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"Back off! I only bully Neil Tuesdays, Thursdays, and nondenominational holidays. I understand he celebrates the sabbath."

— Nurf, Camp Camp

This odd counterpart to the more common Politically Incorrect Villain sees no problem with killing, plundering, double-crossing, and handing in their library books too late... but they're very concerned with it all being done in an enlightened, progressive manner, without falling prey to racism, sexism or other despicable attitudes. They will insist on Equal-Opportunity Evil, and sternly rebuke any of their fellow villains who fail to do the same.

The trope can be played in a few different ways:

  1. For horror/Black Comedy, showing that the villain has such Skewed Priorities that they honestly think that using a racial slur is far worse than the gross bodily harm they routinely inflict on people and that they're generally insane and unpredictable.
  2. For humour, portraying villains as behaving very much like regular people, with what they do for a living not being a hindrance to them having political opinions of whatever sort.
  3. In Lighter and Softer works, to highlight that Even Evil Has Standards, with the world-conquering supervillain being above such things as petty bigotry.
  4. Perhaps the conflict is one where there aren't real good or bad guys, and one side being somewhat shady but open-minded demonstrates that.
  5. The writers want to deliver their Aesop more straightforwardly that day — "Hey, kids! Racism is so evil that even the Card-Carrying Villain who gleefully slaughters innocent people by the dozen For the Evulz thinks it's unacceptable! So don't be racist!"
  6. To showcase that the antagonist is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, whose goal is to create a world where everyone is as open-minded as they are, no matter the cost.
  7. To showcase how hypocritical they are. Sure, they think calling someone with a racial slur is incredibly awful, but the fact still stands that they are willing and able to destroy their livelihoods (when they are not plotting outright murder) nevertheless, or think saying certain racial slur to some people is bad but acts racist against another group because on his mind it's not racist to discriminate on basis on race in that case.
  8. Cycle of Revenge, where the villain specifically targets bigots under the delusion they were born racist and sexist, making them not that different from the "monsters" they had sworn to fight.
  9. As escapism. Real world oppression is not fun, and sometimes writers prefer to write enjoyable villains who don't display true prejudices and thus can be admired without seemingly suggesting the audience should admire a bigot.

When played for laughs, will often be shown indulging in Political Overcorrectness. Polar opposite to the Politically Incorrect Hero and Noble Bigot, who don't give two craps about being sensitive, but are very firmly against more blatant and unambiguous acts of evil. Compare and contrast Enlightened Antagonist, who also combines "good" beliefs with "bad" actions, but whose "goodness" is of a more cosmic and timeless kind. See also Hate Crimes Are a Special Kind of Evil.

Note that a villain who simply isn't prejudiced does not qualify for this trope - that's just regular Equal-Opportunity Evil. The villain must actively take a stand against prejudice. Nor is it enough for someone to be politically correct and portrayed in a bad light for it - that's just a Straw Liberal. The definition of this trope is a character who is in some sense a villain, but who is still oddly concerned with being politically correct about it.

Anime and Manga[]

  • In Berserk Silat has the miracle distinction of being the only enemy soldier who isn’t rapey to Action Girl Casca and in fact Silat even applauds Casca’s skill as a warrior while fighting her, rather than being a drooling misogynistic prick to her like pretty much every other male foe in the setting. Justified, in that it’s shown Kushan assassins allow women into their ranks so from Silat’s perspective a female warrior isn’t as uncommon. Later on Silat even joins the heroes’s side and aids Guts, thanks to Ricket.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Emperor Pilaf though he plans to take over the world, employs both a woman (Mai) and a dog man (Shu) as his trusted lieutenants and even admonishes Mai for her heightist remarks against Goku and Oolong. Not to mention when Pilaf had Bulma in his clutches and to torture her just blows her a kiss… at which Bulma questioned why he didn’t try to sexually assault or at least strip of her clothing. Her questions absolutely horrify Pilaf, Shu and Mai who give her “What the hell is wrong with you?” responses.
    • The tyrannical Red Ribbon Army surprisingly is this (with the big exceptions of General Blue and his men whom are misogynistic to Bulma) being overall quite accepting and non-discriminatory allowing women (Colonel Violet), people of colour (Staff Officer Black) and animal people (Captain Yellow) into their ranks. This contrasts to Frieza Force which is both racist and misogynistic with Cheelai from Dragon Ball Super: Broly being first female soldier we see and gets harassed by other soldiers for it. Doesn’t quite make up for the destruction and loss of life they have caused attempting to Take Over the World though nor the fact at least two of their soldiers attempted to assault Bulma (who’s 16 in the early series).
    • Android 13 from Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13! in the Funimation dub as seen when Future Trunks calls him a pawn created to kill Goku with no free will of his own. 13 in a glorious rebuttal reminds Trunks of the war, segregation and hatred Dragon Ball’s humanity has displayed with their free will in a disgusted tone (also given Super reveals Universe 6 Earthlings nuked themselves into oblivion he’s right). 13 is just there as he puts “to kill Goku’s ass” and destroy anything in his way.
  • Moriarty the Patriot: The goal of the Moriarty Brothers, especially the criminal mastermind William, is to end the class division and the abuse of power by the nobility, all to protect the commoners and establish equality in Victorian England. In addition, they accept James Bond, a trans male Irene Adler, as a man and expect no one to argue against it.
  • The League of Villains from My Hero Academia have shades of this from time to time. Not only do they not discriminate by age, gender, or background when recruiting new members, they also have two LGBT members, Toga Himiko (who is openly bisexual) and Magne (who's a trans woman). All of the latter's comrades gender her properly and get really pissed when someone fails to do so. They even have a cute nickname for her: Magu-nee (Japanese)/Big Sis Mag (English dub). This of course ties into their rhetoric of accepting people who have been marginalized and forgotten by society because of different forms of bigotry, whether it be how destructive their powers are, physical deformities, felony records, psychological ableism, transphobia, homophobia, or good old fashioned sexism.
  • One Piece:
    • Charlotte Linlin aka Big Mom’s great dream in life is to have a family made up of every single race in the world where they can all sit together and dine as one. She has gotten close but failed to bring giants and Lunarins into her family. Sadly despite this noble dream Linlin is still a Psychopathic Womanchild, thanks to the utter bastard pirate Streusen who raised her, and as an adult she hypocritically abuses her family and wants to rule the oceans as a tyrant. Not to mention it’s inferred that not all her 85 romantic conquests to get children were likely consensual, given she kidnapped all her husbands.
    • Kaido surprisingly for an Evil Overlord is largely politically correct, having rescued and protected Alber aka King a Lunarin (dark skinned angel-esque race) from a Final Solution, allowed women into his ranks and above all accepted his transgender son Yamato identifying as a man despite being born biologically as a woman and even refers to Yamato as his son. Then again, Kaido being a Wanted a Son Instead-type father isn’t out of the question given how disgustingly abusive he is to Yamato anyway.
    • Fujitora one of better Marines (who are sadly a minority) is despite his antagonistic role extremely respectful of other races and cultures and finds the slave trade the World Government employs abhorrent to the point where he helped several slaves escape Mary Geoise with the Revolutionaries, which earned him the wrath of Plant Person and Politically Incorrect Villain Aramaki.
  • The dub's version of ADAM in Sk8 the Infinity Zig-Zags this trope during one scene in which he greets a crowd with "HEY, BITCHES, BROS, AND NONBINARY HOES!" which is a crasser version of the greeting "guys, gals and nonbinary pals". Kudos to him for acknowledging the existence of nonbinary people, not so much for calling women 'bitches'.
  • Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle: Queen Raffi's goal is to create a nation where women are treated equally to men, and she's at odds with the sexist Old Empire faction. She also averts being a Straw Feminist, as shown by how she takes advice from Fugil and respects Lux despite his opposition to her methods. While her goals are noble, she intends to achieve them by having Fugil use <Endless> to manipulate everyone's perception so she can take out her political enemies with no repercussion.