http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MightyWhitey

Aldous Snow, Get Him to the Greek "When they put together this costume I said, 'Imagine an African, white Christ from space.' And this is what they came back with: An African white space Christ. Well, that's just the concept, you know, obviously and I'm not saying I'm African white space Christ, that's not for me to say. That's for other people to say. It's for other people to say if they think I'm like Jesus."

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A common trope in 18th and 19th century adventure fiction, when Europeans were visiting and documenting vast swathes of the world for the first time, Mighty Whitey is usually a displaced white European, of noble descent, who ends up living with native tribespeople and not only learns their ways but also becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative. Extra points if he woos The Chief's Daughter along the way; an unfortunately common variation that perpetuates into present-day media is that she will continue to love our hero even if he is directly responsible for the death of her husband, brother, or father.

Sometimes the foreign societies are shown to be realistic, three-dimensional and actually rather pleasant places to live. Indeed, sometimes the native peoples are shown to be better in some way than European society and the white man begins to despise his old home. All this is a setup for the white man to adapt to the Native's ways, thereby making him superior both to the natives and the Europeans back home. In modern-day fiction, sometimes the Mighty Whitey is there to lead or inspire the Hollywood Natives or bring some aspect of modern technology or knowledge to their aid, something they presumably could not do before he showed up. One particular version has it so that the sympathetic Author Avatar whitey is not only now the Great White Hope for the non-white Noble Savages, but is very often defending them from other evil whites.

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In modern-day fiction — particularly in Hollywood movies — Mighty Whitey pops up as the result of creative types trying to appeal to as broad a cross-section of society as possible to get their cash back. And since the majority of major Hollywood stars are white Americans (despite the fact that only a small minority of their audiences are Americans at all, let alone white Americans), it's almost inevitable that the all-singing, all-dancing hero is also going to be registering low on the melanin count... which can become a self-perpetuating mess.

Of course, these writers might also just be doing the respectable thing, and be writing what they know. Perhaps not in the 'I'm a badass Adventurer Archaeologist' sense, but in the 'I'm used to the cultural norms of my race/gender and would be terrified of offending people with incorrect cultures cues' sense. Or in the 'What I know has been mostly informed by what has already been established in fictional story-telling and I'm subconsciously perpetuating those same pas' sense. Often involves a strong element of wish fulfillment for the First World writer and First World audience, in the sense of, "I'll bet I could be a great hero if I could just escape this straight-laced and boring 'civilized' world I'm stuck in." Or it might be a combination of their or the audience's preference for a protagonist that looks like themselves combined with the natural desire to see the protagonist become the Chosen One.

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Remakes of shows/movies with the original trope often subvert this; for instance, making the Mighty Whitey into a dunce, and their Ethnic Scrappy sidekick into a smart, street-savvy badass. Sometimes this goes a little too far. This trope can also occur as an unintended side effect of writers trying to show the equality of all races and cultures — in a tone-deaf and more than potentially offensive kind of way.

Non-American media can exhibit versions of this trope tailored to their home audiences (e.g. the awesome guy in an Anime/Manga series being Japanese). But Not Too Foreign is often used as a way to set up this version of Mighty Whitey.

Can be a Justified Trope as it did happen in real life. Explorers from a technologically more advanced civilization had access to nutrition, education, technology, and general skills and experience that a native who never traveled further than the neighboring village didn't. Especially as only those who were already among the strongest and bravest in their home countries did have the courage and motivation to become explorers in those dangerous times. The Unfortunate Implications came in when people began to assume that they were better because of their culture, beliefs, or genetic stock, rather than access to tools and benefits derived from hundreds of years of accumulated advantages.

As the following examples will show, the trope tends to be used pretty liberally, especially because of the historical difficulty of defining the term "white" (i.e., whether it should primarily refer to Europeans, Caucasoids, light-skinned people, or even Christians). It's most convenient to define this trope as a "modern" character achieving mastery over "ancient" or "backward" characters, not necessary with respect to race per se.

See also White Male Lead and (especially) Going Native. Compare The Man Is Sticking It to the Man and Born in the Wrong Century (similar tropes but removed from race), Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow and Instant Expert. Contrast Flawless Token, Token White, Evil Colonialist, and White Man's Burden. The inversions are Majored in Western Hypocrisy (for when a character from a less "civilised" race receives training from his overlords and frequently ends up using it against them) and Pretty Fly for a White Guy (for when a white or analogous character's aping of a different culture is treated as ridiculous and/or offensive).

In fantasy works, Planetary Romance and Lost World stories are likely to have a similar theme, where the hero from Earth ends up being a better Mongonian or Skartaran or Pandoran than the natives themselves (often the alien world will have lighter gravity, hence making the Earth guy a Heavy Worlder with Super Strength). Many alien super heroes provide a variation in that they usually come from some more advanced society, go native on primitive Earth, and become heroes here. Isekai stories will often feature something similar, especially if it's set in an RPG-Mechanics Verse, with the hero from Earth receiving skills and abilities that far exceed those of the natives because they're The Chosen One and not due to any actual skills or talent on their part.

And of course not to be confused with Tighty-Whitey.

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Conventional Examples:

Anime and Manga

Audio Play

Lampshaded in The Firesign Theatre's High School Madness movie-within-an-album from Don't Touch That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers. After the school disappears, a bunch of Latino students arrive out of nowhere and ask Porgie for advice because he's a white man and will know exactly what to do. Porgie is beside himself, asking where all these Mexicans suddenly came from.

Comic Books

Comic Strips

The Phantom, a generational line of more than twenty white males who protect the first South Asian, then African jungle, including tribes of native Africans. Partially justified in that the twenty-first Phantom was originally written as a Batman/Bruce Wayne type of superhero, and when Falk decided he should instead be the descendant of a long line of Phantoms they didn't change the design. This was back in 1936. The Phantom Chronicles contain a complete genealogy of the Phantoms. None of the 21st Phantom's female ancestors were African, but the majority (note, majority, not plurality) were South Asian, and he has Native American, East Asian and Latin American ancestry as well, so it's not quite as clear-cut as it (admittedly and unfortunately) looks.



Fanfiction

In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, Assassin Johanna Smith-Rhodes comes from the Discworld's Fantasy Counterpart Culture of South Africa. Brought up in a country stuck in The Apartheid Era, she is changed by her years of living in Ankh-Morpork. When her apartheid-beleiving aunt sees to it that her status of a Married Woman Of Means is graced by a complement of domestic servants, they are Black Howondalandian. Johanna has a problem with getting them to address her as Madam, and not as "Baas-lady", as their conditioning has taught them. Johanna no longer believes in apartheid; her servants believe, with good reason, that if they don't abide by apartheid and treat their employers as Mighty Whitey, they're in a lot of trouble. Readjustment takes place on both sides.

Film - Animated

In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, the white person can read the ancient language of the Atlanteans, even though none of them can. An odd example of Truth in Television, though, as this was inspired by the Egyptians of the 1800s, who had no knowledge of the meaning of the pyramids.

Film - Live-Action

Literature

Live Action TV

Music

Chris Rock described Marilyn Manson himself this way in his opening monologue at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards: "And Marilyn Manson, worshipping the Devil, who thought that was a good idea? Whites always have to be the illest, blacks can't ever be the illest, whites always have to be the illest. A black guy will be like, 'I'm from Compton, I'm from Watts, I'm from the hood, you better recognize.' A white boy will be like, 'Yeah? Well, I'm from HELL!

Professional Wrestling

Stand Up Comedy

Discussed and justified by Dave Chappelle with regards to predominantly black street gangs in his "Killin' Them Softly" show: David Chappelle: You'll be walking down the street and you'll see a bunch of black dudes walking, not just any old black dudes, we're talking 'thugs'. And in the group, they got one, or two, sometimes as many as three white guys with them, you ever seen that shit? Well, let me tell you something about those white guys. Those white guys are the most dangerous motherfuckers in them groups. It's true, man. There's no telling what kind of crazy shit they've done to get them black dudes respect, but I'll tell you they've done some wild shit.

Also Discussed and mocked to hell by Bill Burr not only in being tired of feeling guilty about segregation against ping-pong, but also directly mocks Save Our Students films like Dangerous Minds in wishing that the teacher gets harassed out of town.

Tabletop Games

Zig-Zagged in Warhammer 40,000's backstory. The Primarchs were the Emperor's twenty clone-sons, who were scattered across the galaxy and became (with the exception of Angron) legendary leaders on their adopted homeworlds. But when someone is a gene-enhanced demigod with physical, intellectual and in some cases psychic powers well beyond those of mortal men, this is only to be expected. The degree to which the Primarchs integrated into their homeworlds also varied - Fulgrim reversed a dying world's decline and allowed a cultural renaissance, Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan became barbarian conquerors, Guilliman simply led an already spacefaring civilization into a golden age of expansion, while Konrad Curze was little more than a vigilante killer who ruled the populace by fear. As an aside, while most of the Primarchs were white, several had darker skin tones, two were freakishly pale, Vulkan's skin was pitch black, and Magnus the Red, well... The trope is played mostly straight in some of the Primarchs' backstories when the Emperor arrived to collect them. In many cases, they immediately recognized and swore fealty to their father, but in others, they impressed the locals and only won their sons over after competing with and besting them at various challenges. This is particularly true in Vulkan's story since he and Nocturne's people were puzzled by the "pale outlander" who appeared before them. That said, the Emperor was actually from ancient Anatolia, so "pale" is relative here.



Theatre

The outdoor drama Blue Jacket, performed every year in Ohio from 1981 to 2007, was based around the idea that the titular warchief was actually a white settler captured and adopted into the Shawnee tribe before rising to lead it against the early United States. The increasing amounts of historical evidence against this Mighty Whitey myth may have contributed to the eventual closure of the drama.

The Book of Mormon: Parodied with the song "I am Africa", in which the white Mormon missionaries sing about how they represent Africa. It's ultimately subverted, since none of the missionaries are actually able to inspire the Ugandans, who have to deal with a dangerous warlord, AIDS, and maggots in their scrotum. Even Arnold's stories aren't actually believed by the Ugandans, but provide good life lessons . By the end, the missionaries succeed in repelling (and eventually converting) a violent warlord and inspiring hope in the Ugandans, but don't seem to actually fix any real problems .

Video Games

Web Original

Roxton A. Colchester III, though an orange Lutari in Neopets, is a character created based on this trope - a bold mighty white adventurer accompanied by a white chick and a short Asian sidekick. The Atlas of the Ancients plot even went so far as to say that their adventure is essential to saving the world of Neopia.

This Listverse entry that purports to highlight the ten most "intellectual" rappers. Fewer than 25% of the artists mentioned are people of color, while people of color make up somewhat more than 25% of all rap artists.

Listverse entry that purports to highlight the ten most "intellectual" rappers. Fewer than 25% of the artists mentioned are people of color, while people of color make up somewhat more than 25% of all rap artists. The blog Smart Bitches Read Trashy Books warns against this trope. If the heroine is a noble white maiden and the hero is a member of an indigenous Native American tribal people, AND the title contains the words "half-breed," "savage" or both, then youve got the makings of a really, really bad romance. Apocalyptically bad, even. In fact, if these romances could ride horses, they could probably substitute for War and Plague all by their little selves. If the plot of that romance involves the heroine taming the hero's wild ways while he teaches her to listen to the music of the rhythm of the night wind, and hes not referring in any way to flatulence or El De Barge , then youve definitely embarked on a bad romance.

Western Animation

Parodied in South Park episode "Last of the Meheecans" where Butters, dressed up as a Mexican for a game with Cartman, unintentionally inspires and leads hundreds of immigrated Mexicans-Americans back into their home country to the point where America loses its prosperity to Mexico.

Parodied in the American Dad!! episode "Home Adrone." Stan Smith rides a Predator drone disguised as a dragon in a Chinese New Year's parade. An old Chinese man cries "The prophecy has been fulfilled! The Great Dragon awakens!" A young Chinese American woman sarcastically replies, "Oh, and with a white guy riding him. Awesome."

Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos plays the trope straight. The series is full of Asian martial artists, but the greatest of them all is Chuck Norris, of course.

In The Mummy: The Animated Series, Rick's son Alex gains a golden band which gives him the superpowers of a Medjai (such as telekinesis), allowing him to become the most powerful of the students training to be a Medjai.

In Bruce Timm's Batman: The Animated Series Bruce Wayne is considered by his martial arts master, Yoru, to be his best student. This creates the friction between Wayne and Kyodai Ken who constantly refers to Wayne as "Rich Man's Son" (since this is a kids' show, race never comes up).

In Journey to Saturn, sergeant Arne Skrydsbøl says "We are the white gods" to the aliens when landing on Saturn. The aliens do (presumably) not understand Danish, but it does not end well.

Real Life

In Homage to Catalonia George Orwell describes the Spanish militiamen he fought alongside viewing him as Mighty Whitey. Despite Orwell's total lack of training or familiarity with soldiering his compatriots were thrilled that an educated Englishman had joined up with their cause.

In 1511 a Spanish ship sunk off the coast of the Yucatan. Those who didn't die in the shipwreck or from thirst before reaching the coast were enslaved by the natives, sacrificed or worked to death, except for a friar, Gerónimo de Aguilar, and a soldier, Gonzalo Guerrero. Guerrero won his freedom after saving his owner from a crocodile, embraced Mayan culture and religion, and rose rapidly in rank until he married The Chief's Daughter. When Cortés passed through the place on his way to Mexico and offered the two men to join his army, Aguilar readily took the offer but Guerrero chose to stay with his wife and three children. By the beginning of Montejo's conquest of the Yucatan in 1528, Guerrero was the Nacom (General) of the army of Chetumal. Montejo tried to win Guerrero to his side but once again he refused, and instead led the Mayas to several victories using both Mayan surprise guerrilla tactics and Spanish anti-cavalry phalanx tactics that he had learned while serving in Italy decades before. He was killed in battle in Honduras in 1536, of an arquebus shot to the chest, but Montejo had to concede defeat and it was his son who finally managed to control Yucatan a decade later. Given his ridiculously troperiffic life, it is incredible that Guerrero's story has never been adapted to film.

The history of the Tanegashima matchlock musket is this trope. In 1543 a few Portuguese reached a Japanese island when the Chinese ship they were on had to take shelter during a storm. The local ruler, Tanegashima Tokitaka, bought two matchlock muskets from them and set a swordsmith on reproducing them. At the time, the Japanese had both crossbows and primitive hand cannons, so reproducing one of the most advanced firearms then available wasn't too hard... except for one little thing. The matchlocks they bought used a screwed-in bolt to seal the breach which could also be unscrewed for both cleaning and to remove things stuck in the barrel (before that, something getting stuck in the barrel rendered it permanently unusable). The Japanese didn't know how to make the grooves on the outside of a metal bolt match the grooves on the inside of a metal barrel until the Portuguese returned the next year and a blacksmith showed them the trick.

Played remarkably straight in the case of the White Rajahs of Sarawak. English adventurer Sir James Brooke was granted the title of Rajah of Sarawak by the Sultan of Brunei, as a reward for his efforts in combating piracy in Malaysia. To the surprise and fascination of many, Brooke forged Sarawak into an independent sovereign state, introducing a modern system of government and efficient civil service. Although there were some western influences (Brooke invited a number of Anglican missionaries to set up schools), he made a determined effort to preserve the local culture and led the natives into battle against local pirates on several occasions. When Sarawak was absorbed into the British Empire after WWII, many locals objected and sought the restoration of the Brooke Dynasty because they felt the White Rajahs had been one of the most effective barriers to western colonisation. When the British withdrew from Sarawak in 1963 it was promptly absorbed into Malaysia, but to this day, the Brookes are still remembered with considerable fondness.

Lawrence of Arabia tells of T. E. Lawrence. It would be an exaggeration to say he alone put together a loose band of irregular tribesman that threw back the better-armed, better-equipped, much-more-powerful Ottoman Turks by mastering desert warfare on a level that amazed even his Arab irregulars, and thus was directly responsible for weakening the Ottoman Empire critically and thus changing the entire strategic balance in the First World War...but it would not be a gross exaggeration.

Came about in China during the late medieval era, when the Mongol hordes (famously led by Genghis Khan) overran most of the Middle Kingdom and subjugated the Chinese people. They soon found themselves having to establish a bureaucratized government for the sake of continuity with the "Mandate of Heaven" (the ruling authority of all of China's imperial dynasties)...but being basically barbarians up to this point, the Mongols had none of the experience - and very little of the knowledge - necessary to serve as government leaders. Nor could they conscript ethnic Chinese to fill the role of civil servants, for the Chinese people were sullen under their conquerors and would surely try to sabotage their rule. So the Mongols Took A Third Option: while a Mongol Khan continued to reign as Emperor of China, he filled his government offices with people who were neither Mongolian nor Chinese - and sometimes were not even Asian. Quite a few European traders, explorers, and missionaries wound up working as Chinese bureaucrats.

Happened again in China in the late 19th century, during the Taiping Rebellion. The Ever Victorious Army consisted of Chinese soldiers trained, armed and led by European and American officers and fought on behalf of the Qing dynasty against the rebels. Their efforts are generally considered instrumental in the Qing dynasty's eventual victory. Most notably, the most famous commander of the group, the British officer Charles George Gordon ("Chinese Gordon") was lavished with honors by the Qing for his service.

consisted of Chinese soldiers trained, armed and led by European and American officers and fought on behalf of the Qing dynasty against the rebels. Their efforts are generally considered instrumental in the Qing dynasty's eventual victory. Most notably, the most famous commander of the group, the British officer Charles George Gordon ("Chinese Gordon") was lavished with honors by the Qing for his service. Subverted by the "Mad Khan", Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. He was a Russian-German Count, a very colourful person, eccentric to the point of lunacy, and known for his wanton cruelty. In the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, he carved himself a state in Outer Mongolia, claiming to be "the Last Khan" and reincarnation of Genghis Khan. He managed to keep the Mongols down and the Chinese out, but things went south quickly when the Soviets came and he was defeated, captured and executed.

According to the Chronicle of Fredegar, Samo was a Frankish merchant who united a number of West Slavic tribes against the raiding Avars (called Huns in the chronicle), was acclaimed as their king, and led the resulting empire successfully against an invasion from his fellow Franks.

Non-White, Fantastic, or Raceless Examples:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Oddly enough, Superman may be the earliest example of a superhero playing to a variation of this trope, except that the "mighty whitey" is actually an alien, and the entire human race are the natives who he joins (in contrast to the more common Sci-fi variant of the trope where the opposite would be the case). Kal-El learns the ways of the primitive Earth folk and ultimately becomes their greatest champion while inspiring them to bring out the best in their culture, and even turns against the race he was born to when they try to molest his new home with their advanced strength and weapons.

De cape et de crocs has a race flip where a black former slave ends up on the shores of an island populated by white savages who dress like Robinson Crusoe. Because they'd never seen black skin before, they took him for a god, but he was quick to insist that he was just a man (he is their chieftain, however).

Travis Morgan got stranded in a Lost World (originally depicted as Beneath the Earth, later declared to be an Alternate Dimension) called Skartaris, learned its ways, and became the Warlord, its greatest hero. Travis is white, and while there are white-looking folks in Skartaris (including the villain Deimos), the Warlord's best friend in Skartaris is Machiste, who is black.

The Adam Strange comics used a concept nearly identical to the John Carter Of Mars books. On Earth, Adam is just an archaeologist, but he uses his jetpack to make himself the hero of the space planet Rann. Popular comic author Alan Moore later subverted this by having the Rannians still treat Adam with contempt because they have superior intellects. Note that Moore's interpretation was a Retcon, and has been ignored since.



Comic Strips

Flash Gordon goes to the planet Mongo, learns its ways, liberates it from tyrant Ming the Merciless, and becomes its greatest hero. Played particularly straight in the early strips where Mongo's Human Aliens are depicted with yellow skin.

Films — Live-Action

The 13th Warrior features something of a reversal: the cultured Arab diplomat Ahmad ibn Fadlan leaves his country with some Vikings to go north. The Vikings don't expect him to be very useful, but he learns their language, fights alongside them, and amazes them with his literacy, though he does not surpass the Vikings in any of the skills they teach him. In fact, the Vikings treat him a bit like a child, calling him "Little Brother". He is ultimately a secondary figure in the big picture behind their leader Buliwyf. The story, taken from Michael Crichton's book The 13th Warrior, is very loosely based on the accounts of the real Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, spiced up with a non-magical retelling of Beowulf

Shanghai Noon: Chong Wang (played by Jackie Chan), a Chinese palace guard from the Forbidden City, travels to Wild West Nevada to rescue Imperial Princess Pei Pei. Although a Fish out of Water in the western setting, his superior fighting skills impress a Native American chief who tricks him into marrying his daughter, Falling Leaves. Chong subsequently teams up with outlaw Roy O'Bannon (played by Owen Wilson) and gains notoriety as the "Shanghai Kid" on a "Wanted!" Poster without even trying, causing Roy to gripe that the bounty on Chong's head is already bigger than his even though he's been committing crimes for years.

The Karate Kid (2010): Dre Parker (black) moves to China, and with a month or so of training, beats all the experienced bullies at the local kung fu tournament.

Rambo IV starts out with the half-Indian John Rambo having become a Burmese snake-wrangler.

The movie Avatar has a paralyzed human. A bit unconventional since he doesn't fulfill the trope until his consciousness is put in a half-human, half-alien body, but after that happens, he eventually learns the Na'vi ways and embodies this trope by doing several things: marrying the Princess, becoming a legendary chief, getting the planetary consciousness to fight to push back the humans, and eventually transforming permanently into a Na'Vi .

Literature

Live-Action TV

Tabletop Games

Rules accompanying the Classic Dungeons & Dragons game's "Hollow World" setting, which was largely inspired by works that use this trope, incorporate a Mighty Surface-Dweller element to adventures involving outer-world PCs. Most of the heavy-damage spell effects such as Fireball are unknown to the Hollow World's natives, ostensibly to evoke the feel of literature in which heroic explorers' use of firearms gives them a tactical advantage over indigenous peoples.

Video Games

Web Original

Parodied in A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever, where the protagonist must fight alongside the "Native American Analogue" against the "U.S. Military Analogue".

Western Animation