Basic Trope: Regardless of the diversity of the cast, the main character is a white man.
- Straight: Bob, a white man, is the main character in the Work Com Meet the Tropers.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob, a cis straight white Christian man, is the main character in a sitcom about an LGBT club at a historically black college near the synagogue, with plenty of mixed-raced minor characters.
- Bob is the only white cis man ever seen in Meet the Tropers.
- Downplayed:
- Bob, a white man, is the main character of the sitcom Meet the Tropers about a non-interracial nuclear family.
- Bob, a white man, is the most prominent member (by a relatively small margin) of an Ensemble Cast.
- Bob, a mixed-raced man born from interracial parents (such as a black woman and a white man) is the main character of a show about black people.
- Bob, a white male protagonist, is a member of at least one minority group (such as a Transgender male).
- Justified:
- In a family sitcom, the kids aren't mature enough to be the lead characters, the mother's role is to be the Closer to Earth counterpart, and the remaining aunts, uncles, and grandparents are too eccentric to carry the plot from week to week.
- The (best if it's meant to be educational) sitcom is about Bob adapting to the cultures of his new neighborhood.
- Bob is an All-Loving Hero, and along with his qualities of a good, skilled, intelligent and charismatic leader, was chosen by popular vote by his friends to be The Leader of their group.
- Inverted: Alice, a Twofer Token Minority, is the main character in an otherwise all-white, all-male series.
- Subverted:
- Bob and Alice are co-leads in a comedy.
- Bob is a Decoy Protagonist who eventually gets replaced by Alice.
- Bob turns out to be pulling a Sweet Polly Oliver. Her real name is Bobbi.
- Bob is a white male just like the rest of the cast.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice becomes Out of Focus and Bob becomes the main character.
- Bob returns to reprise his role as protagonist.
- Bobbi is just Bob's Crossdresser persona.
- But Bob's group of white males is the show's main focus, the minorities are minor characters.
- Parodied:
- In-universe executives try to shove a White Male Lead into a work where it would be completely inappropriate, like a series about talking fish.
- Alice, a reluctant Humble Heroine, knows her protagonist status and tries to make her white male friend, Bob, become a protagonist instead of her as much as possible, but he fails miserably every time whenever he tries.
- Zig Zagged: Meet the Tropers is an ensemble sitcom, but Bob has first billing. After its first season, Alice is nominated for Best Lead Actress in a comedy while Bob is snubbed. In the second season, Bob becomes a one-man Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
- Averted:
- The cast is very diverse, and the main character is white or male or neither, but not both.
- The main character is neither a white male nor a minority in the setting.
- Enforced:
- The target demographic is white males, or they are the ones with the most purchasing power, so it makes sense to have the lead be someone the target audience member can identify with.
- The show's creator is bigoted against non-white people and refuses to make a lead that isn't a white guy.
- The white male is Author Avatar since he doesn't feel realistically related to the non-white, non-male characters.
- Lampshaded: "He's the only white dude in town, so chances are he's the main character."
- Invoked: Bob acts like a protagonist, hoping the spotlight will shift to him due to his whiteness and maleness.
- Exploited: A minority villain tries to turn the other characters of the show against Bob.
- Defied: Bob doesn't see his own circumstances as interesting, so he steps aside to allow Alice to tell her story.
- Discussed: “Why does the main character always have to be a straight white dude?”
- Conversed: "Alice was totally the main character of Meet the Tropers until a bunch of studio executives played the international market card and insist the show be ReTooled."
- Implied: Bob is the protagonist who has the lightest skin tone amongst the cast full of Ambiguously Brown characters, but his ethnicity is never mentioned.
Return to White Male Lead.
