't really believe in the spirit of Christmas, suggests celebrating Kwanzaa as well and comes to Ginger's holiday party wearing a dashiki and playing reggae spoof-Christmas songs.
* Done by Cartman of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' in his LukeIMightBeYourFather plot (in the episode ''Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut''). He takes on Black, Native American and other stereotypes depending on who he thinks his father is at different points.
* Spike in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', in the season 2 episode ''Dragon Quest'', decides to learn more about his dragon heritage. Not a huge personality shift, but he does realize that the dragons he's run into are basically a bunch of bullies and leaves them go back to the ponies.

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* In ''WebComic/KevinAndKell'', Fiona Fennec, once her fennec ears grow in, begins to explore and embrace the dress and style of her fennec ancestry. She becomes disillusioned when she realizes the fennec community she has joined online is rather hateful and spiteful of outsiders, but ultimately decides to still appreciate her background and wears traditional colors rather than the full outfits.

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This trope will almost always end with a SnapBack, where the character realizes they are subsuming who they really are in favor of this, and either give up the new culture entirely, or, depending on the continuity of the series, may still keep some subtle hints to it as acknowledgment without obsession. It seems to be a method by creators to add a bit of flavor to a character or to explore the issues of cultural identity, though depending on the culture and how stereotypically the character acts, UnfortunateImplications can abound.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighSchoolUSA'': In the episode where everyone is sweating the Rehearsal Practice SATs Cassandra comes to school wearing a full Native American outfit and facepaint, claiming that since she's part Native American (she's not) colleges have to let her in. "It's the law."

Examples:

* Played for laughs on ''LiveActionTV/WillAndGrace'', when Jack gets a postcard from his mother briefly saying that his father was "a black boy". He doesn't change how he acts, but insists that everyone treat him differently. [[spoiler: Turns out his father was one of a family of Irish-Catholic brothers whose surname was Black.]]
* Parodied in an episode of ''LiveActionTV/HowIMetYourMother'': Barney and his black half-brother James were raised by their mom, and they never knew who their fathers are. Then they meet James' dad, an African-American minister, for the first time. Barney, who desperately longs for a father figure, manages to convince himself the minister is his dad too, despite the fact that he has pale white skin and blond hair. Barney then starts acting like a steterotypical African-American, and it takes a while for his friends to make him see the minister couldn't possibly be his father.
* Worf from ''LiveActionTV/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', big-time. He was orphaned at a young age and raised by humans in the Federation. He should normally have the same morals and cultural bias as any other Federation citizen but instead he acts like a transplanted foreigner because he's so into being a Klingon. Other Klingons are nowhere near as honorable as he is.

->Amber: You're so lucky. Why weren't my people slaughtered?

* Parodied in an episode of ''LiveActionTV/HowIMetYourMother'': Barney and his black half-brother James were raised by their mom, and they never knew who their fathers are. Then they meet James' dad, an African-American minister, for the first time. Barney, who desperately longs for a father figure, manages to convince himself the minister is his dad too, despite the fact that he has a pale white skin and blond hair. Barney then starts acting like a steterotypical African-American, and it takes a while for his friends to make him see the minister couldn't possibly be his father.

Suddenly, they become absolutely entranced by the notion of being part of this new group. The character begins researching, reading all about the culture, it's history and background, and famous people who are a part of it. They starts decorate with tribal trinkets or symbols, changes their clothing style to incorporate "traditional" parts of the garb, and may even begin to act in the manner that the group is supposedly ''supposed'' to act like. This will usually start to annoy their friends and possibly offend people of the particular culture who have known about it their whole lives, as the newcomer is behaving more like a stereotype than a real human being, and could end up getting them a PretenderDiss.

->Amber: You're so lucky. Why weren't my people slaughtered?