Note: I’m not going to spoiler anything here, because I’d want to keep the title of the work I’m discussing out of the spoiler window, and given the title and nature of this thread, the work’s very presence in this thread would be a spoiler in of itself, even without the actual characters’ names visible. So please proceed at your own risk.
Because of some recent events in pop culture, I’ve been considering a modern writer’s dilemma, especially when it comes to media like TV, movies, and comics: the relationship between race and killing off characters.
In the very first episode of this season of Lost, three out of four of the most prominent surviving minority characters (who’d been with the show since the start) died, leaving only the one who physically looks the most Caucasian. In a DC comics Brightest Day sidestory, the Atom (aka Ryan Choi, one of the few Asian major characters that I can think of) was brutally killed.
Now, I can see both sides to the story here. On one hand, it does seem rather… suspicious that the minority characters seemed to be specifically targeted here, especially since they were just a few among many white folks to begin with. OTOH, should we really ask writers NOT to kill particular characters BECAUSE of their race? Isn’t that just as bad? OTOOH, maybe if they’d bothered to create more non-white characters in the first place, it wouldn’t look as bad. OTOOOH, I have little to no real evidence that these deaths weren’t planned just for good old-fashioned shock value, regardless of race. But then, that brings me back to my first point.
In fact, that’s a good point; it’s not quite as bad in movies, because they’re one-shots not meant to be an ongoing, long-term concern. TV shows and comics, however, are, and that makes it worse.
Most people are racist, and I’m not saying just white people.
But in the US, white people are the majority and are in charge of the entertainment industry, so they see anyone who is not white as expendable. Naturally TV and movies reflect that.
They are catering to their market, it’s that simple.
Racist? They cast a black actor in their movie, didn’t they?
The script for a, say, Mel Gibson or Ranier Wolfcastle vehicle calls for his sidekick to be killed so he can take revenge on the bad guy. Should we give this good-guy role to a white actor or a black actor? Why not a black actor?
After all, people might think it was racist to cast black actors strictly as bad guys.
Calling it racism is oversimplifying. While there are some films where the black guy does get killed early, there are others where he does not. It’s a trope that exists, but which is selectively noted (no one keeps track if a white sidekick dies first). I’m unaware that Danny Glover was killed off in the Lethal Weapon films, for instance.
Part of the issue is conflating slasher films with action films. Another problem is in a film where there are multiple black actors. If one is killed first, then is it racist if the other one lives to the end of the film?
As for the killing, it was pointed out best in Galaxy Quest: “I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m just “Crewman Number Six.” I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is.” In films with a threat, there is usually someone getting killed for that reason. When the character is white, no one notices. When he’s black, everyone thinks it’s another example of “The Black guy dies first.”
Indeed, the concept of white hero with nonwhite sidekick (and the sidekick surviving to the end) predates movies and can be found in Huckleberry Finn and The Last of the Mohicans (Twain must hate me mentioning those two in the same sentence ) and in popular culture like The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Mandrake the Magician, Little Orphan Annie and elsewhere.
Like I said, this is why I deliberately excluded movies. It’s a completely different animal.
When I see Lost shed three of its four most prominent minority characters, and DC kill off one of their few heroes who’s not white or African-American, I really have to wonder.
Yeah, but DC comic heroes being killed is hardly worth a mention. The list includes both genders, and people of all colors and creeds. Choi isn’t even the second Atom to be killed this decade for goodness sake. He’s at least the third, maybe the fourth. I think that is a weak addition to your argument, unless you want to find a way to work around the (so far) permanent deaths of, the aforementioned two to three Atoms, two Blue Beatles, two Crimson Foxes, one Hawk and Dove, both Ralph (Elongated Man) and Sue Dibny, all of the Forever People, one Fury, at least four Dr Fates, Indigo, a Johnny Quick, a Karate Kid, a Minute-Man, a Mr. America, at least two Commander Steels, a General Glory, Phantom Lady, a Power Boy, a Question, the Dimitri Pushkin Rocket Red, two Sandmans (not including the Eternal, Dream), Zatara, and literally dozens of other Caucasian DC heroes, mostly in the past decade. And there are a lot of other dead heroes kicking around in their universe.
DC likes killing characters… and doesn’t really bring them back all that often. Unless you have a big red S on your chest, if you die you will likely stay dead.
The black guy almost is the sole survivor in the original Night of the Living Dead. He should be, as he has the most common sense and survival skills, but then . . . zombies. I liked that they didn’t kill him first.
In the second season of “War of the Worlds,” two major characters were killed off. Norton Drake, played by Philip Akin, and Lt. Col. Paul Ironhorse, played by Richard Chaves. Akin is black and Chaves is Native American.
Nah, he was wrong. The best place to hold up was the attic. Pull the ladder up after yourself, and there’s absolutely no way the zombies could have gotten them. Use tools from the basement to cut a hole in the roof for visibility and an alternative egress. Trying to defend the ground floor was suicide. A very strong, level-headed character, but wrong nonetheless.
) and in popular culture like The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Mandrake the Magician, Little Orphan Annie and elsewhere.