Word.ws English Dictionary

race lift

race lift noun: the changing of the race of a character, protagonist, etc., in a work of art, literature, etc.

Noun

race lift (plural race lifts)

  1. The changing of the race of a character, protagonist, etc., in a work of art, literature, etc.
    • Characters who are ethnic minorities in original works are recast as Caucasians in adaptations so frequently that the phenomenon has its own nickname: it’s called a race lift.2014, Richard Rosenbaum, Raise Some Shell: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, →ISBN, page 26
    • But here's what gets me: They did do a "race lift" of a martial arts-oriented character. They took Elektra Natchios, who, if you couldn't tell from her name, is supposed to be Greek, and cast the French-Cambodian actress Elodie Yung to play her.2016 April 1, Arthur Chu, “Not your Asian ninja: How the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps failing Asian-Americans”, in The Daily Beast

Verb

race lift (third-person singular simple present race lifts, present participle race lifting, simple past and past participle race lifted)

  1. To change the race of a fictional character.
    • The movie industry has supposedly cleaned up this particularly shameful act, but it has been replaced by a subtler form of race-lifting: rather than hiring actors of the same ethnicity to play non-Caucasian characters, Hollywood often simply changes the ethnicity of the characters themselves....2011 November 14, Steve Rose, “G2: Bend it like Heathcliff: An Afro-Caribbean Heathcliff, a Caucasian anime hero and an all-black take on Tennessee Williams”, in The Guardian, page 6
    • "This is not the first instance of race lifting in Hollywood. In the past, Idris Elba has played the Norse God Heimdall. Will Smith's character from I am Legend was originally white, as was Shawshank Redemption's Red (played by Morgan Freeman)," says movie buff Vinu S2012 April 22, Prathibha Joy, “Row over Samuel L Jackson's portrayal”, in The Times of India

race lift meaning in Bengali

race lift in Bengali

কোনো শিল্পকর্ম, সাহিত্যকর্ম ইত্যাদিতে কোনো চরিত্র

Forms of race lift

Noun
pluralrace lifts
Verb
third-person singular presentrace lifts
present participlerace lifting
past participlerace lifted
pastrace lifted

Origin of race lift

Modeled on face lift.

Questions about race lift

What does race lift mean?
Race lift means the changing of the race of a character, protagonist, etc., in a work of art, literature, etc.
What is race lift in Bengali?
Race lift in Bengali is কোনো শিল্পকর্ম, সাহিত্যকর্ম ইত্যাদিতে কোনো চরিত্র. See Race lift meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is race lift?
Race lift can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of race lift?
The plural of race lift is race lifts.

Words near race lift in the dictionary

  1. race hatred
  2. race hazard
  3. race hazards
  4. race knife
  5. race knives
  6. race lift
  7. race lifted
  8. race lifting
  9. race lifts
  10. race meeting
  11. race meetings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: race lift (page history and authors); race lift (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “race lift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/race_lift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.