Somehow over the weekend, I ended up in a Manhattan theater surrounded by bunch of chicks in prom dresses taking in the Sex and The City flick. In between taking shots of Patron every time Samantha said “fabulous,” or Miranda snarked something sarcastically, I noticed something strange on the screen about half way through. Jennifer Hudson has magical powers, she’s morphed into Weezy, the Magical Fashionista Negro.
What is the Magic Negro? It’s a character that every major (crossover) African American film star has succumbed to (except for possibly Denzel Washington). Think Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance, Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost or Micheal Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. It’s almost like a rite of passage for black actor’s getting into the movie club.
The magical negro (sometimes called the mystical negro, magic negro, or our Magical African-American Friend) a term generally used to describe a supporting, often mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble. The word negro, now considered by many as archaic and offensive, is used intentionally to suggest that the archetype is a racist throwback, an update of the “Sambo” and “savage other” stereotypes. Spike Lee popularized the term, deriding the archetype of the “super-duper magical negro” in 2001 while discussing films with students at Washington State University and at Yale University.
- Wiki
While Jennifer Hudsons’ character doesn’t provide the outright coonery as some as the others listed, it does make a bold statement on the roles available for African American women - this woman won an Oscar for her last part. Poor Jen, at least her character wasn’t the one who took a shoodobi in her pants.
WHAT NOW?