Oh, balls. Lucius Fox is an import from the comics, his race is not important to the story at all, and he’s not in any way Wayne’s mentor. He’s his ally, no less than Alfred. The nearest he comes to mentoring is drawing an ethical line in the sand by saying that the Big Brother cell phone technology is immoral and that he’ll quit if Wayne tries to use it twice.
When thinking about race, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself what Spike Lee thinks on this issue. If you find he agrees with you, you may want to rethink your position.
I understood the concept without a diagram. I’m saying I don’t see that as a defined group. I said “specifically black” for a reason: the race is supposed to be an issue in the portrayal. Obi-Wan is white, but his race doesn’t matter to the story and it’s not an element of his character. Or to give a counterexample, Ford Prefect was cast as a black man in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but his race wasn’t an issue there either. Can you give me an example of a character who fits your description?
“Specifically black” doesn’t mean anything to me. As I said in my first reply to the OP, “Most of the time, this character is indeed just a plot forwarding device; the color of their skin matters less than their background or what they know.”
Yes, I understood that. There are black characters who play mentors where race is not an issue. There are also white characters in similar roles. That doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of the character type being discussed.
My position is the majority of the examples fit the description of, “There are black characters who play mentors where race is not an issue,” thereby rejecting the premise altogether.
As I said earlier,
“Despite all the examples given on both sides of the argument, what hasn’t been shown is that there exists a disproportionality…”
Not according to their reasoning. What they are saying is that these people like Obama because they believe he fits into this role - because he is doing things for them.
Disproportionality is not required for the type to exist, though. You’re treating it as if someone claimed that most “magical” mentor roles are filled by black people, and nobody said that was the case. I say that having acknowledged upthread that the responses so far illustrate that stereotype is not as commonplace as people like Lee are saying. I’m not sure they’ve proved it doesn’t exist at all but it’s possible.
I probably botched this. What I am saying is that according to these people, white liberals believe Obama is going to solve all their problems and relieve their racial guilt in the way a Morgan Freeman type character would. They have so much faith in his it’s like they think he’s magic, and they believe he just exists to do things for them. That’s the reasoning behind the joke. Obama is the president but to this line of thinking he’s not any kind of protagonist. Messianic figures do redeem other people but (per Limbaugh et al), Obama’s not going to do that. The liberals just think he can.
I think that’s about as far as I can go in explaining the reasoning behind this joke. If it deserves to be called reasoning or a joke.
I’m calling BS on this entire fucking trope. I’m much more offended by the Magical Cracker trope. Searching for Bobby Fischer, Star Wars, the Home Alone series, etc. All these magic crackers are makin’ me see red.
There is no doubt that characters who fit the type exist. What is in doubt is whether their existence is in any way meaningful in that it says something about movie-makers, and by extention, movie audiences and society as a whole.
The notion would appear to be that, unless there is some sort of obvious disproportion, the existence of such a character type is essentially a meaningless artifact of the observer - that a random casting of actors Black and White would end up with more or less the same number of “magical negros”, simply because there exists, in stories, a certain type of expository/mentorship role to be filled. Those looking for “magical negros” will indeed find them, but may not notice “magical caucasians” also exist in even greater numbers.
A lot of these cites are, indeed, a wiser character who “just happens to be Black.” And the trope itself is suspect for having been coined by Spike Lee. Lee was part of the generation of African Americans who came of age after the Civil Rights movement, with all that you’d expect from having been in that particular position.
IMHO, there is a Black character who functions only as a device to help the white protagonist in ways that, according to people who make buttloads of money writing scripts, only a Black person can.
Supposedly, white people grow up having lived sheltered lives. Insular suburbs, small towns and great apartments in the city are all they know.
Black people, on the other hand, have been forced lived life at ground-level. From childhood on, they’ve had to quickly come to grips with the harshest facts of life, allowing no room for false illusions. So they are put into the story to disabuse the white protagonist.
This is insulting to white people who’ve worked dirty jobs, have known financial and sexual exploitation, been subjected to violence and substance abuse, etc., etc. It’s not just a matter of the script writers’ White Guilt, but rather their Elite Obliviousness, living in a world where the worst thing that can happen to a white person is Ally McBeal’s inability to shake her dream of Prince Charming until her Black roomate explains to her that all men are dogs.
I’m not sure even THAT is a good example. Ally’s roommate (Renee, I think) didn’t come from a working class upbringing any more than Ally did; the bggest difference between them was that Renee was better at hiding her insecurities than Ally (and more likely to express her rage violently), and that when the mammary glands were given out, she got Ally’s helping as well as her own. And no mention was ever made that I recall of Renee’s race; not even when it might most naturally have come up, when Ally was dating the Ed Greene character or Renee was dating Cage.
A lot of these cites are, indeed, a wiser character who “just happens to be Black.” And the trope itself is suspect for having been coined by Spike Lee. Lee was part of the generation of African Americans who came of age after the Civil Rights movement, with all that you’d expect from having been in that particular position.
IMHO, there is a Black character who functions only as a device to help the white protagonist in ways that, according to people who make buttloads of money writing scripts, only a Black person can.
Supposedly, white people grow up having lived sheltered lives. Insular suburbs, small towns and great apartments in the city are all they know.
Black people, on the other hand, have been forced lived life at ground-level. From childhood on, they’ve had to quickly come to grips with the harshest facts of life, allowing no room for false illusions. So they are put into the story to disabuse the white protagonist.
This is insulting to white people who’ve worked dirty jobs, have known financial and sexual exploitation, been subjected to violence and substance abuse, etc., etc. It’s not just a matter of the script writers’ White Guilt, but rather their Elite Obliviousness, living in a world where the worst thing that can happen to a white person is Ally McBeal’s inability to shake her dream of Prince Charming until her Black roomate explains to her that all men are dogs.
Yeah, that I definitely do see. Or they put a black person in the movie to make things real or grounded like in Scream 2 when everyone’s watching the movie and Eric Foreman’s girlfriend is rolling her eyes. (Though I think either she or Eric Foreman gets killed…)
I guess it doesn’t even have to necessarily be a black person. Just someone who’s other, somehow. Like Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid. You know he’s authentic because he’s from this other, more real world. You sort of see the belief that being white/American is artificial and there’s something deep or spiritual or real about being from another culture, whether it’s growing up black in the U.S. or being from another country.
The character in Hand that Rocks the Cradle wasn’t necessarily mystical but it felt like he was also there to prove a point, not to be a character in his own right. When we first see him, he’s wearing a hoodie and kind of skulking around the main characters’ house, menacingly. But it turns out he’s just mentally challenged. The characters do view him with a little bit of mistrust but then in the end when he shows up to save the day, we’re supposed to think, “Look, even though he’s black and retarded, he’s still a good person!” And then pat ourselves on the back for being open minded.
I think the trope itself is a stretch, though I assumed it was a real thing until this thread. I also object to Mr. Miyagi as an example. Oh he fits the trope to a tee, but why is it wrong to have the ancient martial arts master be Asian, exactly? I don’t think it is, which is why I don’t think the Magical Negro phenomenon is much more than people looking for racism for recreational outrage purposes. (Not here on the dope; just in a general sense.)
On another note, why is Black person capitalized but white person is not?
Well, I didn’t necessarily mean that Mr. Miyagi was part of the trope, but that the idea of having this Other come from a different culture and showing Americans how it goes is related. I guess he’s part of the larger tradition of Orientalism. You know, the broken English, talking about vaguely spiritual things (“be the tree” and all that). Basically a caricature of the mystical other from another culture.