Yeah, I noticed that problem a while ago. I've let it slide simply because we don't have a proper trope for passing in general.
The failing aspect of it came from reading a lot of stories set in late 19th Century to the 1930s and seeing it come up a lot - not many of them are well known today because finding out the beautiful daughter of the plantation owner is ZOMG!AN OCTAROON! is not shocking anymore, just racist. That plot structure still comes up in modern times though, like in The Human Stain.
Perhaps we should make it more generally about the act of passing and change the name and description?
The main obvious solution to the problem would be for someone to propose a trope about passing in general. In all likelihood the only reason this page is getting bad examples is because there's currently nowhere else to put them. Methinks someone need to head to YKTTW.
See you in the discussion pages.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like that never happened, though, or else there'd be a link to it.
In addition to creating a trope about passing in general, this one could also use a rewrite that makes the actual 'fail' part of the trope more than an apparently offhand sentence after a long discussion of what passing is.
There some examples from Speculative Fiction, but I'm not sure where they should go. For example: in Futurama, Leela passes as an alien but is actually a mutant. Should issues of species go under "Race and Ethnicity" or "Other?"
There seems to be some confusion about the point of this page. The title and trope description are explicit about it being stories where somebody tries and fails to pass for what they're not, but a lot of the examples are just stories where somebody passes for what they're not, regardless of whether they fail or succeed.
Edited by PaulA Hide / Show Replies