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- This article is about the practice of including racial minorities to show the producer as equal-opportunites friendly. For the South Park character, see Token Black
Tokenism refers to a policy or practice of limited inclusion of members of a minority group, usually creating a false appearance of inclusive practices, intentional or not. Typical examples in real life and television include minority races (such as a black character in a mainly white cast, or vice versa) and women. Classically, this character has some reduced capacity compared to the other characters. Their difference may be overemphasized or made exotic.
Examples
- The title character of Rebecca in the Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca is the only significant Jew in the story, but nethertheless, despite being a title character, has very little to do, briefly appearing and just as quickly disappearing from the tale.
- The character Debbie Love on Sealab 2021 is the only prominent female character on that series (and one of only two women, period) and is a parody of tokenism with her portrayal of a semi-stereotypical female science fiction scientist: intelligent, but also vain, vindictive, condescending and histrionic when under stress. Since both female characters on the show are named Debbie, she is often referred to by other characters as "Black Debbie," in fact, the Sealab bathrooms are labeled "Men" and "Debbie."
- The character Franklin in the Peanuts (who is black, while most of the characters are presumably white) is sometimes considered to be an example of tokenism among newer fans, although Charles Schulz insisted he had no political message and treated the character no different than the rest of the cast.
- The character Diana in the Dungeons & Dragons TV series. The only black member of the cast, and one of the only two females.
- The self-referential character Token Black on South Park, the only black friend of the main cast except the adult Chef. He was originally named Token Williams, though his first name still makes his role fairly clear.
- The multi-continental cast of Captain Planet is sometimes seen as consisting of token characters. However, as all the major characters are meant to represent diversity none can truly be called token charcters.
- The cast of Ghostwriter (TV Show) has been called into question as an example of tokenism.