"Merit, Not Bigotry" Explanation - TV Tropes

Fanatio: Even traitors like you, targeting the Church, the instant you discover I'm a woman, you can't fight me seriously?
[...]
Kirito: Just so that you know, the reason I was shocked just now was because your spirit became so weak the moment your helmet broke. Hiding your face and your sword style... aren't you the one who's most conscious of being a woman?
Fanatio: Shut up! I'll kill you no matter what!
Kirito: I intend to do the same. I don't intend to hold back because you're a woman. I've lost plenty of battles to swordswomen!

• She-Hulk: In She-Hulk (2004), Spider-Man once played this for laughs with an inversion. He's in court and has been asked why he believes J. Jonah Jameson has been so antagonistic towards him over the years. Spidey says he's thought long and hard about it, and the only conclusion he can come up with is that Jameson hates him because he's black. Jameson is left sputtering and stammering, saying he had no idea (Spidey's suit is fully concealing after all) trying to defend himself from the accusation of racism, unsuccessfully, until Spidey says, "Just kidding."
• X-Men: A recurring theme within the X-Men books is the fear flatscan Humans feel that Mutants will marginalize, kill and/or enslave them for being weaker. The purpose of Xavier's X-Men (and his School for Gifted Youngsters) is to show humans that most mutants only want to live in peace and can use their powers for the benefit of both human- and mutant-kind. While there are villains and antagonists such as Magneto, Apocalypse or Selene, who very much want to marginalize, enslave or outright exterminate humans (or simply conquer anyone too weak to stop them), to say nothing of characters like the Phoenix, Proteus, Scarlet Witch or X-Man who have the ability to destroy entire worlds or rewrite reality, many non-Mutant heroes such as Captain America, Spider-Man or Iron Man often argue that it's possible for any exceptional person to rise up and become a hero... or a villain.

• Santa Inc.: After working hard to become Santa's successor, Candy is rejected and assumes Devin was only chosen because he's a white man. However, Santa explains that Devin was chosen because he was better with the kids at the hospital than Candy.

  Santa: How could I, in good confidence, choose a Santa who is not good with kids?

• Higher Learning: Malik receives a poor grade on a paper for his political science class and appeals to the class professor for a better grade. When Professor Phipps, who is also black, refuses and even cites the reasons for the grade, Malik accuses him of being a sellout for the white establishment. The professor retorts with a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech where he calls Malik out for trying to use his race as an excuse for his personal shortcomings and tells him to be better.
• The Ladykillers (2004): Gawain, pretty much an intentional Ethnic Scrappy, gets a job at the Mississippi casino boat he and his fellow criminals plan to rob, but is fired from his job fairly quickly for genuine incompetence; Gawain was perving on a female client during his shift. He immediately accuses the white manager of firing him because he's black, who just as immediately dismisses this claim, pointing out that most of his staff is black and another black person will probably be hired to replace Gawain as well.

• A Certain Magical Index: Numerous Villains of the Week and villainous organizations are motivated by what they see as elitism and discrimination against them for being low-level Espers. For example, the members of Skill-Out are Level 0 Espers, and the users of the Level-Upper drug are extremely weak Espers who each feel that they have been unfairly treated due to their lack of power. In most cases, one of the heroic characters will instead inform them that there is no such discrimination in Academy City, that very few high-level Espers actually look down on them, and that it's still possible for them to be useful and/or even raise their level of power by working hard at it.
• In the first Artemis Fowl book, Commandant Root explains to Holly Short that his strictness towards her is not because she's a woman, but because, as the first female LEP officer, she needs to set a good example and prove that women can succeed in the role, otherwise she risks being the last female LEP officer.
• The Irregular at Magic High School: One of the recurring themes of the story is that there is no such thing as "equality", and that every person is born with innate talents and abilities, or lack thereof. A number of antagonists or rival characters are motivated by either jealousy or a deep-seated belief that if they aren't successful, then there must be something inherently wrong in the system. The protagonist Tatsuya, however, is an "Irregular": someone whose magical abilities are considered weak, but possesses other skills and combat abilities that make him more than a match for most threats in the world. He thus argues that lack of magical talent is not the handicap for success that others believe it is, and also that "equality" is simply an empty buzzword with no real meaning, since it can never truly be achieved.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: A major plot detail is that the country in which the series is set is run by the Supernatural Elite. While magic is not exclusive to nobility, and noble heritage is not a guarantee for magical ability, more nobles are able to use magic than commoners. This makes Maria — a commoner who is not only able to use magic but also use the extremely powerful and rare Light element — the target of bullies who believe that she only got high grades, gained a spot on the Student Council and befriended the Prince and his circle of friends because of her rare talent. The protagonist, Catarina Claes, comes to Maria's rescue and tells off her bullies by informing them that Maria's talent and rare affinity have nothing to do with any of that: Maria has earned all of it through hard work and genuinely being a nice person. To make it worse, Maria has also been the subject of vicious rumors and bullying in her hometown by commoners who believe that Maria's powers must be the result of her mother having an extra-marital affair with a nobleman, as they refuse to believe that someone can just be born THAT lucky.
• Sword Art Online: In the "Alicization" Arc, the villain Integrity Knight Fanatio is a woman who hides her true gender because she fears being taken less seriously as a woman. She also believes that her opponents (Kirito and Eugeo) will go easy on her after finding out, which Kirito dismisses and disproves by fighting her at his full power.
• Tony Hill and Carol Jordan: Inverted and Zigzagged. In "The Wire in The Blood", among the young detectives assigned to Doctor Tony Hill's specialist profiling task force is the cocky and lazy Leon Jackson. Tony quickly analyses that a good amount of Leon's ego comes from the fact that he's a black man who's excelling in the police force in the '90s, but cynically notes to himself that Leon is unaware that his superiors are likely going easy on him as having a successful black cop makes them look better. However, later in the novel, Leon proves that when he actually starts seriously working he is genuinely a pretty great detective, suggesting that not all of his success came from his race alone. Notably when the character is revisited fourteen years later in "The Retribution", it is revealed Leon carried on having a successful career quickly climbing the ranks and presently holds a quite plumb post in diplomatic protective services, with him being described as "figuring out how to play the game."

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • In "Chocolate Milk", Holt believes that his former colleague Madeline Wuntch wrote him a bad letter of recommendation for promotion back in 1989 because he came out as gay the night before when she wanted to make love to him. The fact that they are still arch-nemeses seems to be proof of that. But when Amy digs up the recommendation letter 25 years later, it turns out Madeline was nothing but gracious in her letter and doesn't care that he's gay — her beef with him has more to do with other work slights that occurred after the letter, meaning he didn't get the promotion for other reasons. He does, however, have to butter her up a bit so that their feud doesn't cause Wuntch to fail the 99th precinct, so Zig-Zagged Trope. Also Justified Trope, since Holt canonically faced a lot of discrimination as a black gay police officer since joining the force in the late '70s.
  • In the cold open to "White Whale", Hitchcock comes in complaining that he was discriminated against for being a cop when he walked into a coffee shop that morning, as people wouldn't even look at him and one lady walked out. Then Jake points out his fly is open and his penis is hanging out. Hitchcock's response? "Oh, that's a relief!"
• In the Family Law (2021) episode "Play It Straight", the firm takes on the case of an Armored Closet Gay actor who's suing his ex for writing a thinly veiled play satirizing him, as he blames the play for outing him and getting him dropped by the network that makes all of his films. He's rocked when internal documents from the network reveal that they were already planning to drop him because he's significantly older than most of his co-stars and his acting skills just aren't what they used to be.
• Friends:
  • In the episode "The One with All the Poker'', the girls learn that the guys have a regular poker night. They accuse the guys of being sexist because they won't let women in their game, but the guys don't actually have a problem with women playing in their game; they just don't know any women who play poker.

    Chandler: There just don't happen to be any women in our game.
    Joey: Yeah, we just don't happen to know any women that know how to play poker.
    Monica: Oh, please, that is such a lame excuse! That's a typical guy response.
    Ross: Excuse me, do any of you know how to play?
    Monica, Rachel, Phoebe: No...

  • In "The One with the Boob Job", Rachel tries to babyproof her and Joey's apartment, and Joey thinks she needs to hire a professional to do it. Rachel thinks Joey is saying that women can't do handyman work; Joey clarifies by saying "Women can; you can't!" (For good measure, Rachel asks Monica to call Joey a pig and defend her. She does call Joey a pig... and then agrees with him that she can't do it.)
• Game of Thrones: Cersei Lannister complains to her father Tywin that no one trusts her to lead because she's a woman. Tywin, a Chessmaster, tells her that her gender isn't the problem, it's that she's rather stupid and not nearly as competent as she thinks she is. Further seasons end up confirming this, making the situation worse for everyone involved, although Cersei is too far gone to see it.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: Pembleton accuses his workplace rival Felton of hating him for being black. Felton replies that he actually dislikes Pembleton because of his Insufferable Genius demeanor and his tendency to harass and bully his colleagues.
• Intimate: Bruno and Emil attend a casting together. When it goes badly for the former, he blames it on being "too straight, too white and too male" for the, in his mind, diversity-obsessed casting directors. The equally straight, white, and male Emil then claims to be non-binary to improve his chances and actually manages to land the role, but loses it again almost instantly after an Accidental Public Confession. The producers insist that what he identifies as wouldn't have mattered to them; when Emil asks why Bruno was turned down then, they state that he was quite simply bad.
• Law & Order:
  • Played with in the episode "Rage". While the perp Bud Greer did have to deal with racism at his current high-powered Wall Street position, his boss at his other firm explained to detectives that as impressive as he was upon first being hired, he believed that "he had reached the mountaintop, and then felt as if he didn't have to do anything to stay up there" and even kept him on for a couple of years with the hope of improvement and to avoid any issues or accusations of discrimination from coming into play. Furthermore, while on the stand, the man cited that in addition to Greer's poor work ethic, he also disliked his arrogant and abrasive attitude.
  • In "Navy Blues", a high-ranking Naval pilot, Kristin Blair, is tried for the murder of her boyfriend after he informed her that he was going back to his wife. While the Navy is primarily falling over themselves to defend her due to being a female face of high-standing in their branch and her beauty, another officer provides a videotape from Blair's training to help prosecutors show that she is not what she appears. When he mutters how angry it makes him about the orders he was given, Ross then grills him with, "What, qualifying women pilots?", he clarifies himself, stating "No, ma'am; qualifying bad pilots." and then explains that he was told to push Blair through despite severe deficiencies in her performance as a pilot. The tape reveals her freaking out about not being able to land an F-14 on a carrier at night, yelling at him in his role as Landing Signal Officer and threatening him with violence. This is also right after she testified on the stand claiming that she always maintains a calm and professional demeanor when at work.

  Ottenberg: She got better, but she's never gonna be an F-14 pilot. You think I'm wrong, listen to this.

• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: In "Guide to Tryouts", Cookie attempts to get on the cheerleading team partially as a way to score girls. He's first disallowed from trying out due to being a boy, but then gets Claire Sawyer, Future Lawyer, to convince the coach to give him a shot. Then he tries out and is still not allowed on the squad — because he's a terrible cheerleader, not because he's a boy.
• Oz: Clayton Hughes blames all the problems in his life on racism, despite most of them being the result of his own poor decisions and general misconduct. He's called out on this by Johnny Basil when Hughes demands he back him up after he picks a fight with Alvin Yood for no reason on the grounds that they're both black and Yood is white. Hughes responds by stabbing Basil to death right before Basil could see his wife for the first time since he was convicted.

  Hughes: Basil, you taking Yood's side against mine?
  Basil: Yeah, why shouldn't I?
  Hughes: 'Cause of what he is and what we are.
  Basil: What you are is a fuckwad.

• The Rookie (2018): In "Sabotage", having finally made it into becoming a detective, after several weeks on the job Angela Diaz is annoyed how her boss only assigns her the more minor cases and begins to suspect he's figured out she's pregnant (a fact she was hiding for fear it would cost her a chance to become a detective in the first place). At the climax, she confronts her boss about it. As it turns out he had absolutely no idea until she told him, and it's simply his style of management to assign all new recruits the minor cases for their first month, so as to give them time to adjust to the new job.
• Stargate SG-1: In the season 7 episode "Space Race", a Corrupt Corporate Executive from a planet inhabited by humans and aliens believes a conspiracy of aliens and hybrids is trying to take power from humans and puts forth the number of times he's been Passed Over for Promotion as evidence. When he's caught, his boss explains that he wasn't promoted because he's been under investigation for corruption this whole time, and has now conclusively incriminated himself by trying to fix the eponymous starship race.

• The Phantom of the Opera: In "Down Once More"/ "Track Down This Murderer", The Phantom blames his bloodlust and Christine's anger at him on his disfigurement. Christine, who was lied to by the Phantom, has had her freedom taken away by him, and has seen multiple people murdered by him, insists her feelings have nothing to do with his looks:

  Phantom: That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood
  Has also denied me the joys of the flesh
  This face? The infection which poisons our love
  [...]
  Christine: This haunted face holds no horror for me now
  It's in your soul that the true distortion lies.
  

• In the Family Guy episode "Petarded", after Peter is declared officially mentally challenged, authorities take the kids away from him after one of his shenanigans put Lois in a body cast. On a court hearing, he complains he's getting the bum rap for being intellectually disabled and asks for a second chance. He is refused, though more accurately for the reason that within the duration since being declared intellectually disabled he has been relentlessly using Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery, and his attempts to redeem himself in the eyes of authorities was trying to frame his children's foster carer for prostitution. The judge outright points out that Peter, besides being mentally challenged, is a monster.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the episode "Brotherhooves Social", as Applejack has to go on a Friendship Mission, Big Macintosh has to substitute in order to go to the Sisterhood Social games with Applebloom. Since it's an event exclusive for mares, he disguises himself in drag as "Orchard Blossom". When he and Applebloom compete, his stallion strength outplays the other competitors but trashes off the sports equipment, and gets disqualified, not for being a stallion in disguise but for showing off unsportsponylike behavior.
• Solar Opposites: Zig-zagged in "The P.A.T.R.I.C.I.A. Device": The episode's B-plot focuses on Jessie's attempts to topple the patriarchy by smashing a glass ceiling for her final grade. She attempts to break multiple glass ceilings, including becoming the first female high school high school athlete in multiple sports that either already have had that glass ceiling shattered or offered little resistance (Football had multiple female high school football players historically, Lacrosse welcomed her with open arms, and e-sports turned out to be majority women) before attempting to start a misogynistic after school club. This of course backfires as the attendees actually turned out to protest the club and chased Jessie away for spreading such a hateful message. Finally, she comes clean to her teacher Ms. Perez, admitting that she's had tremendous difficulty toppling the patriarchy. As it turns out, the teacher assumed that Jessie was male, and admits she would have passed with a drawing of Count Dooku's lightsaber.
• What's New, Scooby-Doo?: In "The San Franpsycho", the title villain's motivation for trying to ruin the Grind Games skateboarding competition is because she's never been allowed to compete in a skateboarding tournament herself, only serving as a judge. In the end, it turns out to be not because she's a girl (there were several girl competitors), as she claims, but because she's terrible at skateboarding, repeatedly falling off immediately after setting foot on a skateboard.