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| - After a long struggle in gaining visibility and acceptance in the entertainment world, ethnically-African actors and actresses have many more opportunities in Hollywood and on television than they ever had had before. Some have become huge stars in their own right. Unfortunately, as these new opportunities grew, a new dark side of 'racial' bias emerged. Or should we say: "a new light side." Fair skin is a common beauty standard across the world, one strengthened by Euro-centrism (Europe produces and influences the majority of the world's media). However, most of the world's population is possessed of brown skin tones of varying shades, which drastically narrows the typical ideal of beauty. As the trope title states, this hits ethnic Africans particularly hard: many casting directors are in the habit of only - or mostly - hiring black actors and actresses with lighter skin tones, in the belief that they are more "acceptable" to a mostly white mainstream audience. Actresses are hit even harder, particularly if they are supposed to add sex appeal to the show (this is usually due to old stereotypes characterizing non-European women as either unattractive and undesirable or as exotic and hypersexual; think "Orient", "Harem", etc). In a word, this phenomenon has been called "Colourism". Facial features can also play a part (eyes, nose, and general face shape). Skin colour is only the most obvious manifestation of the underlying theme of casting people on the basis of something other than their acting style and/or ability. For example, an Asian actor might be asked to cover his eyes or a black actress asked to straighten her hair. Colourism can also come down to a latent class bias: worldwide, lighter skin (relative to one's own people) has typically been associated with wealth and lounging around indoors, and darker with poverty and working in the fields. Not until sometime around the mid-20th century did the trends start to reverse; the USA led a new trend which saw those with wealth being able to afford extended vacations or holidays, and the sun-induced tans that came with them. Variations of this casting trope are also seen in Latin America, Northern Africa/Middle East, and East Asia. This trope is a common source of Unfortunate Implications; given this trope's prevalence throughout the world's entertainment industries, there are numerous variations on this trope listed below. Note also how the changing definitions of desirability have resulted in new and/or different hiring biases over time. Also see But Not Too Foreign, and Ambiguously Brown. Contrast with But Not Too White. Not to be confused with Light Is Not Good or Pass Fail, though it can be somewhat related to the latter insofar as the casting choice is concerned. Examples of But Not Too Black include:
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