In Hughey's study about "Magical Negro" films, he posits that themes of racism in cinema affect our understanding of racial representations in the media today as well as how this environment creates magical black characters that are seem both positive and negative.
He describes a prevalent character in cinema called the "magical negro" as
a stock character that often appears as a lower class, uneducated black person who possess supernatural or magical powers. These powers are used to save and transform disheveled, uncultured, lost, or broken whites into competent, successful, and content people within the context of the American myth of redemption and salvation (p. 545). This character is usually humble, and almost saintly in a way. The character does not necessarily have magical or mythical powers but does present wisdom and a deeper understanding of life or the situation.
These characters exist to support the Caucasian character. On the converse side, Hughey also talks about how in cinema there has been a "utopian reversal". He explains that cinema shifted in the 1980s and
Black characters gained modes of representation on par with, or in command of, whites, Race was far from being ignored, but was instead specifically addressed. Instead of anti-black stereotypes being perpetuated, cinema placed black characters in powerful, educated, and successful positions. I feel as if they were trying to over compensate for the past anti-black stereotypes. Or, potentially film makers were trying to avoid criticism and scrutiny over obvious anti-black stereotyping.
Hi Emily,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your closing statement, you wrote: " I feel as if they were trying to over compensate for the past anti-black stereotypes. Or, potentially film makers were trying to avoid criticism and scrutiny over obvious anti-black stereotyping." I believe this has to be the driving force behind the Utopian reversal.
However, from a business and profit standpoint, this is the best compromise (for the lack of a better word) that filmmakers could make being they want to sell the tickets. Like the example I brought up in class with "Hunger Games". Undoubtedly this movie was a huge box office success. The character of Rue was casted to a talented young lady that has African- American features (she is of mixed ethnicity, yet for the context of this conversation I will refer to her as black). There was a huge backlash against Rue's character being played by a black person.
This made me think, what if Katniss was played by an African American woman? I truly believe the success of the movie would have decreased significantly. Or maybe even flopped. I am not saying this to excuse or erase the fact that magical negro or minority roles in film are often problematic, yet I just offer another perspective as to why this is being done.
Also, there needs to be some kind of collaboration in a sense to fix these minority films representations with the filmmakers and society. It is not an easy solution and exactly where do we start? This is something I question myself often in this class.