Is the Magical Negro genre heading for a resurgance?

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SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME:

White family in trouble as dad is a hard working city guy with no humanity time for family.
Meets homeless man, teaches him about what life is really about family...
Racist grand parents talking about some slavery hand outs nonsense to ensue and to give it that ohh heritage, that racism is taught not in DNA.
Black guy has issues half way through, probably faces eviction or something like his hut needs to be knocked down by corprate pricks.....
Family back him up/Let him stay at him, that's when the true healing of that family begins
Black guy get's shit together turns out he's some sort of prophet wordsmith, big speech in a church shows whole community.....
everyone claps and white family is now happy, they thank the dude for fixing the family, showing them error of their ways.....
black guy probably dies or moves away onto the next family in need like mary poppins.

3/5 stars. 70% metacritic

THE END

Quote me.

Sounds spot on to me.
 
Mr. Church seemed interesting until you guys posted what happened towards the end and I watched the entire trailer lol
 
Why isn't Djimon Hounsou in better movies? The guy is so badass. I remember David Jaffe wanted him for Kratos in a live action God of War... and now he's a magical homeless negro ffs.
 
There seems to be a lot of white people who think black people get to age 35 and just blink out of existence, like every negative stereotype about black people is aimed at young black people, so when they put an older black person on screen he must be Gandalf the Black, to have cheated death.

This is also why we fear God Emperor Obama

In reality this has more to do with what roles are available for black people once they get older. It's already difficult for black actors to get roles outside of the occasional romantic comedy film with an all black cast or historical slave film, now you're throwing being older than 40 into the mix and the opportunities are no where unless your name has allowed you to "escape" being thought of as just a black actor (Will Smith, Denzel, Samuel L Jackson, etc...). Example, how often is Robert DiNero playing someone's grandfather now? Now think about how often there's a role in films where a black actors can play grandparents/parents with kids over 20+ to black actors. Once these actors are too old for the stereotypical roles of athlete, thug, and rapper, "magic negros" are what's left.
 
Also, why is it that in the movie with Djimon it's clearly the modern day, but in his flashbacks it looks like the fucking 1800s?

I don't know how much was taken from the actual book, but the guy grew up a cotton farming sharecroper family pretty much living in slavery in the mid 1940/50s. So dirt poor. If you've ever actually seen people in abject poverty especially in rural places they look like something out of history.

These were the kind of conditions many black people lived in down south at the time.
 
This.
I actually think the white savior trope is much more offensive than the magical negro, not to say the magical negro trope isn't problematic either.

Much more offensive and problematic. The magical negro trope doesn't necessarily reinforce white supremacy like the white savior one does.
I think It contributes to the problem of certain white people being unable to believe an issue that affects non-whites exists, unless a white person champions it.
 
That same kinda different trailer made me feel all warm and fuzzy to be a benevolent white person...


...is what I would be saying if I wasn't a miserable colored that needs to be saved by them.
 
Much more offensive and problematic. The magical negro trope doesn't necessarily reinforce white supremacy like the white savior one does.
I think It contributes to the problem of certain white people being unable to believe an issue that affects non-whites exists, unless a white person champions it.

Exactly, I just think the magical negro trope is kinda hilarious.
 
The magical negro trope is pretty much the manic pixie girl trope. It's still fucked up because it sorta reinforces that black people aren't individuals with their own stories

I acknowledged it's problematic, but to me it's nowhere near the level of the white savior trope and it's prevalence in Hollywood movies. I hate that trope with a passion.
 
not so much a genre.

more of a trope or cliche, really.

by the way, Slayven, I don't click links with no descriptions, at least put a little text in there.
 
My god this thread:

zoidberg-74.gif
 
Heard a recent podcast withe Eddie Murphy. Dude is extremely positive about everything and basically said he's just cashing checks at this point.

Sucks we probably won't get another classic out of him.

Murphy died when he had kids. Since then, it's just been a slow decay.

Just reminds me how damn depressing Life was watching it.
 
Murphy died when he had kids. Since then, it's just been a slow decay.

Just reminds me how damn depressing Life was watching it.

At least he got to play a great role in Dreamgirls where he was critically acclaimed, won a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Oscar.

I had hopes in his casting as Richard Pryor's father in Pryor's biopic, but it looks like that film is in development hell now.
 
"THIS FEBRUARY"

... for real?
 
I'm just stuck looking at side by side photos of Renee Zellweger now. I can't put my finger on what happened aside from some change to her eyes. Is it possible a cousin murdered her and took her place?
 
At least he got to play a great role in Dreamgirls where he was critically acclaimed, won a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Oscar.

I had hopes in his casting as Richard Pryor's father in Pryor's biopic, but it looks like that film is in development hell now.

He did good in that too, but Life was the last movie of his I felt was truly a film in his style.

Didn't know about the latter, but it sounds interesting.
 
Whatever gets black actors work without resorting to playing a slave role for the umpteenth time guess. That mr church trailer is everything I dislike about trailers rolled into 1, I mean they practically spoiled the whole movie in a trailer.

But Djimoun Hounsou's character is actually playing a modern day ex-cotton picking slave. Illiterate. Prone to wild, animal-like outbursts. Hes essentially King Kong and the White woman tames & civilises him with her soft, gentle touch.
 
If I had the money to fund a movie, I'd pen a script where all the magical negroes turn on their caretakers/people they take care of. All at once, they awaken and start destroying everything around them. I'm talking straight up ki beams and flash stepping while leveling cities in their path after years of being docile. At the end of the movie the magical negroes link together and transport a single magical negro entity across dimensions after destroying nearly every major city. In the epilogue everybody learns that they didn't need the material things in life that the magical negroes destroyed and thank the trans-dimensional magical negro entity for giving them a life lesson. At the beginning of the credit sequence, the phrase "This Too Shall Pass" is shown while some heartwarming top 40 country song is playing.
 
The magical negro trope is pretty much the manic pixie girl trope. It's still fucked up because it sorta reinforces that black people aren't individuals with their own stories

So we've had Will Smith, James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington (Heart Condition with Bob Hoskins) and now Eddie Murphy in the Magic Negro role. I wonder how Samuel L. Jackson escaped this trap?
 
Isn't that exactly what the second trailer is?

Yeah, that's how I felt earlier, until the actual plot synopsis. Even then, depending on how much time is dedicated to her childhood versus her adult life, it might be more of a white savior movie really since Eddie in that film seems like he has an actual life and shit, unlike the usual bum or whatever the magical negro usually is.
 
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