The "Magical Negro" Genre of Contemporary Cinema

In this old post about stuff I hate, I noted my disgust at the "Magical Retard" and "Magical Negro" movies:

I can also do without this film genre, a smaller one to be sure, but almost as fucking annoying as the last [the "Magical Retard" genre].

Who was it that first fucking thought this up? Who conceived the genre of "Magical Negroes Stepping Out of the Darkness To Help Troubled White Boys Understand and Conquer Their Own Fears and Flaws"?

For a progressive and liberal industry like Hollywood, this is a condescending kind of movie, isn't it? Do black folks really sit around dreaming of helping rich and handsome Matt Damon succeed in life? For God's sake, I can't even get an extra biscuit at KFC.

When Will Smith rings my door-buzzer to explain to me how I can finally make some crazy blog-money, I'll believe the conceit of this genre. Until then, fuck these stupid-ass movies too.

Radio, from two years back, was both a Magical Retard and a Magical Negro movie. Cuba Gooding Junior played a Magical Negro Retard who helped Ed Harris regain his love of life and of football... or something. I don't know. I didn't fucking see the stupid shit.

And neither did you. Kudos to you for that.

The Onion's AV Club finally catches up with my genius to list the Top Thirteen Magical Negro Movies of All Time.

They missed a few. Most glaringly, they missed the Magical Retard/Magical Negro cross-over film Radio, but then, so did everyone else.

They also missed the Nicholas Cage disaster Family Man which featured that guy from the Spike Lee commercials as a quite-literally magical Negro, an angel in fact, who appears first as a homeless hustler-turned-crazed-gunman, but, after Nicholas Cage shows him kindness (and who wouldn't show kindness towards someone waving a gat in your face?), gives Cage the gift of Magical Negro Wisdom by showing him an alternate life in which he gets to tap Tea Leoni's ass every day.

Cage learns many lessons, including the lesson that Tea Leoni's knockers look damn good even through pebbled shower-door glass, but also more important lessons, like that it's really, really fun to have sex with Tea Leoni.

Now that, truly, is one Magical Negro.

I await their article on the Magical Retard genre.

Slublog again.

The Sarah Silverman Show, which is really pretty damn funny (kept meaning to say so, now there's just one episode left) parodied the Magical Negro conceit in the first aired episode, and the last one will also feature a Magical Negro -- God, as it turns out, who is of course black.

Determined to offend pretty much everyone, the episode will feature her hooking up with God.

He takes notice of her after she offers this beautiful prayer in the form of a song ("And I wish the retarded were... re-smarted...") and offers to grant her any of the wishes she's named -- world peace, freedom from disease, transcendant love, etc.

She chooses to go back to an embarrassing moment and avoid pooping her pants.

Steven King: Repeat Magical Negro Offender: As Jack Straw says, however, you have to keep in mind there are only about six negroes in Maine. So pretty much every time he meets one it's a nearly magical experience.

Thanks to Slublog for that.

Slublog also notes that King is a repeat offender on the Magical Retard front as well. Like Dudditz, from that movie where aliens crawl up your ass and make you fart violently. Thirty minutes of foreshadowing, not the kind where you see shadows moving in the darkness, but where you see dudes crapping their guts out in a poorly-ventilated shack.

He pretty much ran out of legitimate horror concepts right after (or right before, if you ask me) It, didn't he?

posted by Ace at 01:20 PM

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