March 20, 2007
CAN HE SHOW US THE WAY?
The LA Times ran an interesting Opinion piece yesterday. While I'm generally a fan of Spike Lee's work and find a good deal of validity to the concept, I don't think I was familiar with his theory of the "Magic Negro" stock character in films. In his opinion piece, David Ehrenstein writes that Barack Obama is filling the role of the Magic(al) Negro in the drama that is an election cycle in American poltics:
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia.
He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.
Wikipedia's definition gets more specific:
The magical negro is simply a plot device to help the protagonist get out of trouble, typically through helping the white character recognize his own faults and overcome them.[3] In this way, the magical negro is similar to the Deus ex machina; a simple way for the protagonist to overcome an obstacle almost entirely through outside help. Although he has magical powers, his "magic is ostensibly directed toward helping and enlightening a white male character."[5] It is this feature of the magical negro that is most troubling. Although the character seems to be showing African-Americans 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."
I have to admit that I think Ehrenstein may be onto something here. Even Barack Obama's past lends to his characterization as a Magic Negro. Obama grew up in Hawaii, a place that is viewed as being veritably Edenic and unspoiled by any of the ugly problems that face the rest of the world and the U.S. in particular. One can hear these concerns echoed in regards to questions of Obama's "authenticity" as a black person. His persona seems to have sprung sui generis from an American dream archetype, unsullied by any intimations of America's less racially inclusive past. White Americans can take comfort that at no point is Obama going to assume the role of racial buzzkiller, a la Al Sharpton, by finding out his great-great-great grandfather was a slave owned by Jimmy Carter's great aunt's cousin's next door neighbor in Georgia.
There is only one problem––for Obama––when it comes to playing the role of the Magic Negro, if the stock character is being correctly applied. The same way that the character comes out of nowhere, as Obama has an extremely short history as a national political figure, it's also required that he or she exits stage left in short order, either by dying or, as in the case of Bagger Vance (pictured above), literally disappearing. If the pattern holds true, then Obama will make some significant contribution to redeeming the Democratic Party in the eyes of the public, then will politely fade away at the appropriate time––magnanimous and benificient. I'll presume that that is not the goal Obama and his supporters are hoping to achieve.
Posted by Lexiphane at March 20, 2007 5:52 AM
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