Magical Negros…

Updated on March 8, 2007 By Ken Begg 10 Comments

I found this article interesting, about the Magical Negro (it’s OK, Spike Lee has used the phrase), the all-wise black person who shows up to save some floundering, clueless white guy in various movies and books. 

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20041025/kinga.shtml

The issue is briefly also raised here, along with the equally irksome Magical Retard.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/077339.php

The Onion A/V Club also kicks in:

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/59258

Magical Chicks also occasionally fill this void, as in the Keanu Reeves howler Sweet November.  From the first article I linked to:

“Here are what I call the Five Points of the Magical Negro; the five most common attributes:

 

  1. He or she is a person of color, typically black, often Native American, in a story about predominantly white characters.
  2. He or she seems to have nothing better to do than help the white protagonist, who is often a stranger to the Magical Negro at first.
  3. He or she disappears, dies, or sacrifices something of great value after or while helping the white protagonist.
  4. He or she is uneducated, mentally handicapped, at a low position in life, or all of the above.
  5. He or she is wise, patient, and spiritually in touch. Closer to the earth, one might say. He or she often literally has magical powers.”

Note that except for the first one, the rest fit Charlize Theron’s character in that movie to a T.

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  • Ericb

    Don’t forget the Wise Old Indian (is there any other kind?).

  • Ericb

    It’s also interesting to consider Seagal and Laughlin in this context. Their identification with and ultimate absorption of their respective Magical Negroes and their desire to kiss ass on the M N’s behalf is kinda like having their cake and eating it too. The Magical Negros dies so the hero can become a Magical Negro that doesn’t.

  • Ericb

    Umm, that should read KICK ass not kiss ass.

  • I always hated the movies with the guy seeing a therapist, and it turned out that the the troubled / crazy guy helped the therapist more than the other way round.

    Eg. Good Will Hunting
    Don Juan De Marco
    etc.

  • ace

    As Charlize Theron was born in South Africa, she is an African-American.

  • Patrick Coyle

    I’ve always been bothered by the sort of vaguely circular logic used in that first article. The argument only comes to a clear conclusion if you already accept it, and if you ignore any premises to the contrary.

    For example, the sagely mentor character shows up in a hell of a lot more incarnations than the Magical Negro. Merlin, Gandalf, and Obi-Wan Kenobi are a few that spring to mind right away who fit much of the Magical Negro, which is basically a black, common-sense (as opposed to formally educated) version on the theme. They’re all do-gooders who aren’t in it for themselves, and make great sacrifices to help out the hero, happen to have mystical powers, and are clear plot devices to guide the protagonist. However, that last point has nothing to do with being subservient, but everything to do with being *characters in a story*. What’s wrong with having characters to help or hinder the protagonish? And why can’t they be black sometimes?

    On the other hand, that article’s argument is probably sound, if only because any competent writer will have a reason for assigning details like race to their characters. So the Magical Negro stereotype might be exactly what writers have in mind when they wrote it, instead of just taking the mentor and making him/her black just because.

    Anyway, I’m not sure what the heck my point was. Um, if anybody else can find one in there, I’d much appreciate it. :)

  • colagirl

    Wrt the first article’s discussion of Stephen King’s use of the character, I think the author is wrong to assign Mother Abagail to that stereotype. Mother Abagail is a completely different type of character IMHO–she’s essentially Moses, and the reason she dies early isn’t because she’s a Magical Black Woman but to parallel the death of Moses, who was prevented from entering Canaan because of his sin of pride (in her case, pride prevented her from recognizing Nadine as an agent of Flagg). Her struggles with her destiny and with leading the Free Zoners is its own compelling story–she has an existence that is separate from and different than the whites and that is critical to the plot in many ways. (She is not the only character who was heavily drawn from another source, by the way–look closely at the Trashcan Man sometime. He’s basically Gollum.)

    Dick Hallorann from the Shining, OTOH, completely fits the stereotype with his sacrificies for Danny. Of course it could be argued that he is willing to go to all that trouble because Danny is one of the few others he’s met who shares his gift of “the Shining.”

  • Patrick Coyle

    Something else came to mind just now… what makes the phenomenon of the Magical Negro so unusual? When somebody writes a story and deliberately makes an “ethnic” character (who deliberately stands out from the rest of the cast), isn’t it usually attached to a stereotype? Religious Irishmen, whiny Frenchmen, or technophile Japanese, perhaps? And it works both ways: I’ve seen more than one foreign film that rendered Americans as cocky and reactionary, and black-centered movies with the one white guy being either a social elitist, an ignorant hick, or a poser wannabe sidekick.

    It’s what people do in all directions – when they write characters who aren’t like themselves, they fall back on the stereotype in order to make the characters distinct.

    And if they don’t, they can get accused of a whole different political incorrectness. For example, writing generic white males and dressing them up as women or minorities, thereby doing them another form of injustice.

  • Dude, I did a whole thread on this stuff, including a discussion of the Magical Negro, six months ago i nthe forums. Right here: http://jabootu.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2964 .

    As I said then, the crucial thing about this, even putting the racism aside, is that it’s BAD WRITING. A lot of people seem to have the knee-jerk reaction that “Oh, it’s just those oversensitive PC types making a fuss again,” but this is a problem that could be easily avoided if filmmakers were willing to do their job and write well-rounded, interesting characters. Stock types are bad in general; when you start applying them to races you get into very dodgy territory. In fact, this whole idea illustrates the link between storytelling and political and social issues pretty effectively. Good writing can be a moral issue even if its not trying to be.

  • Greenhornet

    And the “magic bum” from “Down And Out In Beverly Hills”.