Basic Trope: An alien, monster, or other nonhuman creature that embodies the worst aspects of a real-world racial stereotype.
- Straight: The Foreheadians have a Mexican accent, work for other species for low wages (thus undermining their local economy) and have characteristic tan skin.
- Exaggerated: The Foreheadians have Mexican accents. The Prehensilians are strong and drink gallons of vodka every day. The Chinridgians have slanty eyes, elaborate social rituals, a complicated, highly-inflected language boasting thousands of elaborate symbols and they export mass-produced, technologically advanced products to every place of the galaxy. The Eleventoes always wear turbans and carry swords...
- Downplayed: Foreheadian cuisine is often considered to be overly spicy and likely to upset the stomachs of non-Foreheadians, and we see it includes something that looks suspiciously like tortillas.
- Foreheadians are more of a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Mexicans, with their only a minor similarity to Mexican stereotypes.
- Justified:
- Foreheadians visited earth long ago, and claimed to be from Mexico whenever anyone asked, accidentally creating a national stereotype.
- Forheadia was settled by time-traveling Mexicans, and not enough time has passed for all cultural traces to vanish.
- The Foreheadians fill a similar economic niche to the culture they seem to be patterned after and thus have similar characteristics.
- The Foreheadians intentionally behave in this way when interacting with Earthlings to mess with them.
- Inverted:
- Mexico is secretly under Foreheadian control, and most Mexicans are Foreheadians in thin disguise.
- Foreheadians while looking like Mexicans in many ways are the polar opposite of every Mexican stereotype. Thus the Forheadians can't stand beans or spicy food, are workaholics, and regularly enter planets legally to work at exorbitant wages that companies are willing to pay because they get far more done than humans working the same amount of time.
- Subverted: The portrayal of the Foreheadians is not based on first-hand accounts, but rather uninformed stereotypes.
- Doubly Subverted: ...Which turn out to be completely accurate, if a tad exaggerated.
- Parodied: The Foreheadians have a heavy Mexican accent, wear wrestling masks and sombreros everywhere, constantly enter other planets illegally to work for low wages, subsist entirely on beans and tortillas...
- Zig Zagged: Foreheadians are a confusing mess of stereotypes from many cultures, and can't be identified with a single one.
- Averted:
- Foreheadians do not in any way resemble a particular Earth culture or the stereotypical view of it.
- The Foreheadians are simply a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Mexican culture, and the author legitimately shows their work in an honest, thought out and well done portrayal of Mexico.
- There are no aliens in the work.
- Enforced: The authors are writing disguised social commentary on US/Mexico immigration policies.
- Lampshaded: "Those Foreheadians remind me quite a bit of stereotypes of that old Earth civilization." "Mexico?" "Yeah, that's it."
- Invoked: The Foreheadians adopt what they perceive to be an easily-recognizable set of human mannerisms in order to seem less alienating in social situations.
- Exploited: The Foreheadians disguise themselves as Mexicans upon coming to Earth. Thanks to their similarity to the stereotypes, they go undetected.
- Defied: The Foreheadians are historical revisions of Mexicans, who invented haute culture first, live in beautiful cities and possess a vast knowledge of the universe.
- Discussed: "Unlike in poorly-written science fiction, the vast majority of known aliens are completely beyond comparison with any aspect of Terran culture."
- Conversed: "Can't these writers create a single species without uncomfortable racist implications?"
- Deconstructed: Racist white humans interact with the Forheadians derisively, assuming them to be like Mexicans in every way. Turns out they were acting like that to make us feel more comfortable, and now Earth is seen as a planet of crude bigots by the galaxy at large.
- Reconstructed: ... a galaxy at large which, as it turns out, is in its non-disguised state, stereotypically Brazilian.
- Plotted A Good Waste: The treatment is meant to show how stereotypes and bigotries often persist even if the target is different, showing that we're not as advanced as we thought.
- Played For Laughs: The Foreheadians are awkward caricatures of the stereotypical images we have of Mexicans. The cliché is then stretched to its limits, with lots of adventures starting from matters on food or due to misunderstandings thanks to their accent and with actual Mexicans viewing them as jokes. Hilarity Ensues.
- Played For Drama: A Foreheadian shows up on Earth on diplomatic business and ends up mistaken for a Mexican and victimized by overzealous immigration officers.
- Implied: A member of an alien race sees some stereotypical Mexicans and bemusedly tells another human they "weren't informed Foreheadians were already on this planet."
Back to Space Jews... Hopefully it won't take 40 years to get there this time...
