:headslap: Yeah I missed that. Sorry Tim!
“Oracle” doesn’t fit the stereotype, anyway. First of all, “she” is not even a person, it’s a program. Second, she doesn’t exist just to guide the white protagonist; everyone goes to see the Oracle. Third, she clearly has her own agenda and guiding humans is a means to her own ends.
But she’s played by a person in the movie. A black female person. And that’s the point.
We only know of 3 of the Oracle’s prophesies: (1) Giving the white hero self-confidence, (2) giving the white hero a mentor, and (3) giving the white hero a girlfriend.
None of which is apparent or relevant to the first film, where she is most prominently the FMN.
Where does Queen Latifah as “Mama” from Chicago fit in? She definitely ain’t desexualized. She’ll help you out…if the price is right.
I don’t recall the Oracle in the Matrix (I’m not sure I saw past the first movie, actually, and that was only once. I should probably watch them all), but the stereotype I’m thinking of tends to be sort of, “down-home.” I’m not sure if the Oracle is like that, again, don’t remember.
Well if you’re looking for a contrary example of this, Mo’Nique’s turn as the uber-hideous mother from Precious: (Based on the blah, blah, blah) fits the bill.
Are you asking? Because if you are, then I’d say the answer is a definitive No.
A MN, male or female, is conspicuous because they’re usually the only (or one of a very few) person of color in the story. Definitely doesn’t apply to DtRT.
Also, the MN gives advice and acts as a mentor or seer. Maybe Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) fits into this role, but not Mother Sister.
Just because the character is older, female and black doesn’t automatically make her a FMN.
In reading the original thread, I did think that you really don’t see a female ‘MN’ very often. The closest I came up with was the Mammy character who isn’t so much magical as someone who gives more time and attention to the white family members she works for/lives with/owned by than her own children or fellow servants, etc.
She absolutely is. She has a bit of a folksy charm, and she’s dressed like a 1950’s housewife, smoking a cigarette and baking cookies.
Tia Dalma is probably the most famous in recent years (though I H-A-T-E-D the movies she was in due to the horrible writing).
There was a 1980s TV series produced by Stephen King called Amazing Stories- an anthology inspired by old sci-fi/fantasy mags with each episode being self-contained. One was called The Sitter and starred Mabel King (the rotund black actress best remembered as Mama on What’s Happening? or as Steve Martin’s mother in The Jerk) who played a Voodoo variant of Mary Poppins. (I didn’t remember him until I read the credits, but Seth Green played the very bad little boy in the episode.)
Spielberg actually considered doing a series based on this episode, but unfortunately Mabel King’s health nosedived and apparently he didn’t want anybody else and or got busy with other things, so it died.
But the reason he’s able to bully her in the first place is that she does have supernatural powers, it’s just that she’s in her 30s (or whatever age her character’s supposed to be) when they first click in. After they do she can communicate with all sorts of ghosts.
Heylia James on Weeds definitely fits the bill. One of her character arcs actually has her state that she is done with men. She is constantly giving lessons about how to 1. deal drugs 2. launder money 3. be tough.
Yes, absolutely! This is a perfect example, I think. She’s all tough-talkin’ too, but you know she loves Conrad, and her daughter whose name I forgot, even if she is a bit reluctant to show it sometimes.
[del]Keeping with[/del] Returning to the Whoopi Goldberg theme, there’s her performance in Clara’s Heart.
I hated that they ditched her character from the show. She was one of the only ones I liked- true she was a drug dealer, but unlike the lead character she wasn’t a silly easily led spoiled whinebag always making the world’s stupidest decisions and leading her kids into total ruin, but a woman who’d been managing to do this for many years without getting in trouble with the cops or having her kids turning into juvies and murderers. In fact if she were the star of WEEDS I think it’d be on par with The Sopranos or True Blood in terms of cult following, because that’s a story that hasn’t been told before.
The Oracle is a device. This all just underscores the silliness of this trope. The Oracle could be an old white man or an Asian child or even a robot. But then, of course, it would be a magical robot.
I think the character of August in The Secret Life of Bees fits the trope. Queen Latifah plays her in the movie.
She takes in a runaway white girl, no questions asked, dispenses much wisdom and unconditional love, and then turns out to be the only person who knows “the truth” about her (white girl’s) mother.
and she has a magical statue of a black Madonna in her living room.
Blank Slate, you do get that the Matrix was a movie written by real people and a real casting director had to choose who to put into that role. They chose a wise old sage of a black women because you identify with the FMN as being benevolent and wise in regards to the white hero.