Failing the “DuVernay Test”: 6 signs your on-screen black character is a tired stereotype
Exhibit A: Eddie Murphy's new film "Mr. Church," which has been dubbed a "spiritual sequel" to "Driving Miss Daisy"
2. Does your character exist to serve white people or aid them in a quest for fulfillment?
In a 2001 speech, director Spike Lee coined the phrase “Magical Negro” to describe the phenomenon of black characters whose only job in life is to the servants, mentors, and spiritual guides for white people. The most famous example is the jolly, apple-cheeked “Uncle Remus” from Disney’s “Song of the South,” who reads the stories of Brer Rabbit to a group of white children. The TV Tropes website sums up the awfulness of Disney’s Remus in its entry on this trope: “Even the horrors of Jim Crow can’t dampen his determination to be a cheerful mentor for the children.”
Lee, however, called attention to movies like “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” “What Dreams May Come,” and “The Green Mile,” which respectively cast Will Smith, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Michael Clarke Duncan as Christ figures that come to earth to teach white people about forgiveness and redemption. If they are not literally God, like Morgan Freeman in “Bruce Almighty,” they act as his messengers or stand-ins. In “Dreams,” Gooding Jr. plays Albert, a guide tasked with helping the film’s Dante character, Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams), find his Beatrice in the afterlife. Albert doesn’t have depth, flaws, or conflicts because he’s a ghost; ghosts don’t need character development.
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/29/failing_the_duvernay_test_6_signs_your_on_screen_black_character_is_a_tired_trope/?source=newsletter
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