To-do list:
- Remove Real Life examples, characters that have a defined but fictional race, and examples that are just "actor has brown skin." Progress for wicks is being kept track of using Sandbox.Ambiguously Brown Wick Cleaning, and the description and on-page examples are being cleaned up using Sandbox.Ambiguously Brown.
Original post
So—-I know this has been to TRS, several times previously, but I have a specific thing I would like to discuss
I'm not going to touch the definition for drawing and cartoon characters, but the live action and real life sections are a mess. Real people are not ambiguously brown. My suggestion is to add a strict standard for characters played by real life people—
Characters in Live Action media are assumed to be the same race as the actor unless there is reason to think otherwise. Some possible reasons include:
- Two actors of different races play blood relatives
- A character's name, accent or clothing strongly indicates a different ethnicity than the actor
- The actors race would be impossible or highly implausible for the character (such as a Native American actor in ancient Rome)
- The actor is wearing some kind of Brownface or otherwise changing their features, but it's not clear what they're changing them to.
A character could also be ambiguously brown In-Universe if the other characters cannot tell what race they are
While I have this up for discussion, I would also like to suggest rewriting the definition, as it's currently 9 paragraphs long and has a lot of "note, this is actually..." "but don't forget..." which all kinda indicates being added on piece by piece. I think it could be a lot more concise and easier to follow with a rewrite, (not actually a definition change just a rewording)
Wick Check for Live Action TV and Film
- Dance Moms Kalani and Kira definitely aren't white, but they're not exactly black ether...
- Token Trio: Fenwick (sole black kid), CJ (Ambiguously Brown sole girl of the group), and Crispo (white kid)
- Ambiguously Brown: * The mugger (and implied rapist) whom Catwoman cuts up with her claws in the alley.
- The Series 3 finale introduces Zaf, an Ambiguously Brown Token Minority. The same episode kills off Danny, who was the show's dark-skinned Token Minority. In the Series 6 premiere, Zaf is injuried and Put on a Bus. Halfway into the same series, Ben Kaplan, an Ambiguously Brown journalist, is introduced.
- Ambiguously Brown: Laura, played by Amelia Warner who curiously has white parents but is quite dark skinned herself.
- Spicy Latina: Penny, although she's more Ambiguously Brown. probably? low context
- Ambiguously Brown: Kim, the picture of her father is black and white, never zoomed in, and his name is never said so one never knows what his ethnicity is. again... probably?
- Ambiguously Brown: Anja has dark skin and seems like she might be part Black from her features. Her mother is White and we don't see her father, leaving it unknown if he's Black or not.
- Ambiguously Brown: Typical for a rich school in the Philippines, there are a lot of mixed and/or racially ambiguous and/or light-skinned students. Chuck Santos is played by a half-white actor with an Anglo surname, Markus Paterson.
- Adaptational Diversity: The first incarnation of the Angels where all three of them are minorities: Jane is black, Elena is Ambiguously Brown (both Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott are biracial), and Sabina (the only white woman in the trio) is Ambiguously Bi.
- He promptly instructs a blond boy to fake an Australian accent and agree with him no matter what he says, an Ambiguously Brown passenger to disagree with him, and a female passenger to be morally outraged, filling (what he perceives are) the roles of Chase, Foreman and Cameron respectively.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The bad guys are led by a Tunisian, with an albino (according to the Bey) as the second in command, with a German woman (though Conrad claims she's faking it), three black guys, two gay lovers, an eastern European, and several white and Ambiguously Brown men.
- Ambiguously Brown: Beck. His actor, Avan Jogia, is half Indian, but the only thing we know about Beck's heritage is that he's part Canadian.
- Token Minority Couple: Paula, who's Ambiguously Brown, is secretly with Native Hawaiian Kai.
- Minority Police Officer: Gueacutedira is of north African descent, and Belkacem is Ambiguously Brown (the actress, Shirine Boutella, is from Algeria).
- Twofer Token Minority: Pilar is the only woman of color in the cast, as a supporting character. She's Ambiguously Brown, with a name that's also ambiguous (played by a British Indian actress).
- Ambiguously Brown: Ryan has very dark features, slightly tanned skin and green eyes. His actor Thomas Fitzgerald is Irish with some English and Italian roots.
- Ambiguously Brown: The real O'Brien is white and Irish, but is played in the show by a British actor of partial Indian and Tunisian descent (though the character, in childhood flashbacks, is also from Callan, Ireland, and those sequences are conveniently desaturated or color-shifted so we can't quite tell his parents' skin colors). In the second episode, we learn about his sister Megan, who is portrayed as an adult by Camille Guaty, an olive-skinned Cuban/Puerto Rican actress. However, in Season 2 we finally see their parents, who are white.
- Ambiguously Brown: Rainin Wild, who was played by a black American in-costume in his debut episode, but was replaced by a tanned Japanese man in subsequent appearances.
- Ambiguously Brown: Mads, her actress' heritage is a mess of ethnicities/races, which is confusing as her father and brother are white.
- Ambiguously Brown: Jezzie Pipkin is played by Cuban-American actress Elizabeth Peña. It's unclear whether Jezzie was meant to be Hispanic despite her surname.
- Ambiguously Brown: Billie is played by Sarah Shahi, who's of Iranian and Spanish descent. Though the actor who plays Billie's dad appears vaguely Middle Eastern and also has an accent, while her character's mother's White, what ethnicity she was meant to be isn't clear. Their last name, Mann, is no help.
- Ambiguously Brown: Bakuto. He has a Japanese-sounding name, but Ramon Rodriguez, who plays him, is Puerto Rican. His childhood boogeyman being the Sack Man
implies Latino or Brazilian heritage. In the comics, Bakuto runs a South American faction of the Hand. Of course, as The Defenders reveals, he, like Davos, hails from K'un-L'un.
- Ground Floor People assume Threepeat is Chinese, but he's actually Filipinonote .
- Spun Out Ambiguously Brown: Beckett invokes this about Nelson while they yell insults at each other.
"I'd make a joke about your nationality, but I don't know what it is!"
- Ambiguously Brown: There's a scene where Precious and Miss Weiss are talking, and Precious can't tell what ethnicity she is, and asks if she's "Italian, or black, or some type of Spanish." Not to mention that "Weiss" is usually an Ashkenazic Jewish surname and Jews of mixed race descent aren't completely unheard of. If Miss Weiss is anything like her actress, she should be bi-racial.
- Ambiguously Brown: Jamie. Justified as her mother cannot remember what ethnicity her absentee father was; possibilities include Greek, Russian, Hispanic and Middle-Eastern. note
- Ambiguously Brown: Woody uses his vague ethnicity to pretend to be people from all over the world (Kayvan Novak is of mixed British and Iranian decent).
- Ambiguously Brown: Key, who is biracial. He uses it to his advantage, just like he did on MADtv. In fact, both Key and Peele were born from biracial families (half-black, half-white), but generally Peele tends to just play black characters, while Key has a wider range.note
- Ambiguously Brown: Zan, the internet personality trolling Paper Boi. Lampshading this becomes a Running Gag in the episode "The Streisand Effect"; every time he's mentioned, characters ask something along the lines of "Isn't he Dominican?", "Is he Asian?", or (after he casually uses the N-word) "Are you even black?"
- Ambiguously Brown: Stu at first assumes that Vic is white, then hazards a number of guesses at his ethnicity, including Puerto Rican and Chinese. Vic shakes his head at all of Stu's guesses. In real life, Dave Bautista is Greek and Filipino.
- Ambiguously Brown: Nichols has brown skin and dark curly hair. This allows him to pass himself off as Jesus (Middle Eastern) and the real Brandon Nichols (Native American).
- Ambiguously Brown: Leslie often remarks on Ann's unclear ethnicity, which is never revealed in the show, though Rashida Jones is herself half African-American and half Ashkenazi Jew.
- Ambiguously Brown: Zach asks Rashida Jones what race she is.
- Ambiguously Brown: This is a plot point. Daphne is revealed to be mixed race, "a creole mother and white father" which lets her pass as white. She has a black half brother who's familial connection she hides.
- Ambiguously Brown: Karen, to Michael at least ("Wow, you look very exotic. Was your dad a GI?"). Her last name (Filipelli) and dialogue suggest she is Italian-American. Rashida Jones is half-Black, half-Jewish.
- Ambiguously Brown: Rex notes Lori's ambiguous ethnicity, hazarding that she's Baltic or Czech. Kunis was born in Ukraine to Jewish parents.
- Ambiguously Brown: Schmidt's impression of Cece, before she states that her parents are Indian. Hannah Simone, who plays her, is a mixture of Indian, German, Italian, Cypriot, and Greek.
- Jerkass: The Senator who gets his car stolen by Xander near the beginning. We even get his racism demonstrated when he assumes Xander is Mexican, so we know he's a jerk.
- Ambiguously Brown: Lauren. She's brought up an uncle in Syria and being in the Middle East when she was younger. Everyone had different theories.
Lauren: I'm from Long Island!Simon: But you're our diversity hire! If anyone asks, just say you're "other." *
- Ambiguously Brown: So Elena is supposed to be Russian??
- Ambiguously Brown - Ray, and Tina, but their child together is clearly white.
- Ambiguously Brown: Bryce, Tyler, and Taryn.
- At this point in the show, every named character who's black or Ambiguously Brown (except for Anthony, Anne, and Diego,) has been killed. Being black on this show is like wearing a Red Shirt.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first season was trying to find its legs. Florence wasn't initially a Servile Snarker (but thanks to Louise's permission, she became one), and Allan went from being Ambiguously Brown to straight up Caucasian.
- Ambiguously White: The nun named Janet, as far as her features go.
- Subverted with Nataly Green. An implicitly French nun as seen from the montage that implied she gets off from an Air France airplane and her name (though she bears an English surname), but the actress that played her didn't look rather convincing. The actress that played Janet (who is even credited as Marie-Antoinette) would've pulled it off better. this example is confusing and probably outright misuse
- Ambiguously Brown: Averted with siblings Sue and Johnny Storm, played by Caucasian actress Kate Mara and actor Michael B Jordan. Justified since they are adoptive siblings. do we really need averted examples?
- Ambiguously Brown: Many characters are some form of mestizo, which is Truth in Television, given how Filipinos generally tend to be mixed to various degrees. Antonio Luna himself was apparently one of the less mixed ones (a point of contention with his older brother, Juan, the artist, who was acquitted of the murders of his wife and mother-in-law in Paris on effectively racist grounds—i.e., that his indio (native) race was predisposed to such anyway). if they are specifically mixed in universe theyre not ambiguous...
- Jesus, however, looks incredibly Caucasian, thought He may have a tan or be Ambiguously Brown. It's hard to tell with the lighting. im not sur where to put this
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 29th 2022 at 6:40:51 AM
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It wasn't, it's just tropers being uncomfortable that people of color aren't being given labels to separate them from everyone else.
To be fair, I think with the non-lampshaded examples there can be something beyond racism there, in that it can be an unintentional consequence of simplified art styles, with finer features that might demonstrate ethnicity in real life being lost. It's also sometimes done intentionally, either for making a character that could be considered representative of a large group of the population, or for making a character more mysterious.
The unintentional examples (and ones where we're not sure) are probably only worth noting as an audience reaction though, either for cases where it causes arguments among the fandom (like the trope image apparently causing an edit war) or cases where their ethnicity is confirmed and the audience reacts with shock. I think limiting it to that would avoid the kinda racist examples just being ported over.
Edited by mollyvanp on Jan 9th 2022 at 4:40:27 PM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Yeah, I wouldn't assume the trope came from a racist place on the part of tropers- like I said before, people with darker skin tones have more variety in their potential list of races and ethnicities than people with lighter skintones do, or at least that's what's assumed by everyone. So when you have a dark skinned character of an ambiguous race, it does at least make people curious, and different audience members are going to interpret them differently in fanworks if the subject is ever discussed. I don't think it's people being uncomfortable... It's people being curious, and noticing a pattern of ambiguity with several characters across several works.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Calling in favor of the following:
- Remove examples from settings that are clearly not comparable to Earth or don't view race and ethnicity the same way we do
- Define Ambiguously Brown as an objective trope for a darker-skinned character in a cast of fairer-skinned characters whose ethnicity is ambiguous and unexplained
- Split off an objective trope for characters whose ethnic ambiguity is lampshaded or at least acknowledged within the work
Do we have any name suggestions for the new trope about lampshaded/acknowledged examples, aside from the previously suggested Ambiguous Ethnicity?
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
reconsidering
Hi! So I see that "Limit to drawn Media" did not reach consensus, which is fair, but I would still like to discuss what that means regarding live action characters. Does this mean that examples like this are ok?
- Voice actress Ashly Burch is half white, half Southeast Asian (her mother is from Thailand) but only looks vaguely 'ethnic' (slightly tan skin, jet black hair), without any more stereotypically Asian features such as epicanthic folds.
Because I just... can't see how that's a valid example of anything. (and frankly, it comes across as racist) That's just a real person's race not being obvious to some viewers. It has nothing to do with fiction or characters.
My original suggestion was "Live Action Characters are assumed to be the same race as the actor unless there is a reason to think otherwise", with several possible reasons listed. I will drop it if other people think that should stay, but I was hoping to get a stronger standard on real life actor examples
Edited by Tremmor19 on Jan 9th 2022 at 2:24:31 PM
No, or at least, I don't think so. I believe Ambiguously Brown is to be used for characters, although it is a Real Life phenomenon, this trope is about characters in-universe racial ambiguity.
Also, I do not think this would apply to voice actors, as they are only lending their voice, not their appearance. Unless they're an Ink-Suit Actor I guess.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
No idea why that option didn't get consensus...
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I can accept live action examples with the right context. For example, Karen David is mixed-race and visibly brown-skinned with black hair. Her character on Galavant has parents played by white actors, a Hispanic-sounding name and kingdom, a cousin who rules an "Arabian Nights" Days country, outright calls herself "ethnically hard to pin down", and the series never cleared it up. That's about as clear-cut an example as you can get for this trope.
But there's really no reason we should apply this to real life people just 'cause. It gets real creepy when people start speculating what kind of 'brown' people are or start overanalyzing features when they don't fit into preconceived Phenotype Stereotype. (News flash, people of color can look every which way!) We have Plays Great Ethnics for when an actor plays a wide variety of ethnicities presumably because they are sorta ethnically ambiguous; that should be enough. Can we make this NRLEP?
Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 10th 2022 at 10:02:05 AM
(she/her)
I am fine with making this NRLEP. I don't think they are needed and we don’t need race/phenotype speculation on real people.
Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 10th 2022 at 11:23:20 AM
Macron's notes
Veteran Editor IV
Yeah sure, make it NRLEP.
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
for NRLEP
reconsidering
+1 for NRLEP
Live Action examples make sense as Synchronicity pointed out when the character has ambiguous characteristics but not when they just happen to be played by a non white actor
Edited by Tremmor19 on Jan 10th 2022 at 11:24:17 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Hooked a crowner for the NRLEP vote.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Calling in favor of making this NRLEP. I'll take care of the indexing.
Edit: I removed the Real Life folder. The index I went with was Gossip and Stereotypes, but feel free to adjust the indexing if I chose the wrong one.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 14th 2022 at 3:53:23 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Southern Europeans can be really brown too, so the trope doesn't exactly exclude them either. The trope's definition of "European" is mainly Western and Northern European.
Edited by CookingCat on Jan 25th 2022 at 7:09:40 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I often hear them described as "olive", but that's semantics.
As a perpetual “troping real people” issue, the Pro Wrestling folder should go, with salvageable examples moved to Plays Great Ethnics (for “switching gimmicks” examples)
(she/her)
Since progress on this thread has stalled, I made a sandbox to help with redefining the definition and example sorting. I don't have any ideas on how to rewrite the description though. Is there anything in the current description that's salvageable?
Macron's notes
I've been meaning to work on this description; I'll do it when I get free time over the week unless someone beats me to it.
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
The Real Life folder of Plays Great Ethnics includes actors who play characters belonging to FantasyCounterpartCultures.
Can they be included?
Edited by Nen_desharu on Feb 13th 2022 at 7:51:33 AM
Kirby is awesome.
Human Bean
It's a bit unrelated to the thread, but I'd like to point out that the trope is still misused to identify characters whose ethnic background is openly revealed, and if not it can be easily implied by the context.
- Last year I brought up this case of misuse in Breaking Bad when the trope was applied to a character played a Native American, with the only reasoning that "the character's ethnicity has no plot-revelance".
- From Dune there was also some discussion. I think the trope makes no sense in two ways. First, the Atreides dynasty is implied to be of Greek ancestry (even though another user replied that the Greek ancestry matter isn't really unambiguous). Secondly, even if it wasn't the case, how much makes it sense such trope in a context where humanity has been intermixing for millennia and any notion of race as we intend it today is probably long gone? I'd say that the Harkonnen as well could fit some hypothetical "Ambiguously Northern European" trope, if it existed: their dynasty has a Finnish name, many of their members have Russian names, and in the Lynch's movie they're all portrayed by distinctly Nordic and red haired actors.
- Few minutes ago I cut this entry from Characters.Summertime Saga:
- The trope's page says this about Coraline:
Edited by gc10 on Feb 14th 2022 at 1:33:38 PM
The examples from Kill la Kill can get cut too. Or at least Rei Hōōmaru's considering she's confirmed to be African. Ira Gamagori is of American descent according to Word of God, which implies he could be of African-American descent but doesn't definitively confirm anything.
The only reason I would keep an example that was confirmed later on was if the ambiguity was deliberately played up beforehand (eg. someone trying to guess their ethnicity before they clear it up).
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Does this have a sandbox for keeping track of cleanup, similarly to how the Actually Pretty Funny thread has Sandbox.Actually Pretty Clean?
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
(she/her)
There's no clean up sandbox. I made Sandbox.Ambiguously Brown so that a new description can be drafted out and so that we can sort out examples. Synchronicity said that she would write a new description when she has time.
Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 23rd 2022 at 6:56:17 AM
Macron's notes
