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{{trope}}
[[File:
Much like the very tropes described on this site, Ethnic and National Stereotypes are things that an audience reasonably expects (for reasons good and... not so good) when confronted by an individual of a given background.
Some writers know this, and just like the tropes associated with fiction, they decide to [[Inverted Trope|turn it on its head]].
A '''Stereotype Flip''' occurs when an individual does something that runs in direct contradiction to some established stereotype based on their gender, [[Race Tropes|race]], religious belief, [[National Stereotypes|nationality]], or country (or [[Fantastic Racism|planet]]) of origin.
This is often [[Truth in Television]], as no one ever fits all the given stereotypes associated with their background. If enough individuals do a Stereotype Flip, the stereotype in question may become a [[Discredited Trope]].
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A Stereotype Flip is not ''always'' a good move, however; it can sprout [[Unfortunate Implications]] of its own. Inverting a negative stereotype can lead to [[Positive Discrimination]], and inverting a "model minority" stereotype is risky because portraying a minority as dumb, cowardly, and/or evil taps into much more basic forms of xenophobia than portraying them as being [[Asian and Nerdy|smart]] [[Jewish and Nerdy|but]] [[Bollywood Nerd|nerdy]]. [[Cultural Rebel]] is generally the product of a character given the Stereotype Flip treatment. [[Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy]] is a subtrope of this.
Applies to fictional backgrounds as well. If the character is ''deliberately'' defying the "nature" of his people, it overlaps with [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much]]. If they choose a culturally disfavored role knowingly, then [[Klingon Scientists Get No Respect]].
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'', Osaka breaks Tomo's expectations that the new Osakan student is going to be a loudmouth who's always trying to sell stuff. This is emphasized in the English manga, where Osaka's speech is translated with a New York City accent, which has a similar "loud and pushy" stereotype associated with it.
* In ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'', Runge's painstaking research of Tenma's past results in little more than him ascertaining that the latter is not "stereotypically" Japanese.
* A [[Hikikomori]] is stereotypically a creepy, misanthropic guy, and ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' instead has [[Punny Name|Kiri Komori]], who is female and really friendly and something of a [[Yamato Nadeshiko]] and a hikikomori.
== Comic Books ==
* A fairly common variation in comics is to introduce a member of the fictional species, and then the civilization. Thus, [[Superman|Mon-El]] and [[Green Lantern Corps|Sodam Yat]] are friendly explorers from a racist and xenophobic species; [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Blackfire]] is a cruel and malicious monster from a passionate and warm species; [[Marvel Comics|Captain Marvel]] is a good-hearted protector from a race of conquerors; and [[Runaways|Xavin]] is an open-minded romantic from a race of pricks.
* ''X-Men'' comic ''Generation X'' was this trope plus [[Five-Token Band]]: the girl from Kentucky was the smart one, the guy from Los Angeles was the nice one, and so on.
== Film ==
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* One hilarious scene in ''[[Airplane!]]!'' shows [[Leave It to Beaver|June Cleaver]] acting as an interpreter for two black youths who speak only Jive. She, of course, despite being a little old lady is fluent in [[Jive Turkey|the language]].
* The film ''[[American Gangster]]''. The success of Frank Lucas' all-black Harlem based drug ring in the 1970's was apparently so unheard of that when [[Russell Crowe]]'s cop character tries to tell the Feds that Lucas is the one behind the drugs, they flatly refuse to believe that "a nigger" could pull it off.
* The [[Harold
== Literature ==
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** [[Western Terrorists|This one isn't really all that rare]]. It's already a cliché.
* ''The Green Mile'' play IS this, as the Huge Muscular Black Man who supposedly raped two young girls and killed them with his BARE hands actually has a heart of gold (and is innocent.)
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' has Karrin Murphy: a pretty, five-foot-nothing blond with a cute button nose who Harry has described as looking like a cheerleader or someone's favorite aunt. And she's a [[Badass]] cop with a black belt in aikido who's stood up to everything from a [[Nigh Invulnerable]] hell-werewolf to the king of all incubi and once attacked a 15-foot-tall ogre with a chainsaw. Also, the local werewolf pack are all [[Dungeons
** Averted in the TV series, where Murphy is Hispanic and looks like she means business. Still pretty, though.
* Victorian author [[Wilkie Collins]] liked to do this to stereotypes of his day. For example, in stage melodramas, the villain was always portrayed as being incredibly thin while fat men tended to be jolly comic relief style characters. So, in ''[[The Woman in White]]'', Collins carefully cast the fat man as the main villain of the piece, an evil Italian gangster.
** [[Affably Evil|He is still pretty jolly, though.]]
* [[The Legend of Drizzt|Drizzt Do'Urden]] is well known for being pretty much everything a Drow isn't. He's a [[Nice Guy]] and Drow...are not very nice. At all.
** It should be noted that Drizzt's popularity has induced a slew of stereotype-flipped drow characters, turning the race into an [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] for [[Dungeons
* In the ''[[1632]]''-series, the Germans are the free-wheeling individualists, and the Americans are the stuffy, bureaucratic rule-lovers.
* Piggy, the Gamorrean pilot from the [[X Wing Series]], is the only member of his species with the intellectual capacity to pilot a starfighter. (Of course, he's had his brain genetically enhanced.)
== Live
* In an episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, During a talent competition between USC and University of Michigan football players called "All American Idol", a white guy faces up against a black guy in a rap battle and utterly schools him.
* In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'', a Vulcan greets Captain Archer....with a warm and hearty handshake, something the Vulcans... don't do. She also asks Archer about her quarters; T'Pol assumes she's displeased with the smell as Vulcans have a more heightened sense of smell than humans. Rather, she wants Archer to thank the crewman who loaned it to her.
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*** She's also an example of [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much]], though in [[Star Trek]] this tends to be a standard-issue trait of alien hybrids.
** The mere fact of the [[Star Trek: The Original Series|original Enterprise]]'s crew was a historic stereotype flip. A black woman who was actually not a servant. A very scrutable Asian. A Russian treated sympathetically ''at the height of the Cold War''. One of Trek's great accomplishments was all the stereotypes it flipped.
* ''[[Hannah Montana]]'''s [[Alpha Bitch
* Mohinder Suresh on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''.
** On the same show, DL Hawkins was initially described as the classic [[Scary Black Man]]. When he actually showed up, he turned out to be one of the nicest and most sane guys on the show, completely dedicated to his wife and son.
* [[24|President David Palmer]] is all over this trope.
** As is President Allison Taylor.
*** These are all limp examples. The biggest Flip occurred in Season 2. The question of just who was helping the terrorists nuke LA boiled down to either the Middle-Eastern boy educated in London, or his WASP father-in-law to be. And then.....we learn the REAL identity of the terrorist. Before the show starting [[Ass Pull|pulling asses]]; this was one of the greatest twists and a true Stereotype Freakin' Flip.
*** ''[[24]]'' has been flipping stereotypes since its pilot episode.
* Senor Chang on ''[[Community]]''. One episode showed he has a Jewish brother, Rabbi Chang, opening the possibility that Senor is Jewish as well.
* [[Stargate SG-1|Colonel Samantha Carter]]. Gorgeous, sexy, hot blonde. Who also possesses an IQ approaching Stephen Hawking's and has kicked several planets-full of asses in ''two'' galaxies. And killed the gods of ''a third''.
** Jack O'Neill also breaks several stereotypes, being the Kirk and not into science most of the time he'll occasionally recognize stuff first...
** Daniel Jackson fits the bill as well. He is undoubtedly an academic and a nerd, who in the course of the show, has kicked his fair share of ass, and is far too good-looking to be a standard nerd.
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* ''[[Leverage]]'' made [[The Smart Guy]] [[Black and Nerdy|black]] and [[The Big Guy]] white.
** In the episode where they meet another team, their "big guy" is an attractive Jewish woman.
* Lisa Turtle from ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'' was written as a stereotypical "Jewish Princess" and cast as Black (gentile?) before the show went on the air. She was still materialistic and high maintenance, but managed to avoid many of the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of the [[Sassy Black Woman]] because of her class (somewhere between [[Rich Bitch]] and [[Spoiled Sweet]]) and [[Cloudcuckoolander]] tendencies. Her character was the only female lead to survive the [[Retool]].
* Whitley Gilbert, the [[Alpha Bitch]] on ''[[A Different World]]'' was a brash, [[Closer to Earth|far-from-earth]] [[Southern Belle]] at a (functionally) all-black college. She was played by a trained dancer and stage actress Jasmine Guy, who's acerbic characterization and well-paced slapstick soon made Whitley the [[Breakout Character]]. [[Harsher in Hindsight]] / [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] [[Fair for Its Day]], because during [[The Eighties]], it was ''seen as a step forward for a Black Woman to play a [[Comedic Sociopath]] convincingly.''
* Phil Harding, regular on UK archaeology show ''Time Team'', looks and talks like a stereotypical West Country poacher. He's also an expert in pottery and flint-knapping and can speak eruditely and at great length about them, "ooh-arr" accent and all.
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* ''[[Mad TV]]'': The "Average Asian" sketches are about an Asian guy who is expected to have stereotypical Asian abilities (knows karate, origami, good at math, plays a musical instrument, etc) by people around him but doesn't (except for ping pong, summoning ninjas, and laundry).
* In an episode of ''[[Designing Women]],'' Julia and Suzanne are visiting their mother in Japan. While on the plane, they're sitting beside an Asian man who is sitting on Suzanne's purse. Suzanne yells at him in her typically offensive way; Julia then attempts to speak to him in Japanese. At this point he reveals that he knew he was sitting on her purse, and mentions that not only does he speak fluent English, he's actually from Georgia, and mentions that if they want to continue screaming at him, please do it in English, because he might look Asian, but in reality, "He's a Bubba." (As a bonus, he was played by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeKFNisCatA Henry Cho,] who's mentioned below.)
== Professional Wrestling ==
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** A similar example occurred in the ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "The Fun in Funeral," where the culprit turns out to be an Asian-American good ol' boy who killed the victim to get back Civil War memorabilia belonging to his great-grandfather (a [[Chinese Laborer]] who wandered off from the railroad and ended up joining the Confederacy).
* [[John Cena]] is an even better example, both in [[Kayfabe]] and in [[Real Life]]. Born to relative privilege in a practically all-white Boston suburb, [[Pretty Fly for a White Guy|he embraced rap music at a young age and in time became a modestly successful rapper himself]]. And then, once he got to WWE, he flipped the stereotype right back by having his "wigger" character "join the military" (actually, he was just training for his starring role in ''The Marine'') and transform seemingly overnight from a rude and crude ghetto thug to an [[All-American Face|all-American hero]].
* It was once extremely common for a wrestler performing a [[Heel Face Turn]] or a [[Face Heel Turn]] to completely invert their stereotypical qualities to make the transition more dramatic. An example of the latter would be Nikolai Volkoff's turnaround from being a [[Dirty Commie]] to an [[All-American Face|apple-pie American patriot]], while the former is exemplified in Rick Martel's switch from soft-spoken nice guy to the arrogant [[Jerkass]] known as "The Model." Now that [[Black and Gray Morality]] is much more common in sports-entertainment, it's customary for wrestlers to simply retain (as much as possible) their old qualities when they turn: TNA's "Mr. Anderson" may be a crowd favorite now, but he's still undeniably an "Asshole."
== Stand Up ==▼
* Korean-American Henry Cho was born and raised in Tennessee and much of his humor is quite blue collar in contrast to the stereotypically elitist affectations of Korean Americans. Henry's even acknowledged the inherent humor of an Asian person with a southern drawl.▼
▲== Recorded and Stand Up Comedy ==
▲* Korean-American [[Henry Cho]] was born and raised in Tennessee and much of his humor is quite blue collar in contrast to the stereotypically elitist affectations of Korean Americans. Henry's even acknowledged the inherent humor of an Asian person with a southern drawl.
==
* [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples]] strikes again. In ''[[Othello]]'', Shakespeare flips not one, but ''three'' [[Dead Horse Trope]]s: the brutal, lascivious, and treacherous Moor; the promiscuous, cunning, venal Venetian lady, and the honest soldier. Othello is honorable, cool-headed, and chaste; Desdemona is almost a [[Purity Sue]] in her simplicity; and [[Manipulative Bastard|Iago]]...
* In ''[[Electra]]'', Chrysothemis is very clear on the point that Electra is not behaving like a woman should at all (ie. She refuses to defer to others and accept her weakness and limits as a women, is certain to remain unmarried and neglected because of her behaviour, is stubborn and excessive in mourning her father, and is conspiring to murder her mother and step-father). Electra is a [[Tragic Hero]], after all.
* ''[[M. Butterfly]]'' has its title and plot clearly based on ''[[Madame Butterfly]]'''s, but turns out to be a brutal [[Deconstruction]] of the "[[Me Love You Long Time|demure and submissive Asian woman]] [[Driven to Suicide|who lives only for her]] [[Mighty Whitey]] man" stereotype [[Trope Codifier|codified]] by ''Madame Butterfly'' when it's revealed that {{spoiler|the seemingly demure and submissive Song is actually a male spy who manipulated the white diplomat Gallimard as ruthlessly as Pinkerton did with Butterfly in ''Madame Butterfly'', and it's ''Gallimard'' who kills himself in the end out of love for a man, even crossdressing as a Japanese woman and committing suicide in the same manner Butterfly did}}.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' takes pride in introducing a [[Planet of Hats|hat for a species to wear]] and then instantly having them take it off. Liara is a shy bookworm from a planet of sociable diplomats, Garrus is a loose cannon from a species of obedient soldiers (who lampshades it by saying that he's "not a very good turian"), Wrex is a [[Warrior Poet|philosophical and noble leader]] from a species of [[Blood Knight
** The second game introduces two Asari who are so far outside the stereotype most of their own people tend not to mention them; a Krogan warlord obsessed with producing a single perfect Krogan rather than returning to the old ways; and {{spoiler|a Geth who reveals the hat placed on his race in the original game applied to only a small rebel faction}}.
*** Not to mention the ''extremely'' civil and eloquent Krogan you can meet on Illium.
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* The [[Expansion Pack|expansions]] to ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'' flip stereotypes with several characters. ''Mask of the Betrayer'' has Gann, a hagspawn spirit shaman who is the resident [[Mr. Fanservice]]. Hagspawn are normally ugly brutes (-2 Charisma, favored class Barbarian). Gann isn't because {{spoiler|his parents actually loved each other}}.
** Safiya is everything the vast majority of Red Wizards are not, more interested in learning and teaching than accruing personal power.
** ''Storm of Zehir'' has Umoja, a druid who [[Large Ham|hams it up]] rather than whinging about the balance of life.
*** Belueth the Calm is a [[Neutral Evil]] aasimar rogue. Aasimar are normally good (favored class Paladin) due to their celestial heritage.
*** Grykk Bannersworn is half-orc ''paladin''. Not much else needs to be said.
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' often does this with various professional/race stereotypes of ''[[Dungeons
▲* ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' often does this with various professional/race stereotypes of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' and the like. Belkar is a halfling, a race generally known for being carefree and jolly, but he's [[Chaotic Evil]]; Crystal is a pretty young assassin who works for a half-Orc- but she's the [[Dumb Muscle]] and he's quite cunning
** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0590.html Elan also gets this, but not in a good way...]
== Western Animation ==
* Dale Gribble of ''[[King of the Hill]]'' is a [[Right-Wing Militia Fanatic]] and general [[Conspiracy Theorist]], but against stereotype isn't racist/prejudiced in the slightest and is actually a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|pretty nice guy]].
** There was also an episode where Khan, in grief over failing to Connie into a prep school, decided to embrace his "american" side and completely abandon his laotian heritage and behaviors, becoming an unbearably stereotypical redneck instead of his normal stereotypical "asian workaholic" behavior.
* On ''[[South Park]],'' [[Meaningful Name|Token Black]] (yes, that's his name) is the richest kid in town, and his parents seem to be more educated than just about anybody else. The entire episode "Here Comes the Neighborhood" plays on this idea: as more rich and successful black people move to town, the poor white characters begin to get angry, but over class rather than
** Token does actually fulfill some pretty funny stereotypes himself though: He has an astounding soul voice (Then-Mrs. Garrison claimed that it got her wet), and this little gem...
{{quote|'''Cartman''': Alright, Token, play the bass.
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'''Token''': ...Goddamnit. }}
* In ''[[Futurama]]'', Hermes Conrad is, in many ways, exact opposite of a stereotypical Jamaican - while they're normally portrayed as being maxed and relaxed, he's an uptight, neurotic workaholic. Though he does have the limbo and reggae skills.
** And...[[Erudite Stoner|other interests]].
* Francine from ''[[American Dad]]'' was angry at her adoptive Asian parents for leaving all they had to their [[The Ghost|unseen]] birth daughter, Gwen. It turns out that they actually have more respect for Francine, and that Gwen is an [[Asian Airhead]] who [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|isn't even good at math]]. Stan and Francine's father both agree it's [[Crosses the Line Twice|terrible for children to disrespect their parents' stereotypes]].
* [[The Ren and Stimpy Show
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Stereotype]]
[[Category:Race Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Stereotype Flip]]
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