Talk:Magical Negro/Archive 6

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Numinous negro?

No one, outside of very small circles, has heard of that term. Feels piggybacked to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.77.116.105 (talk) 05:17, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


  • Response to above comment, and serial deletion of link/mention to term "numinous Negro"

Piggybacked? OR? Please, if you would just read the linked article about "numinous Negro" you would plainly see that it clearly is the same idea simply expressed using a different term - and therefore deserves to be included in the content of this article. Here's a pertinent bit of the article in question


taken from http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220766/numinous-negro/flashback

"The dictionary defines “numinous” as “of or pertaining to a numen,” which was a Roman term for “the presiding divinity . . . of a place.” “Numinous” also means “spiritually elevated.” Jungians and literary critics love the word, but normal theologians use it too. The Numinous Negro is a presiding divinity. The place he presides over is America, and contact with him elevates us spiritually.

You see him in the gooey prose of white liberals whenever a Negro appears (“Negro” was the accepted word when blacks first became Numinous). Dozens of examples could be culled from the work of the late Murray Kempton, though his humor operated as a brake on his piety. The work of Garry Wills, who has no humor at all, would yield thousands of examples. The Numinous Negro need not be a man. Toni Morrison and Oprah are Numinous Negroes (Ms. Morrison is a seer; Oprah is a sage). Marian Anderson was also Numinous.

Art and entertainment, always eager for shortcuts to characterization, make frequent use of the Numinous Negro. When we see a Negro in movies or television, we not only know he is Numinous (unless he is Thuggish- see below), we can judge the other (white) characters by how they treat him. The saintly Death Row hero of The Green Mile was so Numinous that even movie reviewers noticed the technique. Morgan Freeman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption was more complex, though it had elements of numinosity. Some years ago, Freeman played Petruchio in a Central Park production of The Taming of the Shrew. There he was not Numinous at all, simply a figure of farce (and an excellent one). But so ingrained are our expectations that it took this spectator a moment to adjust."


So there you have it, okay? "References to literature and film" - just like in the Wikipedia article! - and "references to supernaturality" - i.e., "magical". Do you need it spelled out any further? This is not "WP:OR" or "piggybacked" or "off-topic" - it is relevant and pertinent. Claiming it is "a term no one outside of specific circles has heard of" as justification for deletion is an utterly meaningless argument! Is that why we read Wikipedia articles? To see things that we are already familiar with?

I will not engage in an edit war here - I am going to allow your own sensibility of what is clearly acceptable, to either guide you or punish you, and I will let you make the change yourself. Too bad if you are so misguided that you are incapable of seeing past your own failure of perception. "Piggybacked" "OR", indeed! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.70.70.249 (talk) 02:22, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The term, "Magic Negro", was used by Paul Shanklin in a Rush Limbaugh (radio) Show parody, after a Los Angeles Times writer used the term for Barack Obama during the primaries of 2008. Today Rush Limbaugh reviews the term history and says, "So Wikipedia gets it right." Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 17:01, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

New source?

An article from Time I don't have time to get to right now: [1]

If anyone wants to, have at it. Otherwise, I'll get to it when I get to it. - SummerPhD (talk) 05:12, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I added a sentence from it - which was good, because we really didn't have anything explaining why the phrase is objectionable. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:09, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

But isn't Toure, and anyone else who considers the term objectionable, missing the point? The term "Magical Negro" is intentionally satirical because it names the trope for the purpose of critiquing it, analogous to the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl." No one has ever used "Magical Negro" or "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" to endorse the trope, so both were deliberately given names that call attention to their lack of realism. This article correctly notes that "Negro" (like "Dream Girl") was chosen to reflect that this trope suggests an outdated throwback, and "Magical" (like "Pixie") was likewise chosen to reflect that it's fantastical. That's why, although the concept may be objectionable, the term itself is not. Including Toure's comment in this article risks misleading others into misunderstanding the purpose and standard usage of the term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.31.112.21 (talk) 13:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Off topic chat

chat

Other factors? I 100% agree that the stereotype exists. However maybe part of it is the desire to include more African American actors in movies. Since in most American movies the main 2 or 3 characters (protagonist and love interest and antagonist) are white, that leaves the less important parts (including helpers, advisors, etc.) open to black actors. Borock (talk) 14:56, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for general discussion of the topic. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The article List of Magical Negro occurrences in fiction has much more material than this one, but is put in a secondary place as a list. Wouldn't it be more convenient for the readers if all the information was put in one place by merging that article into this one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skylark777 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Disagree - long lists don't belong in main articles; they are best when separated out. But there may be some comments/wording from the List of Magical Negro occurrences in fiction that can be moved into this article - just not the lists themselves. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:35, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Disagree I'd rather see the list article deleted because of BLP concerns for the actors listed. This article, explaining the stereotype, is good. Borock (talk) 15:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
    Then go ahead and put it up for WP:AFD. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 16:03, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
    It was already nominated, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of magical negro archetypes in fiction. I don't feel good about nominating it again since I have strong personal feelings about the topic. That's not what WP should be about. If someone else nominated it I would support deletion.Borock (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
    That seems to be a very resounding consensus in favor of keeping the list. I doubt that a second AfD will produce the opposite consensus. I'm not sure why you think Wikipedia should not encompass this topic. As I linked at the WP:BLP/N discussion, there are many results about this topic. I checked out of curiosity, and two scholarly articles I saw include lists of films with this trope to assess. You can propose a consensus approach for including items, such as avoiding anything that is blog-only since they may be unreliable sources, but the scholarly articles and other similar sources are reliable in their assessments. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 16:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
    I am 100% in favor of keeping the article on the topic. My problem with the list, as I've said, is that it presents opinions (although they are reliably sourced opinions) as facts. For instance I would be OK with Will Smith's article saying: "Smith has been criticized for playing Magical Negro roles." (With the same sources used here for his movies.) But not with "Smith has played Magical Negro roles." It is a fact that he has been criticized, but don't present the critical opinion as fact. Borock (talk) 17:54, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Do not merge - While I disagree that there is a BLP issue and fully support Erik's removals (I can't believe I edited an article using TVtropes as a source and didn't ax them...), There are numerous well sourced examples that support this as a notable topic. Saying actor X played a role that a reviewer says is a stock character is similar to saying they were in a horribly reviewed film. That readers/viewers may transfer feelings about the role or film to the actor is hardly a BLP issue. Yes, there are magical Negro characters. There are also absent-minded professors, mad scientists, damsels in distress, valley girls and many more. Many of them have lists of examples that are entirely unsourced or very poorly sourced. This list, OTOH, while not perfect, is fairly well sourced and gives examples readers may find meaningful in understanding the concept. Yes, the article needs a lot of attention. Yes, we need reliable sources. Yes, we need to discuss the quality of those sources. This is a common problem: MacGuffin, Ship of Theseus, Special relationship (international relations), the list is extensive and varied. Killing the list or merging it changes the problem and eliminates meaningful content. (Long before reading our article, I did not understand the "MacGuffin" concept until a film-buff college explained it in terms of "Rosebud" and the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.) - SummerPhD (talk) 01:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Agree It makes sense to merge the article and the list. That way readers do not have to go to two places and both articles are more clear and easy to understand. User:SummerPhD was just saying the examples help us understand the concept, so why not put both in the same place? Kitfoxxe (talk) 17:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
WP:WEIGHT, mostly. The main article is twenty-something lines (plus see alsos and refs) and the list is close to 50 lines. The main article gives a mostly coherent view of the concept with a unity of sources essentially agreeing. The list is a variety of sources with each mostly stating "Joe Blow in Big Budget Movie is a magical Negro." - SummerPhD (talk) 21:02, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Why is the article so film centric?

The magical negro concept wasn't invented in the film medium. It has a long history in literary and other works (which this article itself notes). However, this article is almost entirely written from the perspective of film, so much so, that the lead sentence specifically defines the concept in regards to only film? Shouldn't it take a broader approach and discuss the concept evenly as a fictional trope?71.190.228.146 (talk) 04:53, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The article is film-centric because the reliable sources discussing the trope are film-centric. (Why are the sources film-centric? Probably because the trope was first identified in film.) To broaden the scope of the article, we need reliable sources discussing the trope in other contexts. - SummerPhDv2.0 15:28, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

origin of the term

User:Malcom Ghandi - About your edits here and here, you must provide a source for the claim that the term was actually introduced in Richard Schickel's 1968 book THE DISNEY VERSION. I looked and did not find any source that says where the term was first used. Jytdog (talk) 03:16, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Richard Schickle's book said "There was one distasteful moment in the film. The crows who teach Dumbo to fly are too obviously Negro caricatures" but did not, so far as I can tell, use the term "magical Negro". - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

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Obama

User:Wikid77 -- about this "Writers have argued that people who live as the Magical Negro role must actually not be "real" as instead indicating the helpful Magical Negro is, in fact, how some black people do live their lives." Where is that coming from? You stuck that in front of the Obama thing. But Ehrenstein wasn't writing about Obama the person - he was writing about the image of Obama in the (white) American imagination. I don't know where you are getting the "live as" thing. The "magical negro" is just a racist construct that appears in fiction and sometimes gets projected onto real people, like obama for a while. Jytdog (talk) 08:31, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: you've missed the point of those comments about Barack Obama, as claiming candidate Obama could not be a real person, could not help (white) people from peril, but he did. Hence the 2017 HuffPost article "Barack Obama Is Not a Magical Negro" which tries to dispell the 10-year view of Barack Obama endlessly helping to "save the day" (or "bail out" people from great peril), quote: "It seems this country is looking for Barack, the Magic Negro, to bail them out again". The actual Obama performance seemed so magical, that even 10 years after candidate Obama was sung as "Barack, the Magic Negro" he was still earnestly viewed that way, as he got nominated in 2008, got elected (twice), solved problems for 8 years, the worldwide recession reversed and economy rose, unemployment fell, GM cars saved, record NYSE stock market, wars ended, U.S. went digital TV, Osama bin Laden caught, ACA medical (etc.). Obama fixed so many big problems, so quickly, that someone had to write an article, 10 years later (2017), to insist, "Barack Obama Is Not a Magical Negro" in reality, but he just lived that way for 10 whole years, in the eyes of numerous people. The term "Magical Negro" is not always a racial epithet but rather, the way a black person actually can seem to live their life. Although more sources perhaps should be cited to clarify the issue. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:56, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I think I maybe understand what you are trying to say. But it is way, way too soon to evaluate the presidency of Obama. And the source is not OK - it is an op-ed on a blog. Jytdog (talk) 15:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

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Patiro

Major omissions in the article, touched on only slightly, is that the magical negro idea doesnt apply to works like Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, because that film doesnt just feature one African person and imbues that person with magical qualities. And that because these other exmples do feature a "magical" African person as usually their only African role, there is a patronizing aspect to these types of works. In addition to featuring only one African, singling them out for a typecast role, making them a non-typical person separates them from whites in normal interaction, including intimate relations. -Inowen (talk) 05:46, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

What matters is what reliable sources say about this. Jytdog (talk) 07:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

"saintly black character"?

The phrase "saintly black character" is currently in bold in the introductory sentence, which would indicate that it is a term used interchangeably with "Magical Negro", yet I don't see it used that way in the sources I've checked. It's a description of what we're talking about, but is it actually used as a term in itself? If so, where? If not, it should be removed from the first sentence, perhaps inserted elsewhere in the article as a descriptor. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

It has now been removed by somebody.- DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:22, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Yeah it was added here and nobody remarked it then. Jytdog (talk) 14:24, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Funny how easy it is to overlook questionable items - even obvious, bold-texted ones! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Origin of term/usage not factual or proven

The article states that this trope was "created by white people" and then goes on to say, "It is even possible that the trope goes back to late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century Spanish comedias de negros." How is the term "white people"

Is the assertion "created by white people" proven?

Respectfully, FS — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:4930:964F:71A0:8BAF:67A6:188E (talk) 17:06, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Nothing on Wikipedia is "proven". That the Earth is spherical rather than flat is not proven here, it is verifiable. Independent reliable sources say the Earth is spherical. That is the essence of verifiability.
The soures asserting that the trope was created by whites is from Camera Obscura Feminism Culture and Media Studies, a journal from Duke University Press. I'd judge that as a reliable source for the claim.
From where I'm sitting, the problem was the wording "It is even possible that the trope goes back to late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century Spanish comedias de negros and their depiction of black "savior soldiers," who reinforce the stereotype of the supposed greater physical strength of Africans."
Immediately prior to this, the article is discussing a possible intermeiary trope in which "lower class characters ... give advice or magical aid to upper-class characters." In both cases, the earlier trope being discussed is not the Magical Negro but something a bit different: from "black 'savior soldiers'" of superior strength and "lower class" magical help. It seems to me we are discussing a current trope tracing to earlier tropes. I created "the World's Greatest Beef Stew", though it certainly grew from my grandmothers' recipes. I've made that tweak.[2] - SummerPhDv2.0 19:09, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Obama as article's featured image

Given the lack of a featured image meta tag per Open Graph Protocol, external web apps consuming this page, for example the default Android chat app, display image of image of Barack Obama when linking to this article. Is this desirable? The casual reader, unfamiliar with the concept of the Magical Negro may understandably take offense when seeing the word "negro" next to an image of Obama's face without the academic context the accompanies this association. Thompcha (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

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