The black guy always dies first?

[Green_Bean]

An earlier thread on the subject.

The thread that spawned Askia’s Law. (See Post #4)

And just for fun, here’s my post from the first thread I linked…

@Green_Bean

I’ve never heard that the black guy dies first. In fact, I find he’s frequently one of the last to go. But go he does.

One of my favorite movie cliches is related to Askia’s Expendable Negro, but is a little different. It is the False Ending, usually found in cheesy sci-fi movies and thrillers. And how do you know you have a False Ending on your hands?

We’ll turn to the excerable Leviathan and the hilariously awful Fortresss for two perfect examples:

Well, you start with a movie where a group of diverse individuals are stuck together in A Bad Situation. In Leviathan, they were stuck in a deep-sea mining vessel with a mutant sea-monster on the loose. In Fortress, they were in the jail of the future, where disobedient prisoners were killed off in gruesome ways by the artificially intelligent computer jailor.

Your Diverse Individuals should include a variety of different ethnicities, ages, etc. In Leviathan, they included your slutty female, your sleazy guy, your doctor-who-only-cared-about-himself, and of course, your all-around good buddy of a black guy, played by Ernie Hudson. In Fortress, you had your wise old black man, your super-nerd, and your effeminate Latino.

Make sure you have a Hero and a Love Interest. In Leviathan, our Hero was Peter Weller, and our Love Interest was one of his coworkers on the mining vessel. In Fortress, our Hero was Christopher Lambert, and the Love Interest was his pregnant wife, also being held in the prison.

The plot of the movie is that everyone trying to escape from The Bad Situation, but in doing so, they get killed one by one. The least sympathetic character or two will get killed off first. After that, the order of death is fairly random, with your more noxious characters going earlier than those who are supposed to be more likeable. The black guy doesn’t die first, as he is almost always a likeable character.

(Now, keep in mind that this type of set-up does not always lead to a False Ending. While it’s enough of a cliche that Roger Ebert dubbed it an “Ark Movie” in his Glossary of Movie Terms, it doesn’t have to be cheesy. Alien used this set-up to great advantage, though the lack of a Love Interest would have been a clue that things would come out a little differently. And of course, Stagecoach is the ultimate Ark Movie. But if it’s a crappy movie, chock-full of cliches and retreads of other movies, then it’s quite likely you’ll find a False Ending.)

Finally, the Hero, the Love Interest, and one of your Diverse Individuals escape to safety. The Diverse Individual should be either the black guy or some other identifiably ethnic male. In Leviathan, our Hero, the Love Interest, and the black guy swam to the surface of the ocean. In Fortress, our Hero, the Love Interest, and the effeminate Latino destroyed the computer, escaped the jail, and made it across the border to Mexico. We, the audience, are supposed to breathe a sigh of relief. Yay! It’s over! But the savvy viewer knows that Ernie Hudson is toast. He can’t possibly make it to the end of the movie alive. He is the Expendable Negro, after all. Same with the effeminate Latino.

So, in Leviathan, the mutant sea monster comes back for an encore and chomps poor Ernie, and in Fortress, the truck controlled by the computer jailor flattens our doomed effeminate Latino, leaving our lily-white Hero and Love Interest to celebrate their victory without having to deal with that pesky minority third wheel.

So, in the scenario of the False Ending, the black guy doesn’t die first, but you can be sure he dies eventually.

[even_sven]

@CalMeacham

This Wikipedia list includes Morpheus from The Matrix, but I don’t think he really belongs – Morpheus really isn’t any more “magical” than anyone else in the film

As I understand it, the “magic black guy” (or less common but still existent “magic Indian”) is someone with secret knowledge. They have some sort of deep connection to the deepest truths. Usually we never quite learn the nature of the connection, it’s just kind of a given. The magic black guy shows up at the just right point, letting the hero in on the just the insights they need to continue their quest. Then they magic black guy fades into the background, only showing up again when his guidance is needed.

The trope that this is playing off is the idea that black people are somehow more “authentic.” The image is that if anyone knows the secrets to inner peace, the way the world really works, how it all fits together, it’s some black guy. Probably an unassuming black guy, happily working a crappy job and guarding the secrets of the universe for the day when some white guy needs them.

Black women have a different role in apocalypse/disaster movies. Theirs is more tied in to fertility. Black women play in our mind as more sexual, more fecund, and more natural. And the black woman surviving the end of the world is kind of an echo of humanity’s own first birth in Africa. In the movie universe, a skinny white girl isn’t going to cut it for last woman on earth. They are too frail, too high maintance and not really supposed to get pregnant. We need someone who is willing to fuck everyone left, have lots of children, live in nature and bravely put up with the hardships of re-building the world- and the stereotype for that is black.

[CalMeacham]

As I understand it, the “magic black guy” (or less common but still existent “magic Indian”) is someone with secret knowledge. They have some sort of deep connection to the deepest truths. Usually we never quite learn the nature of the connection, it’s just kind of a given. The magic black guy shows up at the just right point, letting the hero in on the just the insights they need to continue their quest. Then they magic black guy fades into the background, only showing up again when his guidance is needed.

Different people have different uses for this troppe, and different ideas about how it works. I first heard it (on TV) from a black actor who reported watching The Matrix and being absolutely certain that Morpheus would die, because that’s what the “magic negro” did, and was completely surprised when he didn’t.
I still say Morpheus doesn’t really fit the pattern – the Wachowski brothers shown New Zion as a pretty mixed racial society, with blaclks in numbers approaching if not equal to those of the whites, and in all positions, both of authority and elsewhere. So Morpheus isn’t unique at all, and he’s no more magic than anyone else. He’s a mentor because of his experience only. And he never does die.

You have to ask – wjat would be the difference between a movie that treated black people in the “magic negro” fashion and one that was pretty well integrated, and I think the Matrix series comes down pretty squarely on the integrated side.

[sqweels]

I just want to point out that it’s not so much “black guy always dies” but rather “guy-who-dies is always black” (although I’m talking more about buddy-cop movies than horror or ensemble adeventure movies).

Movies like this are often produced as a vehicle for the likes of Mel Gibson or Sylvester Stallone, so it’s decided early on that the main hero will be white. The story line calls for the hero to take revenge after his buddy is killed, but there’s more flexibility in casting that part, so why not make him black? That way there’s more diversity in the cast without blacks being all villains.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@What_Exit

TVtropes has a page on this. It gives both examples and subversions.

I apologize in advance if you never found this site before, **some **say it is addicting.

Some? Who says it isn’t, and why are they lying to you?

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@CalMeacham

Spike Lee and others have talked about the “Magic Negro” in movies, who is the Outsider who has magical powers or is a guru of some sort, but dies before the film is over.:

Magical Negro - Wikipedia

This Wikipedia list includes Morpheus from The Matrix, but I don’t think he really belongs – Morpheus really isn’t any more “magical” than anyone else in the film (although he is a Leader/Guru). More importantly, as even people who bring him up point out, he doesn’t die. He breaks the trope. And, unlike the example in Deep Blue Sea, I don’t think he was deliberayely brought in to break the trope – he simply doesn’t really fit into it.

Like many Wikipedia articles, that one includes an intensely stupid Example section. Morgan Freeman’s God is not a Magical Negro; he has exactly the same role in the movie he’d have had if he’d been played by, oh, Martin Sheen.

[What_Exit]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Some? Who says it isn’t, and why are they lying to you?

Are you following me around or something? Do I need to watch out for those flying monkeys?

BTW: My wife does not find it addicting at all.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@What_Exit

Are you following me around or something? Do I need to watch out for those flying monkeys?

BTW: My wife does not find it addicting at all.

It’s not my fault that we have the same tastes. It’s your fault. But I would never send the monkeys after a fan of the perfesser’s.

[schnuckiputzi]

It’s either ‘Eight-Legged Freaks’ or ‘Evolution’ that plays on this idea by having the black guy shriek constantly, “The black guy always dies in these movies!” In the low-budget horror movies my clan watches, it’s usually the bimbo or her male counterpart who goes first. We place bets.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Like many Wikipedia articles, that one includes an intensely stupid Example section.

Not anymore it doesn’t

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Justin_Bailey

Not anymore it doesn’t

It’s so sweet that you think that will last.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

It’s so sweet that you think that will last.

Of course it won’t last, but for now, people won’t see Morgan Freeman as GOD listed as a “magical negro”. I mean Jesus Christ…

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Justin_Bailey

Of course it won’t last, but for now, people won’t see Morgan Freeman as GOD listed as a “magical negro”. I mean Jesus Christ…

You’re more idealistic than I am. The only solution to the inanity that is Wikipedia’s pop-culture entries is a series of grisly and public murders.