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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Jana Nováková The Magic Negro in Recent American Film Bachelor‘s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. 2009 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Jana Nováková Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for his valuable advice and comments. I would also like to thank my friends Barbora and Naděžda for keeping me sane while writing this thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Film as a Reflection of Race Relations ....................................................... 2 2. Who Is the Magic Negro? .................................................................................... 8 2.1. Synopses .................................................................................................... 8 2.2. Characteristic Traits .................................................................................. 11 2.2.1. Primary Objective: Salvation of the White Character ..................... 14 2.2.2. Getting in Touch with Oneself ......................................................... 17 2.2.3. Family .............................................................................................. 19 2.2.4. Sexual Magic ................................................................................... 21 2.2.5. Invoking the Ghost of Uncle Tom ................................................... 22 2.2.6. For Mere Five Dollars, Guaranteed ................................................. 25 2.2.7. What about the Brothers? ................................................................ 28 2.2.8. The Importance of Being Magical ................................................... 29 2.2.9. Washing Hands ................................................................................ 31 3. Current State of Race Relations ......................................................................... 36 3.1. Amalgam of Influences ............................................................................. 36 3.2. Wanting to be Forgiven ............................................................................ 39 3.3. Shift in Time ............................................................................................. 42 3.4. Stereotypes and the Audience .................................................................. 45 4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 47 5. Works Used and Cited ....................................................................................... 49 1. INTRODUCTION The focus of this thesis is a phenomenon referred to as the Magic Negro—a type of character appearing in a number of recent1 American films. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate by means of an analysis of a number of selected films what this cinematic concept embodies as well as to explain the significance of the character‘s emergence at the end of the 20th century. Even though there have been some occurrences of unearthly African American characters throughout the history of American films,2 the sudden abundance of films featuring African American characters possessing different kinds of supernatural powers at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the new millennium is striking. These characters ―generally focus their abilities toward assisting their [w]hite lead counterparts‖ (Glenn and Cunningham 1) whose ―problems are the centerpiece[s] of the film[s]‖ (Entman and Rojecki xvii). Their assistance lies in making use of their supernatural powers as well as spreading valuable pieces of advice based on folk wisdom (Entman and Rojecki xvii). By means of these, they make the characters realize and appreciate things that really matter in life. Even though such depiction of African Americans might seem contributing to improvement in black/white race relations in contemporary United States (Entman and Rojecki xvii), this thesis will attempt to demonstrate that such notion is largely illusory. The films the thesis will initially focus on are The Green Mile (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and The Family Man (2000). However, the number of 1 Even though some instances of movies featuring characters with similar kinds of abilities appeared in films earlier in the 20th century, the concept of the Magic Negro as understood by today‘s society appeared in movies in the late 1990s and at the beginning of the new millennium (Gabbard 154). 2 Probably the very first Magic Negro, as Gabbard notes, appeared in the 1943 film Cabin in the Sky (151). However, here the character was assisting a black person (Gabbard 151). One of the first Magic Negroes that came to assist a white male was the title character (Harry Belafonte) in The Angel Levine (1970). This movie was followed, for example, by John Sayles‘ The Brother from Another Planet (1984) which featured a black alien who happened to land in Harlem (Gabbard 153). 1 films depicting Magic Negroes (or characters with very similar traits) is lot higher. Given the limited space of the thesis, the choice was made to focus on films that are considered essential to the concept, i.e. they best embody the Magic Negro characteristics as established by the authors whose works this thesis uses as secondary materials. Since the three aforementioned films have already been analyzed by some of these authors—most notably by Krin Gabbard in his book called Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture, and Cerise Glenn and Landra Cunningham in their essay ―The Power of Black Magic: The Magical Negro and White Salvation in Film‖—they will serve mainly as a basis for a demonstration of what the concept of the Magic Negro embodies. The thesis, as indicated earlier, will rather focus on what conclusions about the state of race relations in today‘s United States can be drawn from the emergence of the concept. Simultaneously, the characteristic traits of the concept will be compared with two other films—Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and Bruce Almighty3 (2003)—in order to demonstrate the ways the depiction of the Magic Negro has changed within a short period of time. However, before attempting to analyze the concept of the Magic Negro itself, it is necessary to explain why this (seemingly) mere cinematic device is important to address in the first place. 1.1. Film as a Reflection of Race Relations The reason why it is so important to study films involving black/white interaction is that according to Entman and Rojecki, authors of The Black Image in the White Mind, beyond reflecting the state of race relations in current society, they ―also act as a casual agent: they help to shape and reshape the culture‖ (3). However, it is not just the case of 3 Bruce Almighty is also included in Gabbard‘s as well as Glenn and Cunningham‘s works; however, neither of these works discusses it in much detail. 2 contemporary society; race relations in the United States have always been ―intimately bound to the process of representations within and through the mass media‖ (qtd. in Glenn and Cunningham 2). Regarding blacks inferior due to their physiological distinctness and, at the same time, lacking knowledge of their culture and abilities that would prove the former notion wrong, white Americans had long ago succumbed to stereotypical believes of them. These believes, for instance, perceive African Americans as violent, lazy, highly sexual, having inferior intelligence etc. (Sigelman and Tuch 94). As author bell hooks argues, whites had long ago realized (2) what crucial role such images can play ―in defining and controlling the political and social power‖ (5). In order to maintain a ―system of racial domination‖ (hooks 2) in American society, it was essential for whites to hold united views. When lacking a contact with members of other ethnic groups (Aronson 496), ―it is from the stereotype that we get our ideas about [them]‖ (qtd. in Grant 5). Thus, in order to persuade other whites to hold the same ideas, it is essential that they be exposed to such stereotypes. Therefore, ever since the era of slavery, stereotypical characters representing African Americans had existed; these had appeared both in literature and minstrel shows.4 However, with the emergence of the film industry, realizing the new media‘s potency to address even wider audiences (Colombe 3), white supremacists transformed the ―preexisting stereotypes […] from antecedent media to film‖ (Shohat and Stam 195). Since whites, due to their majority status as well as economic superiority, have had for a long time an exclusive control over the images projected in films (Grant 5), the way other ethnic groups were to be depicted was based solely on whites‘ discretion. Thus ―the history of [b]lack performance [has become] one 4 The minstrel show was a type of American entertainment performed both by actual blacks as well as blackfaced whites (Strausbaugh 101) in outlandish costumes and various disguises (67). It involved dancing, singing as well as comic cross-dressing (Strausbaugh 104). It was popular mainly after the 1850s (Strausbaugh 104). 3 of battling against confining types and categories, a battle homologous to the quotidian struggle of three-dimensional Blacks against
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