These tropes deal with the overall concept of diversity in media, ie. the inclusion and portrayals of characters from different social, racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds to create a heterogenous cast.
Compare Token Index (an index dealing with minorities added to please a demographic or advance the narrative). For other tropes about how minorities are portrayed in media, see Queer as Tropes and its subindices, Race Tropes and its subindices, and Religion Tropes. For works that focus on specific minorities, see Works by Subject.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Diversity: An adaptation or remake is more diverse than its source material.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Can be used to make a character LGBT to make the setting more diverse.
- Affirmative Action Girl: Adding a female character to help even out the gender ratio.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: The Legacy Character is a minority; the original character isn't.
- But Not Too Black: Lighter-skinned members of a racial/ethnic minority with Eurocentric features are favored more than those that are darker skinned and have less Eurocentric features.
- But Not Too Foreign: A foreign character (who may be a racial/ethnic minority) still has the majority demographic as part of their heritage.
- Chromosome Casting: The entire cast is the same sex.
- Cosmopolitan Council: A shadowy council is nonetheless diverse.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: A character is given a disability in the adaptation.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Bad guys apparently don't discriminate, resulting in a diverse group or organization of villains.
- Five-Token Band: Every member of the cast is some form of minority.
- Magical Minority Person: A minority provides insight, wisdom, and advice to the more socially privileged protagonist.
- Monochrome Casting: The entire cast is of the same race/ethnicity.
- More Diverse Sequel: A sequel or later installment is more diverse than the original work.
- Multinational Team: Every member of the hero team is from a different country.
- Race Lift: Can involve making a character a racial or ethnic minority to increase the setting's diversity.
- Token Minority: A minority character added for diversity purposes.
- Token White: The sole white character in a work about racial or ethnic minorities.
- Twofer Token Minority: A character who fills two diverse niches.
- Watched It for the Representation: Audiences consume a work because of its minority representation.
- White Male Lead: In an otherwise diverse cast, the main character is a white man who is usually also straight, Christian, and neurotypical.
- Word of Gay: A character is confirmed to be LGBT through extratextual sources.
