Dude, that’s too many questions. If you mean for them to be rhetorical, it would be helpful for you to provide an explanation of just what you mean by them.
Right, the damsel in distress trope can indeed do that.
I don’t think it’s so difficult to figure out how the Magical Negro/Black Friend trope can be harmful as well. Like other stereotypical tropes, they perpetuate and foster you know, stereotypes. They also portray Black people in limited, dehumanizing ways. They limit the humanity of that character, depriving them of the more full-fledged, individualized and realistic humanity typically portrayed in the accompanying white characters.
If you need explanation of the pernicious real-world effects of such limited characterization, well, there’s a lot of analysis out there that explains that. Google Duck Duck Go is your friend.
I enjoy this take. The Magical Negro is frequently so out right ridiculous, and just bald in its tokenism that it’s almost parody a lot of the time.
It makes it a ton of fun to goof on, and generally less heart breaking to unpack. It’s oblivious, sorta “best intentions” nature makes it great example for unconscious bias.
There’s incredibly similar, but more reliably capital M Magic, tropes around Native Americans. The show Reservation Dogs does a great send up of the concept. There’s a character called the William Knifeman The Unknown Warrior. He’s a spirit guide for the protagonist. The ghost of a long dead Indian warrior. And he’s just a god damn idiot, fully aware that he is the trope and not particularly into it.
Not every “magical negro” in media is literally magic. The core thing is a side character that offers sage advice or guidance to a white character. The advice may be spiritual or mystic in nature. Or may simply be ethical/philosophical. The character operates mainly as plot device. In support of, and promoting actions by, white protagonist(s).
Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox from the Nolan Batmen is often used as a more mundane example. The film Hitch too, which is weirdly sorta a film centered on a mundane Magical Negro type as he goes about his multiple fixing white people jobs and stumbles into his own plot. Driving Miss Daisy is often used as kind of ur-example.
A lot of the concept is rooted in Magical Realism, where Film in particular tends to use Black people as a prop to boot strap in the magic part. With quite a lot of that “is it magic? or is he just wise?!” going on.
There’s a hell of a lot of fetishism in the Asian Mysticism and Native American iterations. But it’s hard to detect much in the Magical Negro. Part and parcel of the trope is the character in question being sort of divorced from broader Black culture. A big reason why this so often progresses to literal magic powers is it doesn’t function on a basis of the character bettering a white protagonist by introducing them to Blackness or even stereotyped elements of Black Culture.
To go back to the OP, Stephen King can take the criticism and has shown an aptitude for adjusting his biases over time. Your hand-wringing over “how” is immaterial to a conversation that’s already taken place (like, thirty years ago) and delved into far more nuance and, um “wisdom” than your responses. Criticize people and reduce them to being “angry on the internet” all you want, but you’re missing the greater conversation entirely.
You know what strikes me about this conversation… that for years, King fans were upset that his work was not taken seriously as literature… and once that happened, all of a sudden, some of those same fans are upset because his work is being taken seriously as literature…
This is what you get when people take literature (or any kind of culture) seriously - people discuss it, pick it apart, see where it falls down, where it holds up, where it reinforces and where it challenges… You don’t get to have it both ways, that is exists as a pure, unchallenged bit of joy or it gets understood in a deeper way that actual generally enhances the work (I’ve found at least).
I think one thing they have in common is that the white authors and their mostly-white audiences have big gaps in their firsthand knowledge of certain people, so it becomes tempting to fill in the blanks with some kind of magic and mystery.
The less someone knows about Asia the easier it is to imagine a villain like Dr. Fu-Manchu or a mystical martial arts society hidden in the mountains of Shangri-La. The less someone knows about the realities of life as a contemporary Indigenous American the easier it is to imagine them spending their time communing in harmonious bliss with the natural world. The less someone knows about the inner lives of Black people the easier it is to use them as a one-dimensional character who exists to further the journey of the white protagonist.
Absolutely. The same exact trope and usage exists with regards to each. But it’s in the execution.
The Asian Mystic offers martial arts platitudes, or vaguely Buddhist mysticism and dragons.
The Native Mystic is one with nature, and sends you on a vision quest.
The particular expression of magical bullshit is drawn and appropriated at least a bit from the root culture. Or at least “positive” stereotypes of the same, rooted in other aspects of fetishism for these cultures.
You don’t see much of that in the typical Magical Negro. Bagger Vance doesn’t bring Matt Damon to the Barbershop. The white protagonists problems aren’t solved by being invited to the cookout. The literal magic that appears isn’t Voodoo, or genericized African spiritualism. It’s a vague, genre bound sort. Psychic powers, ghosts, animated birds etc.
ETA: The Magical Negro is also far more often directly servile. Very frequently an actual servant.
Well that’s just it; for generations, one of the most common ways white people would encounter a Black person was when the Black person was performing some kind of service for the white person. So the “magical negro” trope is largely an outgrowth of that part of American culture.
That is true, but what does that mean? It’s a problem with all of us and is not going to be solved by demonizing a single person that happens to express it.
To be clear, at least in this topic people aren’t demonizing Stephen King. I was responding to someone who said something like “it’s racism. Period” which in mind is an attitude that is conflating the racism of the KKK with the racism of everyone.
I’m not trying to downplay the problem of innate racism. I’m saying it’s a different problem that need to be addressed differently.
I don’t think I’m all that comfortable with “being a servant” as Black Culture to be appropriated.
Which is probably not what you’re getting at. But the conflation there is not doing any favors.
The subservient Black thing is definitely wrapped up in aspects of fetishization by whites. But what I’m angling at is there’s a difference between that fetishization and what it’s drawn from. And what’s going on with Noble Savages and Asian Mysticism.
Questions weren’t rhetorical. I never thought of the trope as dehumanizing just lazy. I mean if you looked at something like the Wiz, it’s silly to refer to anyone being a “magical negro” when the whole cast is African American even if the good witch fills that same role. None of my questions were rhetorical they’re things I am pondering maybe I have a half baked answer but if someone else has an easy answer I’m willing to listen.
I’m sorry, but is there something inadequate with @milliefink’s? Seems like she’s given some pretty clear answers to your questions… Is there a reason that’s not enough for you?
As was explained in the video, the trope also includes characters who are excessively kind, patient, wise, and self-sacrificing in support of a white lead character. Like the maid portrayed by Viola Davis in The Help.
Too many folks get hung up on the “magical” part of the description, and overlook all the rest.
I was referring specifically to my questions that were then being questioned if they were rhetorical/earnest. I mean I find more value in getting answers from discussion than just googling something. If someone doesn’t feel the need to answer them, that’s fine that’s their prerogative. I was asked if they were rhetorical, I responded.
There are a lot of white characters with magical powers in King’s books, too. I wonder how the ratio of white to black magical characters compares to the ratio of white to black individuals in society. Perhaps (I don’t know this, just curious) we see the black magical characters more because we aren’t used to it and tend to not even notice how many white magical characters there are in King’s books.
The point, which you seem to be intentionally missing, is that the version of Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz isn’t a paper-thin character whose entire raison d’être is to provide a much more fully realized white protagonist help and guidance on their journey. So not an example of the trope being discussed.
Read @PsiPhiGrrrl 's comment above. The issue isn’t “Stephen King wrote some black characters who have magical powers.”
