Serious Question

17 Comments

1. 

   boran2 on December 30, 2008 at 2:23 pm

   A Magic Negro is an entirely innocent individual utilized by right-leaning morons in a futile last ditch attempt to rally the base.

2. 

   Alice on December 30, 2008 at 2:39 pm

   I learned it from Spike Lee talking about movies:  “The Green Mile” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance.”   I think it’s a southern thing.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_negro  

3. 

   Brendan Skwire on December 30, 2008 at 2:40 pm

   wikipedia:

   The magical negro (sometimes called the mystical negro or magic negro) is a supporting, often mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble. The word negro, now considered by many as archaic and offensive, is used intentionally to suggest that the archetype is a racist throwback, an update of the “Sambo” and “savage other” stereotypes. Spike Lee popularized the term, deriding the archetype of the “super-duper magical negro” in 2001 while discussing films with students at Washington State University and at Yale University.

   The magical negro is typically but not always “in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint,” often a janitor or prisoner. He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist. He sometimes fits the black stereotype, “prone to criminality and laziness.” To counterbalance this, he has some sort of magical power, “rather vaguely defined but not the sort of thing one typically encounters.” He is patient and wise, often dispensing various words of wisdom, and is “closer to the earth.”

   The magical negro serves as a plot device to help the protagonist get out of trouble, typically through helping the white character recognize his own faults and overcome them. Although he has magical powers, his “magic is ostensibly directed toward helping and enlightening a white male character.” It is this feature of the magical negro that some people find most troubling. Although from a certain perspective the character may seem to be showing blacks in a positive light, he is still ultimately subordinate to whites. He is also regarded as an exception, allowing white America to “like individual black people but not black culture.”

   To save the white protagonist, however, he would do anything, including sacrificing himself, as Sidney Poitier portrays in The Defiant Ones, the prototypical magical Negro movie. Note that Poitier’s character is also saved by the white protagonist, as the two help each other throughout the film.

   Poor chip saltsman, SOOOOOO misunderstood. Why, he’s not a racist at all, and anyone who says otherwise is probably black. Or jewish, they’re always starting trouble those big-noses.

   • 

     Errol on December 30, 2008 at 2:52 pm

     it´s a coincidence that the term Spike Lee invented for African American movie characters that function to save white protagonists (and there are some pretty outrageous examples – Malibu´s most wanted, for example which enlists an entire culture to make the white politician a better father) is the same as the name of the so-called song. on the other hand, what spike lee observed about movie characters may well have helped barack win the election via an expectation among white audiences that the african american lead can save the country. now there´s a coincidence of history that may have worked in our favor.

4. 

   idredit on December 30, 2008 at 2:40 pm

   irrespective of skintone perhaps:

   one who, without name recognition, has the ability– starting from zero, to build a movement of two million; raise one billion dollars in less than two years and while promising the status quo disguised as “change” comes from behind to win the POTUS, leaving ALL opponents with their political machines in a flux.

   Now that’s Magic especially if you’re bi-racial from Chicago.

5. 

   dada on December 30, 2008 at 2:49 pm

   l would say it’s the latest [politicized] incarnation of the dramatic/plot resolution ploy known as deus ex machina…aka, pulling it out of your ass.

   n.

   1. In Greek and Roman drama, a god lowered by stage machinery to resolve a plot or extricate the protagonist from a difficult situation.
   2. An unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot.
   3. A person or event that provides a sudden and unexpected solution to a difficulty.

   take your pick.

6. 

   MikeInOhio on December 30, 2008 at 2:54 pm

   Magic Negro is an etymological straw man constructed by people of predominantly male Caucasian descent, and who appear to be in a constant state of need to deride, disparage, belittle and otherwise verbally lynch anything non-white which might have the audacity to breathe their precious white air.

   I believe, too, that it has been scientifically and statistically proven that there is also a direct correlation between those who use this phrase on a regular basis and persons having a significant deficiency in self esteem, not to mention microscopically sized testicles.

   In other words, they are chickenshits who wouldn’t have the guts to say something like this to the face of ohhhh….. you know…. a “Real Live Black Man”.

   • 

     anna in philly on December 30, 2008 at 4:40 pm

     shouldnt that be barack the magic high yella

7. 

   Zandar1 on December 30, 2008 at 3:11 pm

   I have magical powers?

   Holy shit.

8. 

   Real History Lisa on December 30, 2008 at 3:15 pm

   The only reason they used “magic” was because it was in the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon” and they were only trying to change as little as they had to.

   • 

     BooMan on December 30, 2008 at 3:20 pm

     I think you have that backwards.  

9. 

   americanforliberty on December 30, 2008 at 3:53 pm

   I thought that Magic Negro was Colin Powell or maybe JC Watts. I can’t believe in 2008 we have the Republican party reverting to its old racist ways.

10. 

    Andrew Longman on December 30, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    The term, as applied to Obama, first turned up in a March 2007 LA Times OpEd piece. Rush picked it up then and made the satire.
    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story

11. 

    Arthur Gilroy on December 30, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    Three of ’em.

    

    Charlie Parker Jr. (aka Bird, Yardbird etc.), John Birks Gillespie (aka Dizzy”or jes’ plain Diz) and a very young John Coltrane. Plus a fine bass player, Tommy Potter.

    Magic?

    Bet on it, if you have the ears and soul to hear it.

    Three true, world-class musical geniuses. Thee world-class musical geniuses who openly and successfully defied a culture that tried to diminish their capabilities and in the process produced music that will live as long as there are ears and souls to hear it. The baraka on that bandstand must have been thunderous!!!

    That other “Magic Negro”  shit?

    Fuggedaboudit!!!

    Weak.

    Fuggedaboudit.

    AG

12. 

    Oscar In Dallas on December 30, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    If Halle Berry ever calls me then it would be me!

13. 

    Oui on December 30, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    .

    Movies’ ‘Magic Negro’ saves the day but at the cost his soul.

    ” [Filmmakers] give the black character special powers and underlying mysticism,” says Todd Boyd, author of “Am I Black Enough for You?” and co-writer of the 1999 film “The Wood.”  

    "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

14. 

    MNPundit on December 30, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    I write fiction, and being non-white (though culturally I am lilly white) am a bit more aware of these things. I agonize over race constantly, how many character should be not-white, am I just throwing them in for more “color” or are they characters that are 3D? Do they have to be culturally their “race” in the story or not? What does that last even mean? I get tied in fucking knots over it.

    In the end, as long as the characters are real enough on their own, I think it doesn’t matter the color.