Out of all the cinematic staples, the so-called “magical negro” is the worst to define and discuss due to it being the mother of all loaded terms. A catch-all phrase used to describe how African-Americans in film tend to be superhuman physically, spiritually or both, it’s currently in the midst of the pop cultural zeitgeist thanks to a crappy song and New Year’s faux-pas.
Anytime someone sees a black character used as a story tool in a film — in the case of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) originally didn’t exist in Fitzgerald’s story — there is a mild cry of “There! There! I see a magical negro in the distance! Yes! There!” One should wonder why Eric Roth deemed it necessary to suddenly introduce the character as a framing device for guiding the CGI Man-Child about, but that’s up to anyone who can be assed to sit through that three hour bore.
So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves—and in full expectation of the eventual backlash that will come from one friend of ours, Odienator at Big Media Vandalism—to deconstruct the favorite crutch of Stephen King, the WachowskiBrothers and whoever else has a problem understanding just what makes the worst stereotype the worst stereotype.
I’ll never forget the thrill I felt reading Werner Herzog’s advice on how to become a film director, which boils down to skipping film school, taking up boxing, walking everywhere and working in a sex club. So where’s my Oscar, damn it?
Yet when Juno was delivered to theaters around the country I remember feeling nothing but outrage over the stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody hype. I found the film incredibly tedious (though in retrospect I was probably a bit hard on Cody’s writing in my review – after reading excerpts from the script I think I had a much bigger problem with Reitman’s directing), but I had an even bigger problem with the condescension surrounding Cody herself: Look, a stripper who can put together more than three sentences!
I often find myself in general sticking up for those who society deems “bimbos,” from muscle boys (most of whom are walking encyclopedias of anatomy and nutritional chemistry, if not exactly classic film connoisseurs) to sex workers (the majority savvy businesspeople), who are the exact opposite of their stereotypes, and often just a lethal combination of being incredibly intelligent and equally messed up. The condescension comes in the form of pity as well – “how sad for Courtney Love to have been a stripper” – as if the vast majority of the trade is made up of zombie sex slaves, not consenting adults who willingly chose their profession. As if it were always the industry of last resort.
In other words, Cody’s not the brainy, together exception even if she’s not the Academy Award-winning rule. You just don’t hear about “smart sex workers” because of the stigma attached to the oldest profession in the world. Cody was already publicly “out” as a stripper by the time she penned Juno thanks to her book, but most sex workers only make news in Eliot Spitzer-type scandal not art. Thus the myths remain firmly in place.
So today I’d like to follow up last week’s tribute to the valiant Eddie Izzard (who downplays the prurient aspect of cross-dressing by simply acknowledging it, thus demystifying it, thus transcending the taboo) by celebrating four more talented folks who have made the transition from sex industry to mainstream screen.
Kevin Kelly, a contributor to Joystiq, i09 and countless other weblogs, will be weighing in on the intersection between film and video games every Thursday here on SpoutBlog. This is his introductory column; please welcome Kevin, ask him personal questions, shower him with flattery and/or rip apart his argument in the comments.
If you’d been holding onto a game controller or sitting deep in a multiplex somewhere a few weeks ago, you might have felt the shuddering groan of millions of video game and movie fans everywhere when the press release dropped the news: Brett Ratner is going to start making movies based on Activision’s cadre of video games. Maybe the Uwe Boll career path of making extremely bad movie adaptations of video games still appeals to him. It’s not clear what project will be first up, but given the fact that Ratner’s films have somehow made millions of dollars, it’ll probably be something fairly popular. Don’t rule out Brett Ratner Presents: Brett Ratner’s Guitar Hero: The Movie just yet.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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