I ain’t even mad
I think we’re getting too tetchy, white people. It’s a comedy. I doubt I’m the intended audience, so I doubt the jokes would land for me, but I can stand having the piss taken.
The director’s whole reason for making the film hinges on his definition of ‘magical negro’
I think of the Magical Negro as a kind of stock Black character; a Black best friend character who is only focused on helping the white hero. They don’t really have an inner life, and they don’t have their own things going on. They’re just relentlessly focused on helping this white character grow in most cases, and I always thought that was so funny.
So he made this movie because “the idea that there’s a white writer who pictures the thing we do in the morning is getting up and trying to help them.”
But that’s not my definition at all. To me, a magical negro is a movie character who pops up at a critical moment and can magically do absolutely anything. He’s usually something humble like the janitor, but turns out he can hack computers or complete fantastically complicated equations or do a field appendectomy – whatever the plot requires. And he does it while dispensing folksy, homespun wisdom. Or ghetto smarts.
And now that I squint and look at it, both definitions do describe the same character. He fixated on the idea that the black guy’s only purpose in the film is to help the white guy, I focused on the idea that to do it, the black guy is given fantastically improbable powers. And the movie makes fun of both.
I guess people are feeling rubbed raw at the moment, but I can stand it. I won’t go see it, but I can stand it. Feel the outrage here (and you can also watch the trailer at the link).
December 18, 2023 — 7:20 pm
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