I know we had a thread on Magical Negros recently, but Sampiro made a comment in this week’s Mad Men thread about how, paraphrasing, he’d love to see a warm, loving, white mother and a cold, abusive black nanny.
His comment really resonated with me, because I feel like I constantly see the stereotype of an older, usually larger, desexualized black woman who is motherly and warm and wise and such. Carla (the character on mad men) isn’t really like this, but usually they tend to be all no-nonsense about everything, and give sage advice succinctly. They might be a fan of “tough love,” and can occasionally be gruff, but you know deep down they love you. And are right about most things, most of the time. If any of you have seen Friday Night Lights (the show), Mama Smash definitely fits into this role.
It really annoys me. I think I watch too much tv, because I’m starting to believe that every large black woman I might encounter is full of country-fried wisdom and will invite me to her house to have absurdly good homemade pie.
Well, Stephen King is often accused of being particularly guilty of this meme, and swapping genders is no exception, Mother Abigail in The Stand being Exhibit A.
There’s “The Oracle” from The Matrix. Also, just about any judge on any Law & Order franchise is going to be a (usually large) black woman. Oh, and the prosecutor (or whatever she is) from Bones. I guess these are more “examples” than “thoughts” as you requested, but it’s all I’ve got.
For a subversion, there’s the DC Comics character Amanda Waller. Middle-aged black woman who seems to have been conceived as “Nell Carter as a government bureaucrat in a world of superheroes.” Tough, gruff, well-meaning, but as the protagonist of her own book (called Suicide Squad) definitely not always right, & all too human.
Or many of Nell Carter’s roles for that matter, or almost any black character that’s written as a human being & protagonist. Magical negroes are a white thing.
One of the Beulahs was Hattie McDaniel, who won an Academy Award for playing the Magical Negro in Gone With the Wind. Not to mention that Ethel Waters herself won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for doing the same thing in the original stage version of Member of the Wedding.
It goes back at least as far as Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Definitely desexualized. Pretty similar to the magical male negro, only I imagine in many roles this gives casting agents a ‘twofer’ – they’ve got their black female cop or doctor or whatever, so they can make the white guy or woman the hero.
FTR, in no way am I referring to S. Epatha Merkerson aka Lt. Van Buren. She is amazing. And, on a show with little character development, she’s managed to be tough, flawed and fascinating all at once.
For the younger set, there’s the Black Best Friend phenomenon. Sassy, hot, but always a bridesmaid
Are you serious? The Guinan character on Star Trek I can see, but in Ghost she’s a shrill charlatan that Swaze bullies into helping him against her will.
The only character of the ones listed is Goldberg’s from ST:TNG. I think the tropes I’m more familiar with tend to be Southern, and sort of Mamy-ish. Extra points for any of the following, “Honey, baby, sweetie, chile, honey chile, babychile, now don’t you . . . , uh-huh, that’s right, Lor’ have mercy.” And they tend to be super-Christian (Carla fits this one).
There was a scene in Community actually that played upon this. Shirley (large, black, Christina, desexualized female) is upset at her characterization in one of Abed’s films, I think. She says something like, “He made me out to be a stereotype! If the good Lord in Heaven wasn’t watching, I’d slap him so hard his mamma wouldn’t know him.”
Not to say that all the above examples aren’t examples of what I was talking about. They sound about right. Also the judge characters; I have noticed that on law/police-y shows and it’s definitely an example of what I was thinking of.
I actually did read the thread. Apologies if I misunderstood but I thought the OP asked, “Anyone else notice this or have any thoughts?”
I did notice this when I watched the matrix and thought I’d point it out. Other posters seemed to be pointing out similar examples. Am I misunderstanding the premise of the OP or am I misunderstanding the role I submitted from the matrix?