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Exploring black "saviors": a content analysis of black characters Exploring black "saviors": a content analysis of black characters
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Eric A. Jordan
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EXPLORING BLACK “SAVIORS”: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF BLACK
CHARACTERS AND RACIAL DISCOURSES IN OBAMA-ERA FILMS
By
Eric A. Jordan
B.A., University of Louisville, 2014
M.A., University of Louisville, 2016
PhD, University of Louisville, 2020
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Faculty of the
College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in Applied Sociology
Department of Sociology
University of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
August 2020
EXPLORING BLACK “SAVIORS”: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF BLACK
CHARACTERS AND RACIAL DISCOURSES IN OBAMA-ERA FILMS
By
Eric A. Jordan
B.A., University of Louisville, 2014
M.A., University of Louisville, 2016
PhD, University of Louisville, 2020
A Dissertation Approved on
July 27, 2020
by the following Dissertation Committee:
_________________________________________________
Melanie Jones Gast
__________________________________________________
Karen Christopher
___________________________________________________
Oliver Rollins
__________________________________________________
Derrick R. Brooms
__________________________________________________
Siobhan E. Smith-Jones
ii
ABSTRACT
EXPLORING BLACK “SAVIORS”: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF BLACK
CHARACTERS AND RACIAL DISCOURSES IN OBAMA-ERA FILMS
Eric A. Jordan
July 27, 2020
This dissertation analyzes how black characters across twenty movies released in
the years 2006-2018 inspire, coach, “save,” or “rescue” other characters. Studies on
“savior” characters in film tend to focus on white savior characters who seek to “save”
people of color from harm. When comparing black characters and white saviors, I find
that black characters use three specific strategies—revolution, vigilantism, and altruism
—to help other characters. The characters who use the revolution and vigilantism
strategies seem to be what I call “black saviors” who work to fight against institutional
and systemic racism to save the black diaspora. Altruistic characters seem the most
similar to white saviors. I end by discussing my findings and their connection to past
literature on race, class, gender, and colorblindness, and I discuss implications for social
change.
: controlling image, film, intersectionality, Obama, racism, white savior
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………iii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………….1
Black Savior Key Elements……………………………………………….4
What the Study Adds to the Literature……………………………………6
Why Film?………………………………………………………………...8
Dissertation Layout……………………………………………………….11
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………13
Paternalism and Power……………………………………………………15
Paternalistic White Savior Characters…………………………………….16
Hegemonic Masculinity and Paternalism…………………………………19
Messianic Masculinity and Black Paternalism……………………………20
The Production of Culture………………………………………………...23
Intersectionality and Controlling Images………………………………….24
The White Savior Trope: Neoliberalism in Cinema……………………….26
The White Savior Trope: Whiteness and Post-Racial Theory……………..29
The Evolution of the Magical Negro Trope……………………………….36
Characteristics of the Traditional Magical Negro…………………………39
Activism and Revolution………………………………………………….40
iv
Vigilantism………………………………………………………………...43
Altruism…………………………………………………………………...45
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY……………………………………………….48
Sampling Phase…………………………………………………………...48
Data Collection Phase……………………………………………………..55
Coding and Data Analysis Phase………………………………………….57
Qualitative Content Analysis……………………………………………...58
Grounded Theory………………………………………………………….62
How I Incorporated Grounded Theory and Content Analysis……………..65
Methodological Issues…………………………………………………….68
CHAPTER IV: THE REVOLUTIONARY……………………………………….70
Revolutionary Messiahs…………………………………………………..72
Revolutionary Activists…………………………………………………...74
Messiahs and Hegemonic Masculinity…………………………………….76
Black Male Poverty, Stereotypes, and Re-Appropriation of Violence…….83
Women Activists and the Acquisition of Knowledge……………………..86
The Male Activist and Access to Power…………………………………..98
The Black Revolutionary as a Counter-Narrative to Whiteness…………..101
CHAPTER V: VIGILANTE HEROES…………………………………………...111
Masculine Vigilantism……………………………………………………...112
Male Vigilantes: Defending the Vulnerable……………………………….114
Vigilante Males, Superheroism, and Stereotypes of Violence…………….121
The Female Vigilante: Violence as Liberation……………………………123
v
Mary, the Othermother………………………………………………….128
Individualistic Vigilante Heroism………………………………………135
CHAPTER VI: THE ALTRUIST………………………………………………140
Teachers…………………………………………………………………142
Parents…………………………………………………………………..144
Fathers and Father-Figures……………………………………………...144
Mothers and Mother-Figures…………………………………………...145
Altruistic Characters: Authoritative Male Teachers…………………….146
Altruistic Characters: Authoritarian Fathers……………………………151
Sons with Emotions, Fathers Without…………………………………..155
Altruistic Teachers: Humanitarian Women……………………………..157
Altruistic Characters: Humanitarian Mothers, Mammies, and Sapphires164
Mammies, Sapphires, and Magical Negroes……………………………170
Filmic Altruism: Benevolence, Colorblindness, and the New Racism…176
CHAPTER VII: DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION……………………………179
Summary of Black Savior Characters…………………………………..180
Black Saviors and Malleable Controlling Images………………………182
Black Saviors: Reinforcing Controlling Images and the “New Racism”186
Conclusion……………………………………………………………...189
Limitations of the Study………………………………………………..192
Recommendations for Future Research………………………………..194
Final Words…………………………………………………………….196
REFERENCES….……………………………………………………………..199
vi
APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………216
CURRICULUM VITA………………………………………………………...221
vii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Many films during 2009 to 2017, when Barack Obama served as the 44
th
President, addressed issues of race through the post-racial frame of “colorblind
individualism,” which minimized the effects of systemic racial inequalities on people’s
lives (Izzo 2015; Rajakumar and Saiyed 2015; Sanchez-Escalonilla and Mateos 2016).
Colorblind individualism developed, in part, from the fact that Obama was an upper-class
black man whose upward mobility was predicated on his “hard work” that enabled him to
embody the American Dream (Hughey et al. 2015; Dovidio et al. 2015; Izzo 2015;
Bonilla-Silva 2017; Burke 2017). Due in part to his presidency, several black characters
in film were depicted as having power and control over others, emulating Obama’s
authoritative and charismatic ethos as a leader who knew what was best for America
(Izzo 2015; Sanchez-Escalonilla and Mateos 2016). Obama’s presidency, and the
portrayal of black characters as powerful figures in film, was believed by some to be
tangible proof that America had moved beyond its racist past.
Because of the particular brand of colorblindness that developed during the
Obama era, and how the dominant theme of “race” was depicted in movies at the time, I
argue it is important to look at powerful, heroic, influential, and/or paternalistic black
characters in Obama era films. Looking at these characters helps us understand how they
have been used in cinema to discuss and/or challenge notions of race and racism. From
1
the colonial image of the noble savage to the more modern magical negro trope, black
characters have historically been portrayed in embarrassing and dehumanizing ways with
very little variety. However, this study advances the research on magical negro characters
by showing that black characters can be more than servants and sidekicks—they can be
“heroes” and “leaders” as well. Since the number of images of black people as “heroes”
and “leaders” supposedly increased during Obama’s presidency, I look at black characters
in films that were released slightly before, during, and slightly after Obama’s presidency
to understand the ways in which those black characters acted as “heroes” and “leaders”
for others, and the implications of their “heroism” and “leadership.”
Many studies of filmic heroism focus on the implicit racism within the “white
savior trope,” and thus the tenets of a “white savior”, are well-known such as the
character’s paternalistic desire to “help” people of color in need because those people
supposedly cannot help themselves. The focus on whiteness, and paternalism exhibited
by white people, demonstrates a cultural and academic fixation on whiteness as the
source of paternalism in film and “salvation,” giving whiteness a lopsided emphasis in
media discourse about racial redemption. Unlike past studies, this study explores black
male and female main characters in the Obama era, and how those characters add to our
knowledge about “salvation” and race in film. Additionally, this study takes a novel
approach to studying black main antagonist and protagonist characters in film by using an
intersectional approach to explore the similarities and differences between black male and
female characters, and the ways masculinity and femininity influence their
representations. Therefore, this study advances the discussion of filmic “salvation” by
2
looking past white saviors and at black characters in positions of power who might be
also play a “savior” role. This study asks three primary research questions:
1. How does a black character’s class and gender influence how they rescue, save,
inspire, guide, or redeem other characters in Obama-era films from 2006-2018?
2. How are their acts of rescuing, saving, inspiring, or redeeming similar to or
different from white saviors?
3. What are the implications of these similarities or differences?
To answer these questions, I employ grounded theory to qualitatively analyze, and
theorize, paternalistic black characters across twenty films from 2006 to 2018. I include
2006 and 2018, two years before and after Obama’s presidency, because Obama was a
known political figure in 2006 and remained so in 2018. Additionally, the years 2006 and
2018 are used to accommodate for the “lag” in production time necessary to make and
release a movie. The beginning of the first year of his presidency, may have actually gone
into production in 2006 or 2007 when his campaign was just starting. According to the
Motion Picture Association (2018), it takes 871 days on average to make a movie, which
is about two years. This study accommodates for this amount of time. Movies released in
2008 were probably in production in 2006 and 2007.
By answering the aforementioned research questions, I explain the similarities
and differences between white saviors and black characters who may occupy a “savior”
role across race, gender, and class lines, and how race and gender combine to influence
how black characters “save” or are positioned as a “saviors.” The first goal of the study is
to provide an analysis of black paternalism in film that analyzes how race, gender, and
class influence the manifestation of paternalism. The second goal is to shift academia
3
away from understanding whiteness as the only vehicle for “redemption” and “salvation”
narratives. The third and final goal is to further Patricia Hill Collins’ (2000) discussion of
controlling images by showing that controlling images are highly complex and not nearly
as one-dimensional and all-encompassing as she originally theorized.
In this study, I argue that, similarly to how films portray paternalistic white savior
characters as virtuous redeemers and heroes, black characters in film can also work
similarly to white saviors to save or rescue poor, uneducated, low-income, and urbanized
black characters from harm, punishment, or oppression. In other words, I argue that black
characters in film can occupy a “savior” role similar to their white counterparts. I find
that black characters who work to “redeem” or “empower” others utilize three main
strategies of revolution, vigilantism, or altruism to achieve their goals of: liberating black
people from global systems of racial oppression, saving them from local criminals, or
helping them become their “ideal” selves by encouraging them to make “better choices.”
The characters who use these strategies fall into three specific character archetypes:
revolutionaries, vigilantes, and altruists. Each archetype has a different approach to
making social change, from addressing systemic racism to helping other characters make
“better” social choices, which influences how each character is portrayed. “Black
saviors” are all paternalistic, just in different classed and gendered ways compared to
white saviors. Additionally, each character represents a different controlling image.
“Black savior” characters work to “save” other characters from some type of
harm. How each character “saves” others depends on what “type” of racism they are
fighting (interpersonal, institutional, or systemic). How a “black savior” helps a character
4
is generally associated with a character’s class position and gender. The poorer a “black
savior” is portrayed, the more likely he or she is to use tactics meant to help people that
address institutional and/or systemic inequalities. For example, revolutionary characters,
work to save black populations by eliminating those responsible for large-scale
oppression of black people (which correlates with criticizing institutional and systemic
racism) either through engaging in terroristic violence (for men) or through protests (for
women). Some “black saviors,” like vigilantes eliminating specific individuals who harm
their communities which indirectly makes social change.
If a character is portrayed as being of a higher class, that character is more likely
to use tactics to help people that are meant to address the “faults” of the individual. For
example, altruists use their morals and compassion to work at the individual level to
“save” others by encouraging them to make different life choices. The “black savior”
character is highly complex and nuanced by a character’s characteristics and motives. I
argue that revolutionary characters in the sample are the “black saviors” who
work to “liberate” all black characters in their respective films from systemic racial
oppression by eliminating government and state actors that are complicit in oppression.
Vigilantes and, to a much extent (if at all), altruistic characters, also reflect some of
the traits of the “black savior” character. The portrayals of each of these character
archetypes might bring up the question of whether “black saviors” are just 21
st
century
versions of “magical negroes.” However, I argue the “black savior” and magical negro
are different characters.
Magical negroes tend to be poor and represent negative stereotypes like: welfare
queens, uneducated voodoo priestesses, the mentally challenged, impoverished janitors,
5
prisoners, the homeless, mammies, Jezebels, and Uncle Toms (Hughey 2009). Magical
negroes are “magical” because they possess some mystical abilities that enable them to
help white people. Each of these tropes demonstrate that the main function of black
characters is to empower, assist, or please white characters, and some of the black
characters in this study reinforce this supposed function. The difference between the
“black savior” revolutionary and vigilante, and the magical negro trope, is that magical
negroes often lack agency and often are not the focus of their respective movies. I argue
that “black savior” characters do have agency and are more-or-less the focus of their
films. Therefore, “black saviors” and magical negroes are not similar which will become
more apparent as I discuss magical negroes in more depth in upcoming sections.
The main contribution of this study, is that this study frames black agency,
behaviors, and portrayals in film as evidence of their roles as “saviors.” This shifts focus
away from black characters as simple “magical negroes” or other stereotypes and
controlling images which portray blacks without power and agency. Black characters in
film are regularly sublimated in favor of the white savior trope which positions blackness
as inferior to whiteness. Thus, white savior narratives tend to erase black perspectives and
agency. An analysis of black characters who operate as, or perceive themselves as,
“redeemers” and “heroes” in film will provide a more nuanced look at how blackness can
be free from depictions of whiteness in the contemporary era, and how black people may
act in saving roles without adhering to the tenets of the magical negro trope.
Additionally, I qualitatively assess the presentation of black men and women in
twenty “mainstream” movies, released in the years 2006-2018, who are considered
6
leaders and/or agents of justice for other people of color. In doing so, I add to, and in
some ways contradict, Patricia Hill Collins’ discussion of “controlling images” by
explaining how the stereotypes assigned to these characters are actually not static, one-
dimensional, or “tenacious” as Collins (2000) describes them. As I will explain in
upcoming chapters, black characters in Obama-era film seem to reject conform to
controlling images due to the nuances and complexities of their characterizations and
motives.
By focusing on black characters in roles that allow them to supposedly act in the
“best interest” of the people they interact with, this study complicates the portrayal of
filmic “heroes” and “saviors” as a uniquely white phenomenon. This study focuses its
attention on black protagonists and antagonist characters who are the focus of their
movie narratives, which is something most studies do not do since they tend to focus on
the role black characters—who often act as supporting characters—play alongside their
white counterparts in the same movie. Thus, another one of this study’s contributions to
the literature is that it provides a nuanced examination of the aforementioned themes to
generate a broader understanding of black heroism’s connection to race, gender, and class
power dynamics as they are portrayed in films with redemption stories. As mentioned,
this study takes a gendered approach to understanding black characters, which is
important because women are often left out of the discourse on “salvation” or
“paternalism” in film. Black characters, especially female characters, who behave in
ways similar to white saviors have only been implied, never explicitly conceptualized or
theorized, in the popular film and television literature.
7
While there are numerous depictions of white saviors that exist, there are not
many depictions of “black saviors” in the culture. As a result, social science has given
little attention to non-White “saviors” in modern cinema, and the literature does not
expand much beyond its typical whiteness to include a discussion of how, or if, black
characters have a place in the conception of a “savior” in film. I am not suggesting that I
want more “paternalistic” black characters in film, given what paternalism represents. I
am also not saying that being a “savior” is inherently a good thing in film. What I am
saying is that I see an opportunity to reframe how we look at black characters in film in
general outside of their typical characterizations as sidekicks, comedy relief, black best
friends, and magical negro servants.
This study focuses on films because of their wide reach and growing popularity.
The film industry has been one of the largest sources of entertainment and has remained
one of the largest, oldest, and most profitable culture industries in the world (Motion
Picture Association of America 2018). For example, in 2018 Hollywood film generated
11.9 billion dollars in domestic box office revenue, and sales have steadily increased
since 2005. According to the Motion Picture Association of America (2018), “movie
theaters drew more than twice as many people as all theme parks and major U.S. sports
combined (baseball, basketball, hockey, and football).” This resulted in 1.30 billion
dollars in tickets sold (Motion Picture Association of America 2018:16). Three-quarters
of the U.S. population aged two and older, or 263 million people, went to a movie at the
cinema at least once in 2018, and the typical moviegoer bought 5 tickets per year in 2018
(Motion Picture Association of America 2018:24). In 2018, spending on digital home
8
entertainment increased 24 percent compared to 2017, while movie subscription spending
increased 28 percent compared to 2017 (Motion Picture Association of America 2018).
The popularity of movies makes it a powerful agent of socialization and an
important site of academic inquiry especially as the industry continues to grow.
Additionally, films can reflect the culture of the time period in the United States and all
over the world. This reflection of the culture makes movies powerful discursive forums in
which issues such as race, class, and gender intersect within characters who interact with
other characters. These interactions create intersectional “texts” that may mirror our
values and morals through the reproduction and distribution of dominant ideologies of
racial domination and subordination (Kellner 1995; Glenn and Cunningham 2009;
Hughey 2009, 2012; Holtzman and Sharpe 2014).
Film is a powerful agent of socialization that influences how people perceive the
world. Films provide guidelines on how to properly behave and think, and they show
people the rewards for their behaviors and thoughts (Silverblatt 2004). It is not
unreasonable to suggest that the bulk of our interactions with diverse groups are likely to
come in the form of vicarious contact via media, substituting for the lack of direct
experience (Gunter 1987; Mastro 2015). This is especially plausible when considering the
rates of media use in society by young people. Nearly 70% of infants in the United States
spend over two hours per day in front of a screen watching a movie or television show
(Rideout, Vandewater, and Wartella 2003). U.S. adults spend nearly twice as much time
watching videos and movies as infants do with an average of five to six hours (Nielsen
2012; Motion Picture Association of America 2018). These patterns extend beyond
America with consumers in Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Puerto Rico, Turkey, and Italy
9
averaging at four to five hours of video per day (Nielsen 2012; Motion Picture
Association of America 2018). People live movie-saturated lives, making it difficult for
audiences to recognize the influence of exposure on perceptions of reality. Accordingly,
movies have a profound effect on our views on diverse groups. The presentation of racial
or racist tropes, narratives, and presentations in movies helps people develop racial
identities for others and for one’s self (Mastro 2015).
Through their narratives, tropes, and character archetypes, films create and
transform how we view gender, class, and race. Films have real consequences on how we
navigate understandings of ourselves and others. Films about white saviors are subtle, yet
powerful, propaganda tools that help socialize people into dominant racial hierarchies and
worldviews. The effects of these kinds of films can be largely attributed to the massive
reach they have, which makes them an important way to examine and understand the
popular constructions of race relations in the United States. Thus, movie narratives and
representations take on unprecedented importance.
However, another question arises from this study’s focus: why film and not
television or a similar media source like comic books, novels, video-games, or even
music that may contain “savior” narratives and/or themes? Films are one-shot narratives
that are easier to systematically code, thus making them less methodologically
“problematic” than a television series or other media would be. For example, most
television shows contain several seasons with several episodes. Within these episodes,
certain characters may evolve into paternalists as the series progresses – this introduces a
series of methodological conundrums. As I mentioned, films are a huge media industry
and have large reach. Films also allow for character development in a single story, which
10
can greatly influence how audiences understand the social rewards or punishments of
certain character choices and behaviors. Characters in television shows have greater room
for complexities.
The following sections in this study are laid out as follows: first, Chapter IIdraws
upon sociological literature to provide an in-depth review of paternalism, and how other
scholars across disciplines have conceptualized white savior films and their connection to
theories of paternalism. Chapter IIIlays out this study’s implementation of
and to answer the aforementioned research questions,
and what, and how, data was collected for analysis using these methods. Chapters IV, V,
and VI detail the study’s most salient findings concerning the archetypal characters
(revolutionaries, vigilantes, and altruists respectively) and the strategies these characters
use to redeem, rescue, and/or empower others. Finally, Chapter VII synthesizes my
findings from the previous three chapters into a theoretical exploration of the potential
nuances of a “black savior” trope and its theoretical implications, and how the concept
complicates Collins’ discussion of controlling images. The following literature review
goes into more depth about previous studies on race, racial representation, concepts, and
theories on the magical negro and white savior tropes that may speak to the nature or
existence of “saviors” in the media and how those concepts are relevant to the study. To
study how black characters in film can act as leaders and heroes, it is important to
understand paternalism and how the concept relates to white saviors.
11
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
Paternalism refers to instances in which a person acts on behalf of another person
or group of people for their own good or the belief of serving the person’s or group’s
interests (VanDeVeer 1986). Paternalists believe that they know, and can do, what is best
for other people in need. In contrast, people in need are perceived as not really knowing
what is “good” for them, thus justifying paternalism and creating “paternalistic
relationships” in which a paternalistic person—a “paternalist”—socially engages with a
person or group for which he or she is working for. In an effort to help people,
paternalists often place limitations on the person’s personal freedoms or choices (Mill
1956; Kleinig 1983; Sartorius 1983; Dworkin 1972, 2002, 2005, 2012, 2013). As a result,
paternalism involves some degree of power and benevolence, but this benevolence
manifests from a sense of ! to intervene on behalf of people in need. As Blumer
(1951) explains, paternalism is,
“[A] sense of responsibility and of obligation for the welfare of the worker is the
most outstanding mark of paternalism. It is a tempering influence on the mere
proprietary and control relationship and imparts to that relationship a personal and
benevolent character” (p.6).
Jackman (1996) explained that paternalism was created by white men as a mechanism of
social control rooted in an ideological system, fraught with contradictions, that stemmed
from a combination of domination and benevolence. VanDeVeer(1986) defines
paternalistic acts as those “in which one person, , interferes with another person, , in
12
order to promote ’s own good” (p.12). VanDeVeer ruled out callousness or
maliciousness as a motive for paternalistic acts. What makes an act “paternalistic” is the
intervening party’s “presumptive claim to a superior understanding of the subject’s best
interests than the subject may possess him- or herself” (Jackman 1996:12). Thus, a
paternalist is thought of, or thinks of himself, as superior in some way to his subjects, and
this superiority gives the paternalist power and authority.
Paternalism raises several moral questions about freedom and society’s
obligations to its citizens, and citizens’s obligations to each other and society. Any moral
arguments for paternalism must offer compelling reasons to justify the restriction of
freedom and autonomy. A paternalistic actor is thus defined by (1.) an un-interested,
benevolent intent, and (2.) a presumption of greater moral competence than the subject of
his or her intervention (Jackman 1986; VanDeVeer 1986; Pogge 2008). These criteria
reveal that paternalism is defined by the justifications used to impose it, and the
justifications determine the “type” of paternalism that is used (Dworkin 2002).
One type of paternalism is "in which paternalism is “justified”
regardless of the subject’s autonomy or knowledge. Hard paternalism occurs when a
paternalist acts regardless of the condition of his subjects. In contrast to hard paternalism
is #"in which paternalism is only justified if a subject commits an act
voluntarily that demands paternalistic action (Feinberg 1986; Dworkin 2002).
Paternalism can be " where a person has their liberties taken away to protect them, or
rather, the group being protected is the only group losing its liberties. It can also be
when the people being interfered with is larger in size than the group of people
being protected by the paternalist (Dworkin 2002). In other words, paternalistic activity
13
causes people outside of the group under protection to also lose their freedoms. Finally,
paternalism can be enacted for reasons, in which it is justified as promoting
people’s well-being even if their welfare is not improved. Paternalism can also be
justified simply as promoting the general welfare of the person or people being interfered
with (Dworkin 2002, 2005, 2013). Regardless of the type of paternalism involved,
paternalists and their subjects do not.
$$
Power refers to the ability to exercise one’s will over others (Weber 1922).
Whether power is accepted depends on whether or not the person trying to exercise
power has “authority,” power that people accept because it comes from a legitimate
source and/or is attached to a specific role or institution (Weber 1922). Many paternalistic
characters in the study are interesting because they have power, but lack legitimate
authority; most of them are not “legitimate” because they operate outside of the bounds
of institutions. Most of the characters, specifically the paternalistic black characters in
this study’s sample who use “revolution” and “vigilantism” as a strategy to help other
characters, have “charismatic power” based on their leadership abilities, which is all they
have given that they are presented as poor without access to the mechanisms and roles of
authority. However, the black characters who uses “altruism” as a strategy, especially
characters who are teachers, do tend to have authority because they operate within the
institution of schooling and are introduced as experts in their fields. As I will explain in
upcoming chapters, how paternalists use their power is influenced by their class,
occupation (or lack thereof), and gender intersections.
14
In this study, characters portrayed as poor tend to have more charismatic power,
while middle-and upper-class characters are more traditionally powerful. In addition to
class distinctions, power and authority can also be “intellectual,” which is power and/or
authority coming from a paternalist’s expertise and knowledge, or “social,” which is
power and/or authority a paternalist has to exert influence over another person. As a
result of their interaction with powerful paternalistic figures, subjects in need of “saving”
come to internalize the worldview and perspectives of their “savior” which reproduces
various forms of racial, class, and gender domination (Fanon 1967; Bourdieu and
Wacquant 1992; Desmond and Emirbayer 2009). While I theorize race, class, and gender
inform how they act paternalistically as these “savior” characters, white savior characters
are also intersectional.
$%
Vera and Gordon (2003) define the White Savior as, “the great leader who saves
Blacks from slavery or oppression, rescues people of color from poverty and disease, or
leads Indians in battle for their dignity and survival” (p.33). “White savior films” are
recognizable through the presence of a white leader who follows Vera's and Gordon's
definition. Terms such as “noble savage,” “manifest destiny,” “White man's burden,” and
“great White hope” refer to the complex relationship between the white savior and the
dark-skinned “other” in need of saving, and demonstrate the use of such tropes (Hughey
2014). The former representation of “nonwhites” as the oppressed, despairing, and needy
ethnic group is a common trope in films within white savior films. These narratives are
perpetuated in the widespread genre of white savior films.
15
Hughey (2009) builds on Vera and Gordon’s work by adding a class dynamic,
explaining that the white savior narrative features “a group of lower-class,...nonwhites
(generally black and Latino/a) who struggle through the social order in general...yet
through the sacrifices of a white [protagonist] they are transformed, saved and redeemed”
(p.475). The main takeaway here is that a white character is considered a “white savior”
if he or she plays a major role in affecting a (lower-class) non-white character’s future
and goals through education or some other form of transformation when the non-white
character cannot, or will not, do so himself or herself. White savior films paint an image
of white people as likable, benevolent, sympathetic, helpful, and numinous benefactors
who are not like past racists. In these narratives, white characters are portrayed as
messianic heroes endowed with a benevolent desire, and/or obligation, to rescue people
of color from tragedy, harm, or punishment brought about by oppressive or destructive
forces (Hughey 2009, 2012; Glenn and Cunningham 2009).
Benevolent whiteness is juxtaposed with the image of the hopeless, bereaved, and
downtrodden people of color who are in desperate need of a (white) hero (Hughey 2009,
2012; Glenn and Cunningham 2009). White savior films highlight the racial boundaries
between whites and blacks and help delineate the color-line in a way that reifies race and
uplifts the dominant white race (Bernardi 1996; Miller 1998; Hughey 2012, 2014). Thus,
films that contain white saviors generally portray them as teachers, lawyers, and coaches
—people in positions of power, leadership, and/or authority—who take charge in times of
need and act on behalf of people of color to fight against an oppressive individual,
institution, or system (Schultz 2014). As white characters challenge the racist individual,
16
institution, or system, they indulge in their white privileges in order to lead people of
color to safety, salvation, or success.
Some of the most egregious story lines that contain a white savior involve white
protagonists venturing into “exotic,” “foreign,” or “alien” locales such as Jake Scully's
expedition into the lush planet Pandora in James Cameron's (2009), Nathan
Algren's travels through 19
th
Century Japan during the Meiji Restoration in &
(2003), and any number of movies in &' franchise (1999). Other white
savior narratives involve the white protagonist fighting various forms of racism across
different time periods, the most prevalent of which is the Antebellum South during
America's Plantation Era. Films set in the Antebellum time period usually involve African
captivity and slave narratives. Examples of slave narratives in film include movies such
as: ( (1989), (1997), and )*+ (2013).
In these films, the salvation and liberation of captivated Africans is situated as
wholly dependent upon the acts and righteousness of the white protagonist (Hughey
2009, 2012; Glenn and Cunnigham 2009). In all of the aforementioned films, the white
character is maximized and heroized while the characters he or she is helping are
marginalized. Heroism is thus a key analytic component when seeking to understand
white savior tropes and filmic paternalism in general. This frames people of color as less
self-reliant than whites—hence the need for a white savior—which rarifies power and
agency within people of color and normalizes whiteness (Schultz 2014).
White savior films reflect the ways in which the media represents race relations
by racializing positive and universal concepts, like morality and discipline, and linking
those concepts to hegemonic whiteness and white ideals. White savior films reveal a
17
media myth about whites and their relation to characters of color: white people know
what is best, especially if they are middle class (Bulman 2015). This intersectional race-
class myth allows whites in the media to become the faces of intelligence, wisdom,
culture, charity, mercy, and benevolence while characters of color become the faces of
crime, poverty, drug addiction, mental illness, aggression, and “pathology” that only a
white person can fix or save. Ultimately, white savior films provide people “experiences”
with people of color through their narratives. In the absence of lived experience, film
narratives become synonymous with reality. In white savior films, the cinematic
relationships between the white characters and characters of color influence the ways
viewers perceive themselves as members of their respective race. In addition, white
savior films depict a “utopian” relationship between white people and people of color,
leading viewers to believe that these idealized and peaceful relationships depict the
current racial milieu. One of the key elements of a white savior film is the depiction of a
historically consistent power dynamic between whites and people of color in which
whites have more power and authority than people of color which extends into
discussions of masculinity.
, '$
In addition to hegemonic whiteness, the themes of hegemonic masculinity can be
applied here as well given that white savior narratives are generally patriarchal narratives
that focus on the struggles of men (Hughey 2009). According to Connell and
Messerschmidt (2005), hegemonic masculinity legitimizes male dominance in society,
the subordination of women, and dismisses marginalized expressions of masculinity.
Hegemonic masculinity also acts as a mechanism for policing men’s behavior to ensure
18
that they conform to a specific kind of “masculinity” that helps to perpetuate male
dominion over women and other marginal groups (Donaldson 1993; Connell and
Messerschmidt 2005; Jewkes and Morrell 2012). Adding to the aforementioned points,
Hughey (2009) explains,
“The overwhelming usage of white men as the counterpart to magical negro
characters speaks to the intersectional nature of this phenomenon. That is, the
narratives of white loss and redemption in the U.S. context are almost exclusively
stories about white men’s lives, thus reflecting a dynamic in which quests for
masculine dominance motivates these stories” (p.559).
Hughey claims that white savior films are largely masculine narratives that tend to either
ignore or marginalize white women. In the case of white savior films, these white
characters go on a “quest” to rescue people of color to show that white men know what is
“best” (for people of color) which centers whiteness and marginalizes everyone else. This
construction of white male saviors creates a hegemonic disposition of white men that
generally replaces sentimentality with rationality, reinforcing the sexist adage that (white)
men know better than women and people of color hence the need for a figure
who will help lead, or be developed into a lead, for others. Hegemonic masculinity is also
attributed to famous black men in a concept called “messianic masculinity.”
''$
Ronald Neal (2013) describes messianic masculinity as “an ethical paradigm
which is tied principally to the Christian tradition and its cultural history among African
Americans” (p.52). Messianic manhood is inseparable from the oral tradition of
preaching and singing where Jesus is understood as Lord, savior, and advocate for the
oppressed (Neal 2013). This construction of masculinity is derived from W.E.B. Du Bois’
“Talented Tenth” in which the black race is supposed to be saved from racial oppression
by its exceptional men(Du Bois 1903; West 1993; Neal 2013). These men are
19
conceptualized as the leaders of the black race through their education, writing, and
involvement in social change (Du Bois 1903; Neal 2013). Messianic masculinity is
situated within broader structures of gender domination through the reinforcement of
hegemonic masculinity. As a manifestation of hegemonic masculinity, messianic
masculinity suggests that only black males can save other people of color and ignores the
efficacy of black women.
Messianic masculinity manifests primarily in politics, following the activism,
suffering, sacrifice, and martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Neal 2013). The form
of political messianism that is at the core of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life is tied to
Christian messianism (Neal 2013). He was raised as a child of the black elite in the Jim
Crow South and thus he was one of the few black people who was raised in, inherited,
and lived out a version of messianism that was attached to middle-class notions of
salvation (Neal 2013). These notions of messianism and salvation were bourgeois and
thus were tied to institutions typically associated with the middle-class such as: churches,
colleges, fraternities, sororities, civic associations, and missionary organizations. “Race
salvation” became the ultimate goal of masculinity in the black community.
Within the aforementioned institutions, the messianic aristocracy taught black
students to serve in their communities through perfectionistic and utopian standards that
stressed self-improvement, individualism, and activism with the purpose of rescuing and
“uplifting” the black race (Neal 2013). According to Neal, “Through martyrdom, King
lived out the ultimate virtue and outcome of messianic masculinity...” (p.53). Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama represent the impossible moral standards that no
African American man could ever be able to meet because King and Obama are viewed,
20
in the abstract, to represent a savior role for African Americans. According to the tenets
of messianic masculinity, black men who do not measure up to what King or Obama are
conceived to be are marginalized (Neal 2013).
Connecting black male agency to messianic masculinity reveals how paternalistic
black males reinforce sexism and middle-class ideologies in black communities. This
creates a better understanding of the implications of black male characters in film by
placing them in a larger context of racist and patriarchal movie propaganda that continues
to use stereotypical black masculinity to frame blacks as saviors who can only save in
“masculine” and “middle-class” ways. According to Hughey (2009, 2012), this portrayal
of black men reinforces hegemonic, middle-class masculinity and, theoretically, makes
films featuring black men who act as “saviors” masculinist productions that center on the
experiences of black men. These films center their narratives on paternalism and
redemption as an extension of masculine dominance and the marginalization of women
which constantly empowers “elite” black men. This is reminiscent of how
“neoliberalism” influences the construction of white masculinity.
Given how notions of neoliberalism, post-racialism, and post-feminism continue
to influence the production of white savior, magical negro, and the theoretical “black
savior” films, these forces are producing cultural depictions of white and black agency in
the media. Therefore, it is critical to analyze the representations of racial and ethnic
minorities on screen from the production of culture perspective, as championed by
Peterson and Anand (1976, 1979, 2000, 2001, 2004). Previous research has looked at the
liberal nature of magical negroes and the roles these “benign” representations of blacks
play in the modern racial system (Appiah 1993; Miller 1998; Bogle 2001; Entman and
21
Rojecki 2001; Glenn and Cunningham 2009; Hughey 2009, 2012, 2014). The production
of culture approach helps us make sense of these representations and why they matter to
the broader culture.
&$#%
The production of culture perspective focuses on how symbolic elements of a
given culture are manipulated and shaped by the systems they originate and exist in.
When applying this perspective to film tropes, it is helpful to analyze them as cultural
objects (Griswold 1986, 1992; Schudson 1989, 2002; Monk-Turner et al 2010; Hughey
2012) in American culture. Cultural objects are influenced by the racial systems in which
they were “created, distributed, evaluated, taught, and preserved” (Peterson and Anand
2004:547). Films as cultural objects can be understood as artifacts that are mass-marketed
and (re)produced in reference to cultural, technological, and social factors necessary for
navigation in the everyday world (Hughey 2009).
This perspective helps us consider the impact of the ways in which words and
images shape our understanding of interactive expectations and how films seek to appeal
to a wide range of audiences in their attempts to tell a story and make a profit (Gamson et
al. 1992; Hughey 2012). “Culture” and “structure” mirror one another, and reflect
dominate group and elite class interests (Gamson et al. 1992; Bristor, Lee, and Hunt
1995; Peterson and Anand 2004:312; Hughey 2012). Thus, analyzing films—as
reflections of socio-cultural patterns—is an important enterprise in the social sciences
when considering hegemonic race, class, or gender relations, and other forms of
dominance that may be presented in them (Gamson et al. 1992:381). Films resonate with
audiences’s notions of race, and racism, and reflects racialized narratives of America,
22
making them consequential and meaningful tools of racial socialization for audiences
(Hughey, 2009).
Because of the troubled racial history of the United States, and how deeply
embedded in U.S. institutions race is, the U.S. culture industry is racialized and reflects
racial differences that help socialize audiences and shape racial realities for audiences
who consume racialized media (Aldoni and Mane 1984; Berry 1998; Miller 1998; Van
den Bulck 1999; Silverblatt 2004; Hughey 2012, 2014; Francis 2014:148). As mentioned
in previous sections, the characterization of paternalistic black characters might be
constructed around messianic, and hegemonic, masculinity, necessitating an
intersectional analysis to more thoroughly address the study’s research questions.
-% -
Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to discuss how the
experiences of women of color were ignored in court cases and how they were
wrongfully made to choose between their identities, as either women or people of color,
in order to make sense of their lives, ignoring the fact that the two identities overlap. She
noted how courts often failed to “think intersectionally” (Crenshaw 1993; Carbado et al.
2013; Collins 2000, 2015). Since the creation of the term, there have been numerous
studies and conceptualizations of the term intersectionality from the concept as a black
feminist thought project, a black feminist paradigm, or even as an intersectional and/or
systemic process that structures, influences, and constrains behavior (Crenshaw 1993;
Collins 2000, 2015; McCall 2005; Ken 2008; Carbado et al. 2013; Choo and Ferree
2010). Given the multitude of critiques, conceptualizations, and metaphors surrounding
the concept, it is impossible to exhaustively explain the depth of this approach.
23
Intersectionality is the way in which race, class, gender, and sexual orientation—
and other social group memberships—impact lived experiences and social relations
(Crenshaw 1993; Collins 2000, 2015; McCall 2005; Carbado et al. 2013).
Intersectionality enables us to look at multiple forms of power and oppression
simultaneously to help make sense of their lived experiences (Crenshaw 1993; Collins
2000, 2015). Through intersectionality, we can begin to see that a person’s race, class,
and gender cannot be separated from each other and we can see how one’s identities and
social positions infinitely influence each other. Intersectionality is important to consider
when we look at savior narratives in the media because we can see how concepts of class,
masculinity, and colorblind racism shapes these narratives. I compare instances of
paternalism between black men and women since white saviors can be male or female,
and I theorize black “savior” characters can be as well.
Another concept within intersectionality that is important to help frame black
paternalism is Collins’s (2000) concept of “controlling images.” Controlling images are
stereotypes that guide society's perception and presentation of black people, and they are
“designed to make racism, sexism, poverty, and other forms of social injustice appear to
be natural, normal, and inevitable parts of everyday life” (p.69). Controlling images are
repeated over time and across institutions to denigrate mock, humiliate, and black people,
and this study analyzes these controlling images. Specifically, I analyze how black
characters may simultaneously reject and conform to controlling images through their
actions, language, character and narrative presentation. The controlling images that I find
are the most prominent are the mammy, angry black woman, and Sapphire. I go into more
depth on these, and other, controlling images in other chapters, but the mammy image is
24
important because three characters, Big Momma, Minny, and Madea, represent the
servile, motherly “mammy” figure who works to “save” white families, which is different
from most other characters in the sample. The angry black woman and Sapphire images
stand out because of how they are used to portray the black women in the sample as
constantly “angry” at the injustice in the world, which inspires women like Starr Carter,
Sam White, and Lysistrata to fight for systemic changes. Almost every woman in the
sample represents some aspect of the angry black woman trope.
Given that savior narratives tend to be more “masculine” and patriarchal in
nature, black womanhood tends to be depicted using a patriarchal lens, indicating that an
analysis of paternalistic male and female characters, who might occupy a “savior” role,
needs to incorporate an intersectional approach. However, regardless of the savior’s
gender, there is a tendency for filmic paternalists to reinforce hegemonic discourses. In
addition to this, it is important to analyze how these black characters may be empowered
and disempowered within the organization(s) they operate in due to the controlling
images and stereotypes that attempt to negate black agency and power.
&&./!%
The focus on masculine, middle-class dominance in films starring a paternalist
fuels post-racial colorblind rhetoric. According to Wilson (2013), the white savior
narrative exists in cultural moments of “racialized, gendered, and classed instability” that
develops within neoliberal discourses (Wilson 2013:25). Harvey (2005) explains that
neoliberalism is “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-
being can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills
within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free
25
markets, and free trade” (p. 2). Neoliberal discourses are necessary for examining race,
gender, and class in post-racial and post-feminist theorizing. Specifically, these theories
work with neoliberalism to marginalize race and gender by claiming the constructs are
unimportant concepts in the soci0-political world while using the perceived irrelevance of
race and gender to subtly promote white male privilege (Mukherjee 2006; Wilson 2013).
Thus, neoliberalism operates within post-racial and post-feminist theories to perpetuate
both race and gender inequalities that bestow power to white male elites. Neoliberalism’s
deferment to the free market for the solution to various social problems—like racism,
sexism, and other forms of discrimination and inequality—places the onus of reconciling
social problems on without the intervention of the government (Harvey 2005;
Wilson 2013). This reductionism generates a new social contract that replaces issues of
race and gender discrimination with issues of class and capitalism.
Joseph (2013) argues that post-racial and post-feminist theories function similarly
for black people and white women within neoliberal discourse by claiming that race and
gender no longer factor into the lives of black people and white women because the Civil
Rights and Second Wave Feminist movements supposedly eliminated racism and sexism.
Joseph (2013) claims, “Just as race and gender intersect...the gambits of post-race and
post-feminism inform each other” (p.27). One exception to this is Patricia Hill Collins’
(2005) discussion of the “new racism” that “supports the social order while seemingly
challenging the racial inequality constitutive of that order” (Hughey 2009:3). In terms of
cinematic representations of white and black characters, new racism reinforces the
positive images of white characters as “moral” and “pure” while simultaneously
describing how “powerful,” “divine,” or “magical” black characters may interact with
26
whites and mainstream white culture (Collins 2005). Collins (2005) argues that gender
and sexual stereotypes of black women are used to reinforce a type of racism that is
predicated on the increased presence of black women in media. This reinforcement is
perpetuated by post-race and post-feminist theories that inform each other to help create
white savior narratives that commodify race, gender, and class identities (Wilson 2013).
Post-racial theories are situated within the history of race theory in the United
States that has suggested that race and racial disparities are the byproduct of biological
and genetic differences between blacks and whites. These biological essentialist theories
of race suggest that racial inequalities are the result of cultural differences between the
two groups (Omi and Winant 2015). Scholars who discuss and investigate post-racial
theory have also described “enlightened racism” (Jhally and Lewis 1992) and “colorblind
racism” (Bonilla-Silva 2017).
Colorblind racism (also called “colorblindness”) is rooted in the fallacy that race
is not an important consideration when considering institutional, structural, or
interpersonal inequalities, discrimination, or mistreatment (Hughey 2015; Bonilla-Silva
2017). People who claim that they “do not see race” and “treat people equally” ignore
centuries of ingrained racial ideologies, animus, antagonisms, and sociopolitical and
historical struggles that have come to shape their very desire to believe that they do not
see color. Colorblindness is a problematic racial ideology that allows people to say and
believe racist things and maintain systemic racial inequalities while distancing
themselves from racism. Colorblindness is an extension of post-racial theory and
neoliberalism.
27
Despite the academic debate over the characteristics, boundaries, and terminology
used, the focus of post-racial theories is the neoliberal construct of race-neutral
meritocracy (Jhally and Lewis 1992; Collins 2005; Wilson 2013; Bonilla-Silva 2017).
The post-racial focus on meritocracy is important to the examination of white savior
narratives because it minimizes the influence race has on the social and economic
mobility of black people. Furthermore, post-racial theories, which are grounded in
colorblind race rhetoric, attribute black/white racial race relations to “market dynamics,
natural occurring phenomena, and blacks’ imputed cultural limitations” (Gallagher
2003:2). Colorblind post-racial ideology legitimize the current racial order by allowing
whites to believe they are socially, politically, and racially progressive and tolerant while
at the same time supporting political and economic policies that privilege whiteness
(Gallagher 2003; Bonilla-Silva 2017). Post-racial theory reinforces a white middle-class
subjectivity that erases racialized, classed, and sexualized differences (Projansky 2001;
Wilson 2013). Post-racial theories align with post-feminist theories and the interaction of
post-race and post-feminism is important to the examination of the commodification of
the white savior narratives, especially those narratives about race and gender
empowerment without referencing issues of race and gender(Wilson 2013).
&&.$01&
As previously mentioned, neoliberalism utilizes post-racial and post-feminist
theories to normalize a middle-class white male subjectivity by commodifying race and
gender differences and inequalities. Given how neoliberalism, post-racial, and post-
feminist ideologies construct whiteness as normative, this section examines the discourse
of whiteness and how it assists with the construction of white savior narratives. An
28
explanation of white savior narratives helps contextualize some of the hallmarks of a
“savior,” which I argue some “black savior” characters exhibit. Like I mentioned
previously, “black savior” characters seek to help “rescue” people from some form of
misfortune which is exactly what white saviors do. Therefore, understanding how white
saviors behave helps us understand how “black saviors” work to “rescue” others and why
that matters. It is important to note that movie studios do not market their films as “white
savior” films, nor do audiences specifically look for these narratives (Wilson 2013).
White savior narratives are instead made up of implicit tropes that reinforce whiteness,
many of those tropes are post-racial.
Whiteness is a social construct that designates a racial category and/or racialized
social position in the United States (Jordan 1968; Frankenburg 1993; Jacobson 1998;
Roediger 1998; Lewis 2004; Nayak 2007; Hancock 2008; Baldwin 2011). Because
whiteness is assumed to be the default racial position in the United States, it is an
invisible marker of identity loaded with social privileges (Frankenburg 1993; Dyer 1997;
Lewis 2004; Hancock 2008; Hughey 2010). According to Foucault (2008), the desire for
racial purity in political empires constructs whiteness and allows for white people to view
themselves as “good” and “pure” in relation to “bad” and “impure” people of color. The
need for racial purity adds race and gender to the construction of whiteness by focusing
on the reproduction of the white race (Wilson 2013). Post-racial and post-feminist
theories are needed to stabilize the hegemony of white masculinity by reinforcing racial
and gender inequalities (Mukherkjee 2006; Wilson 2013). White masculinity is now
positioned as the opposite of blackness and womanhood in order to challenge the political
discrimination protections provided to white women and black people (Wilson 2013).
29
Media representation helps to construct and normalize the white masculine ethos
as the default racial and gendered power in the United States. According to Vera and
Gordon (2003:15), “deliberately constructed images” create a “sincere fiction” of
whiteness that represents the white self as a natural leader above the guilt of racism.
These sincere fictions assume that “humans are constantly producing and consuming
stories—some fantasized, others based on real events—about themselves and the world in
which they live” (p.15). According to Shohat and Stam (1994), “spectators are invested in
realism because they are invested in the idea of the truth (they) reserve the right to
confront a film with their own personal and cultural knowledge” (p.178). Shohat and
Stam make the point that audiences bring their worldview, including their ideas about
race and gender, to media texts. This means that the discourse of whiteness is a mitigating
influence in how audiences read and make meaning out of the media they consume.
Therefore, as Vera and Gordon (2003) argue, movies are an appropriate venue to address
the representation of whiteness because of the dominant racial notions and discourse
present in movie production and consumption. When whiteness is discussed in film, it is
often in the context of white saviors.
The white savior trope is a white supremacist movie cliché that presents altruistic
white characters as paternalistic messiahs who enter disadvantaged communities and
inspire, assist, or “rescue” people of color from injustice (Hughey 2009, 2012). White
saviors generally act on behalf of people of color based on the idea that people of color
tend to lack the faculties to help or protect themselves in their time of need, creating a
paternalistic relationship between whites and people of color in which whites are
considered “allies” fighting against oppressive individuals and/or institutions on behalf of
30
people of color. White savior narratives are extensions of “the white man’s burden” and
build on the belief that whites are endowed with a special responsibility to assimilate and
civilize people of color (Shohat and Stam 1994; Glenn and Cunnigham 2009; Hughey
2009, 2012). These narratives are examples of imperialist nostalgia.
In white savior narratives, transformation of the white savior takes precedent over
that of the redeemed, even though both are required to change by the story’s end (Shohat
and Stam 1994; Hughey 2012; Wilson 2013). Since white savior films are about
reinforcing mythology and “sincere fictions” of whiteness, audiences who consume these
movies get a simplistic, if any, understanding of the black perspective (Shohat and Stam
1994; Vera and Gordon 2003; Mukherjee 2006; Glenn and Cunningham 2009; Hughey
2009, 2012; Wilson 2013). Race is hardly ever highlighted in these films because they
seek to be post-racial, to ignore the influence race has on black people’s life chances in an
effort to reinforce the fundamental goodness of whiteness (Vera and Gordon 2003).
White savior narratives fall along a spectrum of Hollywood social problem films
that often combine “dialectic social analysis and interpersonal conflict (while)
dramatiz[ing] the relationship between an individual and society, taking a highly cynical
attitude toward social institutions” (Mukherjee 2006:88). According to Mukherjee (2006),
social problem films fall into three categories: , ##, and
. Assimilation film emphasizes immigration and the immigrant’s endeavors to
achieve the American dream through assimilation into U.S. culture. Affirmative action
films problematize “liberal intentions of the sixties and take contemporary anxieties over
racial and gender integration as their central problematic” (Mukherjee 2006:87). Finally,
nostalgia films focus on historical moments in the United States’ racial and gendered past
31
in order to criticize the racial and gendered transformation that occurred in the Civil
Rights movement by shifting the story away from “the marginalized group’s history to
the salvation of the central white (fe)male character” (Mukherjee 2006:155). White savior
narratives extend the concept of social problem film by centralizing a race-neutral
meritocracy that marginalizes the influence race has on the lives of people of color
(Glenn and Cunningham 2009; Hughey 2009, 2012; Wilson 2013). In other words, white
savior films are neoliberal texts that suggest that the “savior” for people of color is a
charismatic male who legitimizes his position as a leader to a group of dark-skinned
people in need of redemption (Hughey 2009, 2012; Wilson 2013).
It is important to note that women rarely get to be white saviors given how
patriarchal white savior narratives are (Vera and Gordon 2003). However, post-feminism
enables white women to assume the role of white saviors. Projansky (2001) argues that
post-feminism claims that women are now equal to men, therefore, feminism is no longer
necessary and, thus, white women save people of color as well. The presence of a
female white savior challenges the need for governmental intervention to deal with
gender discrimination because women are assuming a position once reserved for men
(Projansky 2001; Mukherjee 2006; Wilson 2013).
The post-feminism of savior narratives establishes the filmic “savior” as distinctly
white, patriarchal, masculine, and anti-black, demonstrating the intersectionality of the
trope. Following the concept of hegemonic masculinity and symbolic violence, white
savior films may then reinforce dominant modes of thought about the essence of white
men. People who see these films may come away believing that there is some natural
32
quality to white males that enables them to “lead” people of color further, which, in
effect, reinforces domination.
As a result of the savior character’s presentation, the main tenet of the white
savior trope is that he or she is a do-gooder, an altruist who is often featured, and
centered, in films “based on a true story.” In movies “based on a true story,” the white
savior tends to be a coach or a teacher, and characters of color are represented with a
variety of racial stereotypes: out-of wedlock, teenage mothers; Latino gangsters and their
hand-wringing girlfriends; black drug-dealers. The white savior tries to transform and
inspire people of color, but they will initially fail at their task. The white savior finds a
way to motivate their students, for example, and gives them agency to improve their
lives. The people of color who have come into contact with the white savior prove
themselves to be exceptions to dysfunctional non-whites around them (Hughey 2012).
People of color take the lessons they learned from white saviors and attempt to escape
their impoverished neighborhoods and improve their lives, demonstrating that if people
of color would just “act right” (i.e. be white), then racial and class inequality would be a
thing of the past (Glenn and Cunnigham 2009; Hughey 2009, 2012). Movies like
and ' fit into this category of white savior narrative.
Another facet of white saviors concern the white interloper entering a non-white
culture that is under assault. The white interloper learns to respect the value of the native
or indigenous culture and then teaches the people in that culture rationality, logic, and
modern techniques for how to defend themselves from the “bad” white people of which
the savior was formally a part (Hughey 2012). These films rely on racial and xenophobic
narratives to propel the exoticism of the foreign and dark “others” for US audiences.
33
White saviors also intrude on domestic areas as long those settings are a priori understood
as dangerous and backward like urban ghettos or the rural Deep South (Hughey 2012).
These films make extensive use of sentimental dialogue that emphasizes the point that “a
true and authentic inter-racial and inter-cultural friendship has been established, which
obscures the larger pattern that the white intruder qua savior instructs the ‘primitive’
peoples on how to live” (Hughey 2012:762). In other words, white saviors enter into
black spaces and attempt to “civilize” black people by trying to make them like
“civilized” white people. Many of these films, such as &, claim to be
“based on a true story” as well which is supposed to let audiences believe in the virtues of
white paternalism and that people of color should be grateful for white assistance. This
also demonstrates Hollywood’s greater interest in narratives of “heroic” whites saving
people of color than in the stories about people of color helping their own communities or
resisting racism (Hughey 2012). Thus, the white savior motif is used to retell stories in
ways that are palatable for “mainstream” consumption. This allows for negative
stereotyping of non-white characters or cultures while white people emerge as possessive
of messianic characteristics that can fix hopeless people of color.
The media tends to represent the white savior figure as a character deserving of
worship that he receives from people of color because he is willing to sacrifice himself
for their salvation, like a Christ figure, sent to act as a fatherly de facto savior of the
dysfunctional racial “others” (Hughey 2012). The “others” are redeemable so long as they
assimilate into white society via “their obedience to their white benefactors of class,
capital, and compassion” (Hughey 2012:761). “Compassionate” white people tend to be
teachers, coaches, and lawyers because they can intervene in a racist system in an effort
34
to “improve” the lives of people of color by assimilating them into some form of
whiteness (Schultz 2014).
The variety of research on the white savior narrative is indicative of its cultural
reach, importance, and implications for people of color worldwide. Hence,
conceptualizing white savior narratives as the progenitors of other types of “savior
narratives” is an important starting point for this investigation. We can begin defining
“saviors” as those who use their resources and skills to help, rescue, or bring justice for
people in need and/or people who are threatened by danger or forms of systemic or
institutional oppression. In his blog post, / , Hughey (2015)
describes the narrative structure of the white savior sub-genre,
“A White Savior film is often based on some supposedly true story. Second, it
features a nonwhite group or person who experiences conflict and struggle with
others that is particularly dangerous or threatening to their life and livelihood.
Third, a White person (the savior) enters the milieu and through their sacrifices, as
a teacher, mentor, lawyer, military hero, aspiring writer, or wannabe Native
American warrior, is able to physically save—or at least morally redeem—the
person or community of folks of color, by the film's end…”
White savior films follow a predictable narrative structure that makes them easy to find
and follow, and the aforementioned story formula is ever-present across movies in a
variety of genres and time periods. In addition to Hughey’s description of the white
savior trope (as noted in the blog post cited above), if we look at black characters
historically, we can see that black characterization has evolved from the noble savage and
magical negro literary tropes and has always had a historical connection to white
paternalism described above.
&#' / &
The phrase “noble savage” was first used in 1672 in John Dryden’s play &
%#( (Ellingson 2001; Gyrus 2009). Dryden described noble savages as
35
“guiltless men” who came to represent the first stages of innocence; these men were
primitive, nascent, and close to nature (Lovejoy 1923; Hughey 2009, 2012). These men
were stereotyped as violent and brutish, and those traits encompassed the noble savage
stock character. The character was conceived as a Native American or African male
which combined race and gender identities into a single stereotypical image of people
who needed to be cultured and “rescued” from their uncivilized, barbaric, and violent
lifestyles. The noble savage served to marginalize men of color, helped establish the
discourse and representations of men of color as low-class and inferior, and linked virtue
and wisdom to the “inferior” races and classes as a literary motif (Ellingson 2001). This
was the beginning of race and masculinity becoming the centerpiece of redemption
narratives, highlighting the importance of messianic masculinity as a concept to help
make sense of these stories and characters.
Native men of color became foils who highlighted the cultural and white racial
“superiority” of Europe which justified European imperial expansion (Ellingson 2001).
The noble savage concept led to racist and pseudo-scientific colonial discourse about the
nobility of dark-skinned “savages.” This discourse was influenced by the paternalistic,
Christian doctrine that “The white man brings civilization and Christianity to the
savages...” (Ellingson 2001:11). The discourse created myths about how “savagery”
manifested, what needed to be done to people determined to be “savages,” and who was
considered to be a savage (Ellingson 2001; Gyrus 2009). The hallmarks of the noble
savage remained largely unchanged until the mid-twentieth century and the rise of more
“positive” black stereotypes in film and television. The famous black actor, Sidney
Poitier, was the face of the assimilationist black male caricatures that were popular in the
36
50s and 60s, referred to as “ebony saints,” which came to represent an entirely new
portrayal of Black, working-class males in film (Manchel 1990; Hughey 2009, 2012).
The “ebony saint” roles were “sterile paragons of virtue completely devoid of
mature characterization or of any political or social reality” (Eberwein 2004:93). Sidney
Poitier’s debut in the film /2(1950) was a prime example of the ebony saint
character that “carried with it an obvious accommodation to white middle-class fears
about sexual and social mores” (Eberwein 2004:93). The ebony saint rose above past
racial injustices and got along with whites despite his own frustrations with their racism
(Manchel 1990). Ebony saints were “hopeful” characters who showed that racial progress
was possible through interracial relationships in which the problem of race and racism
was ignored or quietly reconciled through “positive” interactions between whites and
blacks (Manchel 1990; Eberwein 2004). This aspect of the ebony saint is an implicit
theme of magical negro narratives.
The ebony saint retained the noble savage’s supposed inferiority by being
represented solely as a black male, but he had partially assimilated into, and capitulated
to, mainstream white culture. The ebony saint stock character resurged in the 80s post-
blaxploitation era of film and television (Hughey 2012). Through the 80s and 90s, black
representations were not only more frequent but they were also more diverse. Instead of
being presented as entertainers and sidekicks to their white counterparts, blacks were
portrayed as middle-class with professions typically associated with that class (Hughey
2012).
The ebony saint evolved into, and cemented the hallmarks of, the magical negro
during the 1990s, the so-called “Neo-Minstrel Era” (Hughey 2012). Spike Lee coined the
37
phrase “magical negro” in 2001 when he criticized the overuse of traditions,
characteristics, and narrative clichés that reinforced black inferiority via subservience to
whites (Okorafor-Mbachu 2004). Because of his capitulation to whiteness, the ebony
saint occupied a working-class or middle-class status position compared to noble savages
who were divorced from civilization and were viewed as subhuman. Thus, the noble
savage’s assimilation into whiteness and “civilization” as an ebony saint added class
distinction to his black male status that helped create the foundation for the magical negro
trope. In order to fully understand the magical negro trope, we need to look at how it
extends hegemonic masculinity and reinforces ideologies of class, which racial groups
belong in which class, and how different racialized classes should interact.
%#&' /
The magical negro is a black stock character in film, television, and literature who
often appears to be impoverished, lower class and uneducated. The character tends to
possess some supernatural magical abilities or otherworldly folkloric wisdom used to
save and uplift broken, uncultured, and lost whites (Appiah 1993; Glenn and
Cunningham 2009; Hughey 2009). Kwame Appiah (1993) describes these Black
characters as saints who are the moral equivalent to their “normal” White counterparts (p.
82). This equivalence offsets the usual stereotypes attributed to Blacks, and draws from
the superior moral nature that is often associated with the oppressed (Glenn and
Cunnigham 2009).
Magical negro films are situated within broader racial discourse and ideology
where blacks are regularly characterized as simple-minded and uneducated people who
desire an uncomplicated life of helpfulness, convenience, and service to whites (Hughey
38
2009). Once whites have been served, the magical negro character dies or disappears
(Hughey 2009). The magical negro’s disappearance is a narrative imperative, as Hughey
claims (2012), because the endurance of any interracial friendships in these films “would
unsettle the racial status quo of the movie world in which the characters live” (p.759). If
the character does not die or disappear then a slew of unresolved questions and problems
would arise from the interracial relationships these films establish which creates a
problem that the film’s plot cannot solve without becoming politicized (Hughey 2012).
In modern media, black actors are afforded more range, generating more diverse
black representations. Despite the increased visibility and diversity of black characters,
the magical negro is a positive, progressive, yet racist Hollywood trope that falls within
the category of “new racism” (Hughey 2009). The only way magical negroes can interact
with white culture is through deference and subservience to white people and the
supposed “racial order” supported by racist institutions and systems. Theoretically, the
racial dynamic changes when the black character occupies a higher class and education
level. Theoretically, when black characters use the privileges of their higher class,
education level, or skills to combat interpersonal, institutional, or systemic racism, they
may begin to act as paternalists and engage in either revolution, vigilantism, or altruism
as strategies to “save” others. In the next section I discuss the concepts that underpin each
of these strategies and how they might work to turn paternalistic black characters into
“saviors.”
1
Black revolutionaries in the study are engaged in constant struggle for justice,
much like messianic characters. The visage of the black revolutionary is multifaceted and
39
layered with history and figureheads from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to Malcolm X, to
Stokely Carmichael and many more. Throughout history, black activists have demanded
freedom from oppression, usually without getting much in return (Johnson 2007).
However, the Black Power movement represented a key turning point in American
politics and black power. Disenchanted by the superficial and hollow progress of federal
desegregation during the 1960s, many black citizens and leaders across the United States
demanded meaningful self-determination, and they fought for black power through art,
militant political action, and ideological debate (Johnson 2007). The black struggle for
equality and emancipation was eventually converted into what we might call “civil rights
cinema” that incorporated the civil rights struggle into a variety of legal narratives,
comedies, and some action films (Monteith 2003).
Over time, a small but distinct body of films developed that chronicled, or
referenced, civil rights successes. These movies presented a liberal reformist vision of
racial struggle, retribution, and/or reconciliation that operated as narratives in which
“they function in a postmodern imaginary as socially symbolic texts in which racial
tensions that remain unresolved in life and temporary resolution in narrative” (Monteith
2003:121). Civil rights cinema reduce larger historical events to personal histories,
domesticating the memory of the Civil Rights Movement.
Many movies about civil rights and revolution revolve around the stories of
specific individuals fighting for justice when other people do not. The main characters in
these films are presented as paternalists who gained their subjects’ goodwill, or at least a
modicum of it, usually through acts of charity and negotiation when other actors and
groups would not attempt to gain their respect (Herman 2012). In turn, subjects are
40
willing to accept the paternalist’s version of the status quo so long as they receive the
benefits of the paternalist’s work, and this acceptance leads to resistance and,
theoretically, some social change. Revolutionaries in “civil rights cinema,” or movies that
emulate the themes of such cinema, work similarly to civil rights leaders of yesteryear (as
I explain in %-3). Ultimately, because these movies tend to reduce the fight for
black power and civil rights to a personal, instead of a broader political, struggle, the
characters might come across as messiahs or strong black women tropes. The usage of
these tropes is not necessarily intentional or overt, but it may be the byproduct of
storytelling that relies on symbols and signifiers of boycott and revolution that come to be
embodied by specific actors, and their actions, in specific situations (Monteith 2003).
Moreover, the characters that engage in the civil rights struggle often frames those
characters as “exceptional” as compared to other (black) characters.
“Exceptionalism” refers generally to the innate sense of ambition that carries the
acknowledgment that to be black and successful in America, you must be “twice as good”
as everyone else. Thus, black people often fare more poorly compared to other groups in
the U.S. (Butler 2013). Essentially, exceptionalism is the idea that strong, educated, and
competent black people are extraordinary presumably because they are required to be
“twice as good” as other people, which is thought to be improbable for black people
given the disadvantage they face (Marco 2018). Exceptionalism justifies the characters’
role as paternalistic activists. These “exceptional” actors are akin to the “Talented Tenth”
Neal (2013) mentions who were designated as the saviors of the black race. The reason
the Talented Tenth is able to save the black race is because of how much “better” than
other blacks they are, or are perceived to be. The function of exceptionalism in
41
paternalism, and activism by extension, is to designate those who are able to, and should,
focus their attention and resources toward “saving” black people. The elements of
paternalism and exceptionalism can also be found in movies about vigilantes.
3
As a concept, vigilantism is enigmatic and often only discussed in sensationalist
media or in academic discourse as a type of “security fetishism,” or a movement that uses
(the threat of) force by citizens to maintain community security (Johnston 1996). The
concept of vigilantism is rooted in criminological literatures, and it is often thought of as
a sub-category of political violence (Rosenbaum and Sedeberg 1976; Johnston 1996;
Jacobs et al 2007). The existence of vigilantism is thought to be proof of the existence of
some societal flaw since the vigilante is a symptom and a victim of society and the
collapse of social order. According to Johnston (1996), vigilantism has at least six
elements: (1) minimal planning, premeditation, and organization of activity; (2) private,
voluntary agency in which the vigilante engages in some private enterprise; (3)
autonomous citizenship in which a voluntary activity is engaged in by private voluntary
citizens without state authority; (4) use or threatened use of force; (5) reaction to crime
and social deviance; (6) personal and collective security. These six elements combine to
mean that vigilantism is a strategy born from a desire to “do something” when formal
systems of control are ineffective. Thus, vigilantism is a reaction to social deviance
whether real, threatened, or imputed. The aim of vigilantism is to offer people the
assurance that the established order will prevail and will remain intact, especially at the
local level (Johnston 1996). Vigilantes seek to control crime and offer assurances of
42
security (Rosenberg 1956; Rosenbaum and Sedeberg 1976; Johnston 1996; Jacobs et al
2007; Tyree 2014; Cunningham 2018).
When looking at vigilantism in this study’s films, vigilante characters meet most
of the aforementioned elements. Vigilantes characters pursue local criminals who have
harmed the vigilante’s loved ones or community members, and the criminals are dealt
with through extreme physical violence such as through beatings or shootings. These
characters also tend to rescue women and children usually as a way to enhance their
heroism. Often, this violence is a response to a social failure, such as corrupt police
officers and/or departments, or the emergence of large, local criminal organizations. To
counteract the breakdown of society, the vigilante plans and premeditates ways to track
down and eliminate the criminals at large. Thus, the hallmark of the vigilante is his or her
heroism in the face of social ills, and his or her willingness to provide people with the
assurance that the ills will be eliminated. This heroism is on full display in movies
primarily about men with military and police backgrounds, a great sense of justice, a
connection the local community, and subtle superhuman skill; characters who might give
in to “security fetishism” and the maintenance of social norms.
The themes of revenge and retribution are commonly found in neo-blaxploitation
film, a subgenre that often relies upon and showcases interpersonal black violence as an
allegory for black power and the subversion of white racial rule (Cunningham 2018).
Neo-blaxploitation refers to the ways in which contemporary texts featuring “black
protagonists negotiate with the archetypes, iconography, and themes of blaxploitation”
(Cunningham 2018:98). Usually, the appropriation of blaxploitation themes happens in
parodies or pastiche films. More contemporarily, the term “neo-blaxploitation” has been
43
used to discuss movies that tend to use revenge narratives and the subversion of racial
motifs (Cunningham 2018).
In many contemporary neo-blaxploitation films whites are portrayed as evil,
corrupt, and decadent—a clear subversion of the ways mainstream films portray white
characters—while black characters are concerned with getting revenge through
vigilantism (Hughey 2012; Cunningham 2018). Because of its over-reliance on violent
solutions to various problems, vigilantism can be said to be a sub-category of paternalism
since both revolutionaries and paternalists seek the same thing: security through some
sort of social change. While vigilantism is similar to paternalism, it is anathema to
altruism which employs more subtle forms of assistance.
Altruism, in sociological terms, is defined simply as behavior intended to benefit
another person or group regardless of the risk or necessary sacrifices (Monroe 1994;
Konstan 2000; Japtok 2004). Altruism entails specific actions, not just good intentions or
kind thoughts, and it is always about furthering the welfare of another. If another person’s
welfare is treated as an unintended or secondary byproduct of specific behaviors, then
those behaviors are not altruistic. Additionally, intentions count more than consequences,
when deciding whether an action is altruistic or not, and altruism may carry with it a
possibility of diminution of the altruist’s welfare (Monroe 1994). In sociological
literature, altruism is often contrasted with self-interested behavior. Since most people
exhibit subtle varieties of self-interested and altruistic behavior, altruism has to exist on a
spectrum.
44
If we begin to treat altruism as continuous, then it becomes less about behavior
and more about the and # of behavior (Konstan 2000). In movies,
altruistic black characters are often framed as the “good guys,” and are thus supposed to
be interpreted as such even when their actions can, and often do, possess elements of self-
interest. The aforementioned “strategies” that I theorize black characters employ vary
within movies featuring parents, leaders, coaches, and lawyers. In the next section, I
explain my theoretical perspectives that I utilize for this study that will help analyze
movies for the elements of black characters to see if my initial theories accurately
describe these characters.
To sum up the literature review, the theme of paternalism is particularly important
to this study because it provides a context for the actions black characters take to “save”
or “redeem” others. The way a character chooses to be paternalistic gives us a glimpse
into how that character chooses to wield his or her power in his or her interactions with
others. White savior characters have been the characters in film most likely to display
their power by intervening in people of color’s lives to “save” them, which has helped
define “savior” tropes as distinctly white. However, the concept of “messianic
masculinity” is useful to help provide an understanding of how black males in film can be
paternalistic. Messianic masculinity highlights the ways in which black men can use their
power to “save” or “redeem” others, which is the opposite of how traditional magical
negroes are portrayed. Tying the concepts explored so far back into my research
questions, the discussion of black males and females as having the potential to be
“paternalistic” means that class and gender definitely have some influence over whether a
character is a paternalist or not, and how that paternalism is expressed. I go into these
45
expressions of paternalism in upcoming chapters. The next chapter details specifically
how both content analysis and grounded theory were used in the various stages of the
data collection and analysis process.
46
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
The study proceeded across several stages that built upon each other to form the
backbone of the analysis of the presentation and purpose of black characters and their
connection, if any, to white saviors. To proceed with the analysis of the black savior
trope, I started first with a non-random sampling method that followed a set of rules and
criteria to ensure that the study was conducted systematically and consistently. Second, I
watched each movie alongside their respective script (once to gain an understanding of
the plot, and then watching specific scenes of interest to the research questions in
subsequent viewings), and I transcribed the notes I took while watching each movie into
Microsoft Word documents for the coding process. Third, I coded data for each film to
summarize each piece of data from my notes so that the data could then be separated and
sorted for an analysis. Finally, I took the codes and developed them into cogent categories
and themes that form the backbone of the analysis. The following sections detail each of
the study’s major “stages” from sampling to categorization.
To analyze and theorize black paternalism in film, this study’s sample was drawn
using relevance, or , sampling of movies released in the years 2006-2018. The
reason why this study implemented relevance sampling was because relevance sampling
47
aims to select all texts that contribute to answering given research questions. When using
relevance sampling, this study proceeded by examining the texts to be analyzed in a
multistage process. Relevance sampling is not a random sampling method (Krippendorff
2004). As Krippendorff (2004) explains,
“It is important to remember that the use of random samples always entails the
admission that one does not have a clue regarding what the population of interest
looks like or where to find the needed information. In content analysis, this is
rarely the case. Cluster sampling already acknowledges that the universe of texts
is partitioned onto large clusters and makes use of this knowledge. Snowball
sampling presumes knowledge of the network-like organization of this universe of
texts” (p.119).
It is important to mention that relevance sampling is not probabilistic and is not random.
A random sample ! drawn from all of the movies that, for example, contain black
main protagonist (and some antagonist) characters that may help answer this study’s
research questions, but the task of sorting through the mostly irrelevant sources while
ensuring each movie selected met my criteria proved to be convoluted and unwieldy. I
used the search function in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to sort through
thousands of movies automatically.
In IMDb, I used synopses, plot summaries, and character summaries (available
through IMDb and wiki pages) to determine whether the films were relevant to the
study’s research questions. Specifically, the movies most relevant to the study were those
that featured black characters portrayed as: teachers, coaches, politicians, activists,
parents, and superheroes—roles that are typically more “paternalistic” given the social,
cultural, and/or intellectual power people in these roles tend to have. I used IMDb and
searched the database using keywords that already exist within it. However, IMDb’s
search function was often difficult to navigate since the site’s search functions were
48
unorganized, and specific keywords like "Black Teacher," “Black U.S Presidents in
Film,” “Black Superhero,” and “Black Activist/Politician” almost always yield very few
results. It was hard to know what keywords to use to find a nice sample given all of
IMDb’s flaws. However, the aforementioned keywords yielded a total of 35 (n=35)
movies with black characters in them who might have been useful to the study (See
4).The sample of 35 was, however, chosen based on the fact that they came up
in keyword searches instead of an overarching logic for their inclusion, and they also did
not fit into my 2006-2018 timeline. Only fourteen movies from this sample of 35 fit the
timeline I kept those fourteen movies and I restarted the search process using a broader
keyword, "African American” and the 2006-2018 release year. These keyword searches
yielded a population of 2,266 movies. To select movies from this population, I added new
keywords to “African American” and “Black American” such as “Police,” “Lawyer,”
“Mother Son Relationship” and more keywords to make finding movies that fit the
study’s criteria more manageable. For example:
Adding the keyword “Police” to the “African American” keyword yields a sample
of 153 movies.
Adding the keyword “Lawyer” yielded 46 movies.
Adding the keyword “Black American” yielded a sample of 314 movies.
Adding the keywords “Father Son Relationship” yielded 274 movies.
Adding the keywords “Father Daughter Relationship” yielded 235 movies.
Adding the keywords “Mother Son Relationship” yielded 234 movies.
Adding the keywords “Mother Daughter Relationship” yielded 264 movies.
49
Adding the keyword “Violence” yielded 250 movies.
Adding the keyword “Racism” yielded 150 movies.
Adding the keyword “Doctor” yielded 46 movies.
IMDb’s search function shows any movie with any character that fits the keyword
searches, so many movies in these smaller samples were irrelevant to the study because
many of the characters were supporting characters. Additionally, many of the same
movies in this series of searches fit into multiple categories. For example, $
fits into the “Violence” search and “Racism” search. Choosing movies from this
population of over 2,000 movies was difficult. Thus, I developed three criteria to
determine whether a movie was “relevant” to the study.
, each movie on the list had to be a feature-length film (approximately 90
minutes or more). The film could not be animated or biographical. I avoided animated
films, even though many of them have savior narratives, because they often deal with
racially ambiguous alien races or cartoon and computer-generated imagery (CGI)
creatures that may not be totally analogous to the characters I am studying. Characters in
animated films can also have exaggerated mannerisms and behaviors that are unlike the
mannerisms and behaviors in movies that are not animated, which makes coding
animated films different from coding live-action films. I chose not to observe biographies
because I wanted to study fictional characters in fictional worlds. I was more interested in
how writers chose to write their characters in fictional worlds in order to analyze how
class and gender affected power between fictional characters. Biographies, however, do
often contain paternalistic characters, and biographies may be useful for future studies.
50
The criteria was that each movie had to have a black protagonist and/or
antagonist character in a position of power or leadership. Most moviegoers are not
looking at this info when they go see a movie, nor is the lead actor’s race explicitly
advertised for the films, which may be a symptom of a mostly colorblind film industry.
The film industry’s colorblindness highlights the fact that women and people of color are
significantly underrepresented as protagonists and antagonists in films, with white
characters taking up anywhere from 70-80% of all film and television character roles in
any given year and males taking up 52-60% of all roles (Hollywood Diversity Report
2019).
&, because this study focuses on character gender, I picked films that had
black female characters in addition to movies with black male characters. I aimed to have
a sample that had a relatively equal number of male and female characters I selected
films that allowed me to compare if and how black men and black women characters
interact with other characters. For example, if I selected a movie featuring a black male
teacher, I made sure to select a movie featuring a prominent black female teacher as well.
This did not necessarily produce a perfectly even and equal sample that matches
characters’ positions of power and authority across gender and social class, but I matched
them as much as possible given the 2006-2018 timeline and previous restrictions. To
determine which female characters I selected for the study, I focused on IMDb’s
description of the movies that showed up in the searches in order to determine which
women were “main” characters.
51
With these three criteria, I dropped nine of the fourteen films I initially kept from
the specific keyword search. This left me with five movies from the initial 35 that fit the
criteria timeline from the original sample that fit the criteria. I then added fifteen
other films from the second round of IMDb searches using the broad “African American”
keyword that fit the study’s search criteria. As I previously mentioned, IMDb’s database,
when winnowed down using keywords, shows movies (and television shows) that merely
feature a black character and/or a character that matches the keyword. So, I chose the
additional fifteen movies based on the fact that they were the only movies I could find
through the database searches that met all of the criteria at the same time based on the
plot summaries IMDb offered.
Most movies were easy to disqualify from the study since the movies with black
characters that came up in the study were supporting characters as indicated by the cast
and credits as indicated on IMDb—the movie’s “main” characters are listed at the
beginning of the cast list. In addition to the cast, I chose movies based on the characters
on a movie’s poster on IMDb, which typically shows at least some of the most relevant
characters. In addition to looking at the poster, I did more research on the film, looking at
IMDb’s information and looking at Wiki pages on movies I suspected were usable. Wiki
pages provide summaries of characters and movie plots, and these pages proved to be
very useful in helping me decide if a movie and/or character was worth analyzing,
especially if the characters met my three criteria.
So, I did research on all of the movies of interest and I read their synopses to see
what the movies were about. Whether or not a movie ultimately was added to the sample
52
was left up to my interpretation of the movies I did research on. If I believed a movie did
not neatly fit my search criteria, or helped me answer my research questions as a result of
meeting my criteria, the movie was not included. It is worth noting that it is entirely
possible, given my methods, that there were movies I may have missed that would have
worked well in the sample—I attribute that to the human error that comes with having
one researcher hand-picking (instead of randomly selecting) movies.
Given the aforementioned methods, I identified a sample of 20 (n=20) films that
neatly fit each of my criteria (See 4). I figured I would start the study with
twenty movies, see what theory I could develop from these twenty and, if I needed more
clarification on any theories or categories I develop from the data, I would add more
movies. I ended up not needing additional movies because I reached a point where I was
not finding anything new from my data from the original twenty. So, I stayed with twenty
and developed a theory from that sample.
I ultimately ended up with a sample of texts that are not meant to be
representative of a population of texts; rather, they are the population of texts,
excluding irrelevant sources. This means I ultimately sampled for relevance, range, and
uniqueness to a certain degree based on my interests (Small 2009). In other words, I
identified a specific “type” of character I wanted to study and I ensured I had a number of
films that would allow me to gain some understanding of the depth of that character. I
found sampling for relevance, range, and uniqueness to be effective because random
sampling ultimately would not have yielded a sample made up characters I wanted to
53
analyze. As I have explained previously, this “sampling for range” method increased the
study’s bias and reduced its representativeness.
% $
To collect data on the films, I first watched each film in their entirety, noting the
date of when I watched them. I also noted the timestamps for scenes of interest, and I was
sure to describe the scene(s) in detail in my notes. I noted recurring themes such as: How
are characters interacting in the films? What are the motives behind the interactions? Do
characters exercise power, authority, and agency? As I watched each film, I paid special
attention to the characters of interest for each film, which I decided upon using some
preliminary plot summaries and research in each film. My notes were ultimately focused
on: the character’s occupation; who was being “saved” (based on that character’s social
environment, socioeconomic status, or personal problems); what methods the character
used to save, how paternalism was expressed in the film; how the paternalistic character
asserted power, authority, and agency, etc.
I also took notes on the character(s) of interest’s actions in certain scenes of
interest—scenes in which the character expressed signs of paternalistic behavior—and
how other characters react to them. This aspect of the note-taking in some ways
resembled taking “field notes” on the characters themselves. Due to the issues I had with
the scripts, I decided not to focus on taking notes from each movie and coding them by
relying on captions and subtitles in order to capture dialogue along with the scenes in
which they were spoken. To make sure I was hearing the lines correctly, I had the script
for the films open alongside the film and followed the script while watching the movie at
54
the same time. I used the script as a way to know which page the lines of dialogue were
on so that I could refer back to them for future reference.
The movies I watched first were those revolving around “heroic” male characters.
I focused on “heroic” black males because the discussion of paternalistic white
characters, like white savior characters for example, was usually centered around men
and their “heroism.” I decided that looking first at movies that explicitly center their
black males as respectable heroes and vigilantes who go out of their way to rescue and
save others. After watching each film, I organized my notes using a Microsoft Word
template that contained the same set of questions for each film I watched.
Using Word might seem like an unorthodox choice for a content analysis given
the amount of data that this study engages with and the seemingly low-functionality of
the platform. However, I used Microsoft Word to archive, and organize my notes because
Word allowed me to more easily highlight and tag specific lines and passages (using the
comments feature) so that I could refer back to them for deeper analysis. Word also
allowed me to write larger notes and/or memos of the codes that I then turned into larger
thematic categories. Additionally, Word allowed me to create descriptive tables to help
me visualize and organize my data. My familiarity with the platform made using Word
preferable to other platforms. Ultimately, I generated over 200 pages of notes and
findings data using Microsoft Word. Finally, I compared to compared those findings both
within and between movies—using constant comparative analysis—in order to detect
patterns in order to theorize if and how paternalistic black characters could act as
“saviors.”
55
% $
To code the data I collected, I utilized media content analysis—also called
“textual analysis”—to collect data. In this section I will first explain the content analysis
and grounded theory methods and then explain how I used them. Content analysis can be
summed up as an analysis of “who says what, through which channel, to whom, and with
what effect” (Shoemaker and Reese 1996:12; Macnamura 2005). Essentially, content
analysis focuses on the meanings, interpretations, and impact of various forms of media
(Macnamura 2005:1). Content analysis is primarily used to study “texts” from transcripts
of interviews and discussions in social research of the narrative and form of films, TV
programs and the editorial and advertising content of newspapers and magazines
(Macnamura 2005). A “text” in this case is any object that can be “read” as a coherent set
of signs that transmit a message. Texts include: written text, oral text, image text, audio-
visual text, and internet hypertext. Content analysis is a systematic research method for
examining any combination of these symbolical texts by recording or transcribing their
messages into categories (Berelson 2000; Stemler 2001). This study focuses on both
audio-visual (film) and written text (dialogue in film scripts) in order to answer the initial
research questions. Using the scripts was initially supposed to help me catch anything I
missed in my initial viewing of the films, reducing the need for me to constantly re-watch
the films for information. However, there were some methodological issues with using
the scripts available to me, which I explain more in the ' - section.
Janis (2009) classified the content analysis method into three categories:
", and 0.
56
Pragmatical content analysis is the procedure in which messages are categorized by their
possible or ##. Semantical content analysis is the procedure that classifies
messages based on their . Sign-vehicle analysis measures how often a word
appears in the media source, and analyzes the of the “signs”
being observed. This study focuses more on semantic analyses of Obama-era films.
Researchers using content analysis as a method often lack control of extraneous
factors that might affect the production, dissemination, and interpretation of symbols. In
this case, there are extraneous factors in the film industry such as pre-production, post-
production, editing, distribution, etc that this study cannot account for in the creation of
certain types of movies or narratives. Additionally, content analysis is only categorically
descriptive of symbols (Holsti 1969; Kolbe and Burnett 1991). Kassarjian (1977)
discussed the problems of using content analysis methodology in early consumer studies.
Kassarjian suggested that objectivity, systematization, and quantification were the most
significant and distinguishing attributes of content analysis. Content analysis comes in
two forms: and and the next
section will explain these forms and why this study will take advantage of the principles
of qualitative content analysis.
5%
Qualitative content analysis emphasizes an integrated view of speech/texts and
their specific contexts (Zhang and Wildemuth 2005). It goes beyond simply counting
words or extracting objective content from texts to examine meanings, themes, and
patterns that may occur within a text. It allows researchers to understand social reality in
57
a more subjective, yet scientific, manner. Qualitative content analysis is mainly inductive,
with its examinations, and inferences drawn from those examinations, of topics and
themes . This type of content analysis attempts to generate theory, in
some cases, from carefully selected texts which help inform the research questions being
investigated. This means that a qualitative method is more appropriate for a grounded
theory approach.
Thus, the results of the qualitative approach usually produces descriptions or
typologies, along with expressions from subjects reflecting how they view the social
world (Zhang and Wildemuth 2005:2). Zhang and Wildemuth (2005) draw upon Berg’s
work (2001) to explain that the “perspectives of the producers of the text can be better
understood by the investigator as well as the readers of the study’s results.” This approach
is focused on the unique themes that invoke a range of meanings rather than the statistical
significance of the occurrence of particular texts or concepts.
In contrast, quantitative content analysis is focused on deductive reasoning and
objective measures that are designed to test hypotheses or address questions generated
from theories or previous empirical research. As suggested by Smith (1975), “qualitative
analysis deals with the forms and the antecedent-consequent patterns of form, while
quantitative analysis deals with duration frequency of form” (p.218). Weber (1990) points
out that the best content-analytic studies use both approaches to some degree to get a
breadth and depth of data. All readings of texts are qualitative in nature even when
characteristics of the text are converted to numbers (Krippendorff 2004). Despite how the
two approaches can be combined and how they complement each other, this study will
58
focus on applying the principles of qualitative content analysis because the study aims to
look at the themes and patterns present within the selected films in regards to black
heroes and redeemers.
By analyzing these films for their themes and patterns, this study also aims to
understand their implicit meanings and implications, which is something that quantitative
analysis cannot account for. A stronger focus on qualitative analyses can help reveal
implicit meanings of the media, and help re-articulate a given source into a new narrative
based on theory. Quantitative approaches may not necessarily accomplish this study’s
goal of interpretation and re-articulation of media narratives because the method is
concerned more with counts and probability.
One of the main issues with qualitative content analysis is research bias and a lack
of reliability. A “rigorous” approach to media content analysis to gain maximum
reliability requires that two or more coders are used—at least for a sample of the content
being studied (Macnamara 2005). While a primary researcher conducts most of the
research in content analysis, a reliability sub-sample coded by a second or third coder is
important to ensure that the results, ratings, and categories of analysis are not the result of
a researcher’s subjective judgement or bias (Tinsley and Weiss 1975; Macnamara 2005).
Neuendorf (2002) says, “There is growing acknowledgement in the research literature
that the establishment of intercoder reliability is essential, a necessary criterion for valid
and useful research when human coding is employed,” highlighting the importance of
having intercoder reliability in a content analysis study (p. 142). However, Riffe and
Freitag (1997) found that only 56% of 486 content analysis studies, published in
59
6'%5from 1971 through 1995, reported
intercoder reliability and that most failed to report reliability variable-by-variable, which
is recommended. Lombard, Synder-Duch and Bracken (2003) found that only 69%
discussed intercoder reliability and only 41% reported reliability for specific variables.
Despite the critical importance of intercoder reliability to content analyses, it is
not possible for this study to have a measure of intercoder reliability because there is only
one researcher coding and analyzing data. Therefore, this study is purely qualitative, but
it is worth noting, for the sake of transparency, that there is another type of content
analysis that could have been used for this study under different circumstances. Because
this study is qualitative, the study is meticulous, thorough, and systematic about the
rationale for the decisions that are made in each stage of the study process. Therefore this
study is not, and aim to be, generalizable to all films featuring a paternalistic
black character, nor do I aim to make any causal claims or inferences based on my data.
This study aims instead to be transferable, adhering to the conventions of
qualitative #!7In other words,the study aims for its inferences and analyses
to be detailed enough so that the reader can decide whether the analyses contained herein
are similar to other films and characters the reader is familiar with and whether the
findings can be applied to other concepts so that comparisons can be made across
concepts (Marshall and Rossman 1989; Davis 1992; Gomm, Hammersley and Foster
2000; Hughey 2009). I aimed to be systematic in my discovery of nuances in the analysis
of the culturally significant themes, ideologies, racial representations, and the racial and
60
gender ideologies in these films. To study these nuances, I first used a qualitative method
called “coding.”
According to Charmaz (2006), “Coding is the pivotal link between collecting data
and developing an emergent theory to explain these data” (p.46). I followed the
conventions of grounded theory coding following Charmaz’s (2006) model. I followed
Charmaz’s (2006) guidelines for grounded theory coding in two phases: 1.) an initial
phase involving naming each word, line, or segment of data followed by 2.) a focused,
more selective phase that used the most relevant, significant, and/or frequent initial codes
to sort, synthesize, integrate, and organize large amounts of data. In the first phase, I
remained open to all possible theoretical directions indicated by my interpretations of the
data. Developing codes for the analysis of the data post-content analysis required
extensive use of grounded theory.
(&
According to Glaser and Strauss (1967), grounded theory is “the discovery of
theory from data—systematically obtained and analyzed in social research” (p.1). In
other words, grounded theory sets out to create new theories as this study does with its
discussion of “black savior” characters. Instead of verifying theories, Glaser and Strauss
introduced a method to arrive at a “theory suited to its supposed uses” contrasting with a
“theory generated by its logical deduction from a priori assumptions” (Glaser and Strauss
1967:3). Grounded theory involves the use of an open-ended, and iterative process, that
involves data collection, coding (data analysis), and memo-writing (theory-building)
61
(Groat and Wang 2002:181; Charmaz 2006). This study utilizes each of the
aforementioned processes.
According to Glaser and Strauss (1967) grounded theory has two unique
characteristics: and . Comparative
analysis involves iterative data collection and analytical processes that involve “the
systematic choice and study of several comparison groups” (Glaser and Strauss 1967:9).
It is unnecessary for the researcher to wait until data are completely collected to being
data analysis. Instead, data collection and analysis happen time so that the
analyzed data guides subsequent data collection. In the process of data analysis, an
incident should be compared and contrasted with other incidents (Corbin and Strauss
1990). Researchers need to make comparisons between empirical data and concept,
between concept and categories, among data, among categories, and among “different
‘slices of data’ in order to reach higher levels of abstraction and advance with the
conceptualization” (Gregory 2010:7). Comparative analysis serves to obtain accuracy of
evidence in the conceptual category and to establish the generality of a fact (Glaser and
Strauss 1967).
I used grounded theory in this study in conjunction with content analysis because
the two methods mesh well together and there were no prior theories or literature that
helped explain how black characters behaved in film. Thus, I believed I would need to
begin building an understanding of such characters from the bottom up using an
inductive, analytical method. According to Elo and Kyngas (2008) and Cho and Lee
(2014), an inductive approach to content analysis is appropriate when prior knowledge
62
regarding the phenomenon under investigation is limited or fragmented, as is the case
with the black heroes and redeemers. According to Glaser (2013), grounded theory is an
inductive methodology as explained in the following statement,
“Grounded theory is an inductive methodology. Although many call Grounded
theory a qualitative method, it is not. It is a general method. It is the systematic
generation of theory from systematic research. It is a set of rigorous research
procedures leading to the emergence of conceptual categories…Grounded theory
can be used with either qualitative or quantitative data” (Grounded Theory
Institute 2013).
Given Glaser’s statement, it makes sense to combine qualitative content analysis and
grounded theory methods in which one method influences the other and vice-versa. Using
this inductive approach to conceptualizing black “saviors,” their codes, categories, and/or
themes are directly drawn from the data to pinpoint the hallmarks of these characters
(content analysis) in an effort to develop a substantive hypothesis or theory that will help
explain the implications of the characters and their supposed use (grounded theory).
Goldkuhl and Cronholm (2010) challenge conventional, inductive grounded
theory methods and argue for 0 (MGT). MGT goes beyond pure
inductivist approaches and adds explicit use of external theories. They say that, “We
claim that theory development should aim at knowledge integration and synthesis. This
means that extant theories can be used actively, aiming at a knowledge synthesis of such
extant theories and new abstractions arrived from the coding of new data” (p.188). I
synthesized existing theory with new data from the coding process to answer my research
questions. To ensure that the study was systematic throughout its various phases of data
collection, coding, and analysis, I employed definite rules and procedures throughout the
63
content analysis process in order to only examine movies that were relevant to the
research questions at hand as I explain in the next section.
According to Charmaz (2006), grounded theory involves studying early data and
beginning to separate, sort, and synthesize data using qualitative coding. This means that
I attach labels to segments of data that describe or depict what the segments of data are
about in order to sort the data and make comparisons to help define concepts that best fit
and interpret the data (Charmaz 2006). I coded the data gathered from content analysis of
audiovisual film content and the content of the scripts for each of those films for themes,
patterns, and concepts corresponding to the theoretical rudiments of the savior trope in
film as outlined in the earlier sections. Film scripts were necessary for analysis because
language was important in the coding process since words, either written on a page or
spoken aloud, reflected character views and values (Charmaz 2006).
,--(&%
Using line-by-line coding, I took the notes I recorded from watching each film
and I transcribed those notes into Microsoft Word first. However, instead of doing line-
by-line coding of the script, I used “line-by-line” coding of the captions in the movie
(when necessary) since I was still capturing the dialogue on screen. After transcribing the
notes, I looked at lines of dialogue for indicators of paternalism such as any hints at a
character’s motive for “helping” others, threats of violence, presentation of these
characters as “saviors” of a race or group of people, any signs of hegemonic masculinity,
how characters offer to help solve problems, and more. I tagged each of the
64
aforementioned phenomena with a specific “code” to briefly describe what I read. The
codes I found across each film are in the table below.
TABLE 1. CODES FOR EACH MOVIE
Abstract Liberalism
Activism
Aggression
Angry Black Woman
Stereotype
Authoritarian parenting
Awareness of inequality
Compassion
Disadvantage
Exceptionalism
Guidance
Hegemonic Masculinity
Humanitarian
Individualism
Inspiration
Intimidation
Leadership
Messianic Masculinity
Moral Superiority
Obligation
Strict
Supportive
Tough Love
Vigilantism
Violence
Women as Victim
These were the codes that I recorded across each film using line-by-line coding of my
notes which included lines of dialogue and character actions. I did not line-by-line code
each line of the script because not every line proved useful to the analysis as many lines
of dialogue did not have any relevance to the themes of paternalism, nor did analyzing
every line help me answer my research questions. The aforementioned coding method,
moved the study toward data “fit” and “relevance,” two of the most important criteria in
grounded theory (Charmaz 2006).
As part of the coding and analysis process, I wrote analytic memos incorporating
the codes from each film in order to keep from having to rewatch the movies more times
than necessary and to ensure that I had enough data about each movie to from which to
create analytic categories. I created these memos by reading through my coded notes and
noted specific initial “archetypes” that seemed to encompass male and female characters
as shown in the table below.
65
TABLE 2. INITIAL CHARACTER ARCHETYPES
Male Savior Female Savior
The father figure The mother figure
The guide The guide
The macho vigilante Strong/Angry Black Woman
The messianic hero The social justice activist
After I developed these initial archetypes, I wrote memos detailing the extent to
which I saw how these archetypes did or did not play out across all of the movies. I
unpacked and detailed the specific components of each archetype in more memos. These
analytic memos focused on a specific “theme” or category that was the most salient in my
analysis of the characters behaviors, language, and motivations. For example, I created
over a dozen different analytic memos (spanning 100 pages in total) that covered abstract
topics such “power,” “violence,” “exceptionalism,” and “masculinity.” I recorded all of
the instances and codes across all of the films that corresponded to these concepts.
Likewise, I had memos for more specific roles like “mother,” “father,” vigilante,” and
“activist,” and I recorded all of the instances and codes across all of the films that
corresponded to these concepts. Creating these memos helped me analyze “trends” and
patterns across multiple films. I adjusted my understanding of the initial archetypes based
on my new memos. Once that content was analyzed, I relied on grounded theory to use
the memos gathered from the content analysis to create conceptual categories about the
potential functions and roles of the black paternalistic character.
After creating memos, I turned them into conceptual categories that eventually
became the “strategies” each of the black characters in the sample used to “save” others. I
66
created these categories by looking at what codes certain characters had in common in an
“active coding” phase. As Charmaz (2006) explains, “Through this active coding, you
interact your data again and again and ask many different questions of them. As a result,
coding may take you into unforeseen areas and new research questions” (p.46). Three of
my memos: “Revolutionary,” “Vigilante,” and “Altruist” were developed into broader
categories for analysis since they were the memos under which each character fit under
given their behaviors and dialogue. Thus, the codes for each of those character’s words
and behaviors also fell under at least one of these categories. This process allowed for a
more robust theory of paternalism in film.
' -
While coding the scripts was originally part of the coding process, it proved to be
unreliable. Upon looking for specific scripts, I found many of them in easily accessible
online databases such as 7, #8 #8, and other similar sites.
Upon downloading the scripts for analysis, I noticed many of the scripts were missing
key pieces of information in the script that would have allowed me to accurately code
them. For example, some scripts such as the script for "parts of the
$"#"and &9 contained the dialogue used in the film but
did not accurately or fully detail who was saying which lines, and did not contain a good
depiction of the events of the plot.
I had to rely on watching each film to collect meaningful and coherent data.
Another issue that arose was that some scripts, like the script for : ;,
contained detailed dialogue and descriptions, but were actually different from the final
67
version of the film that was released in theaters. This change to : ; was
most likely the result of re-shoots, changes during the production of the film, and post-
production edits—all of which are extremely common in the film industry. :
; specifically has scenes that were either edited out or un-filmed, but were left
in the available script I could find. The film’s deviance from the script I had access to
made it difficult to code it and compare it to the final version of the movie used for
analysis.
Essentially, this deviation from the script meant that I abandoned the study’s
original plan to code the scripts separately from the film and I instead looked at them in
tandem. With the aforementioned changes, I coded the # while using the script as a
reference to orient me to specific lines of dialogue if I needed to go back them. Utilizing
the aforementioned coding methods, I could ask: which theoretical categories might these
segments indicate? The coding processes outlined above helped specific codes emerge of
specific from the data that helped me to analyze my findings from these films, which I
detail in the following chapters.
68
CHAPTER IV
THE REVOLUTIONARY
I find that revolutionary characters seek to make large systemic changes to
address racial oppression. What is immediately apparent with these characters, that I call
“revolutionaries,” is how different they are from white savior characters. Revolutionaries
seek revenge and systemic change to address racism. The specific ways in which
revolutionary characters seek to make systemic change is usually through terroristic
violence or non-violent peaceful protest. In addition to their focus on systemic change,
these movies ultimately resemble civil rights films in that they reduce social movements
to eliminate racism and sexism down to the violent or activistic actions of one individual,
one “leader” who knows what is best for others. In other words, movies with these
revolutionary characters are ultimately individualistic narratives.
Both violence and protest manifest as “revolution” in these films because
revolutionaries use violence (if they are men) and protest (if they are women) as tactics to
influence others around them to make specific social changes that drastically improve
black people’s lives. The ways these characters seek to make change reinforce specific
controlling images such as the violent black male or the common “bad black girl” images
that have race and gender dynamics as Collins (2005) describes them. The type of
69
controlling image a character is associated with affords different characters intellectual
and social power depending on their gender.
In this chapter, I will discuss how black men and women revolutionary characters
in my film sample seek to address and eliminate global systems of racial oppression, in
gendered ways, in an effort to achieve systemic changes in the films. First, I lay out how
the revolutionary category breaks down into its two archetypes, messiah and activist, and
their characteristics (See 4%). Second, I provide evidence of my claims for
movies featuring “messiahs” and then movies featuring “activists.” Finally, I synthesize
my findings to provide a discussion of these characters and their implications in regards
to my intersectional theoretical framework.
While black male and female revolutionaries often experience and understand
oppression, they channel their understanding into specific actions for addressing the
oppression they see around them. Both men and women revolutionaries seek to address
and eliminate racial oppression and, in doing so, they seek to liberate themselves and
other black people through direct violence. The ways in which these revolutionary
characters “liberate” others is gendered since men tend to possess more social, political,
and intellectual power to enact change which affords them more agency and efficacy in a
movie’s plot. Revolutionary men are much more violent and extreme than women, thus
men reinforce the controlling image of violent black males. Violence, in the context of
this study, refers to the use of physical force to inflict pain on another individual.
Violence can be expressed symbolically through threats or displays of physical force, and
is framed as a “masculine” tool of resistance and retribution for being mistreated that is
70
often used to directly affect the people around the men who appear to rely on violence to
succeed.
Women revolutionaries tend to lack social, political, and intellectual power and
initially lack agency until someone else, usually a teacher or mentor, gives them the
resources, education, confidence to advocate for change. Another aspect of the
revolutionary character is the strategy of protest, a tool of resistance associated with
women in these movies that admonishes race, class, and gender oppression using rhetoric
and the spectacle of civil rights mobilization. When women do become conscious of
racism, they seem to transform into “angry black woman,” and “bad black girl”
controlling images. The ways in which race, class, and gender intersect within these
characters influences how they seek to liberate others. Given the aforementioned gender
differences, I find that there are two specific character archetypes that fall within this
chapter’s broader theme of “revolution:” the "who engages in war against his
own, or other, governments to bring large revolutionary change; and the "
characters that work to make broad systemic change. Both of these archetypes fall within
gender lines.
1'
In the context of this study, messianic characters generally conform to notions of
messianic masculinity and hegemonic masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005;
Neal 2013). Messianic characters work to save the world or entire groups of people at
once because they appear to be the only people who can act as saviors. They tend to be
very aware of institutional and systemic racial oppression, and they use their resources
71
and violence against governments and government leaders, usually in an effort to coerce
those governments (or officials), to bring about broader institutional changes. Messianic
violence is usually political or terroristic in nature. Messianic characters rarely achieve
change organically—change has to be brought about by force. Messianic characters are
portrayed as military heroes—or people with a military backgrounds—who are
charismatic enough to command a large mass of people like a military general.
These characters tend to be shown as vastly “superior” and exceptional men. The
expressions and variations of hegemonic masculinity in the films are paired with men
who think of themselves as messiahs who promise revolution and salvation from white
supremacy. This messianic bent creates characters who believe themselves to be the only
ones who can save humanity, which justifies their paternalistic behavior. Thus,
masculinity makes these men seem “heroic,” while simultaneously reinforcing patriarchal
ideologies of masculine domination and primacy over women and men who do not meet
certain impossible standards (Neal 2013).
All of the traits of the messianic character are coded as masculine, and messianic
black men are defined, in part, by their physicality and direct implied use of physical
force. Violence is a controlling image of poor black males that is used to demonize them
as lacking civility and middle-class sensibilities. Because these men are portrayed as
preternaturally violent, they are thought to be upsetting to the social order. However, I
find that while violent black males is a stereotype, the messianic black men in my sample
reclaim and use violence as a tool for liberation. Instead of allowing white “oppressors”
72
or “The Man” to use violence to violate them, black men use violence to violate the
oppressor.
1
While messiahs are portrayed as black males who are prone to violence, activists
are portrayed as black women who avoid violence by engaging in protests, policy
proposals, and reforms to bring awareness to racial and gender oppression in their
communities and all over the world. Movies with these women show them protesting
against systemic racism and sexism in an effort which results in the elimination of racism
and sexism in their communities. However, there is an example of one male activist,
which seems to be an outlier in the sample. Like the messianic males, both activist
women and men seek to end systemic racism (and/or sexism). However, since they do not
try to bring change by force or threat of violence, activists tend to fight oppression
academically, intellectually and, for women like Lysistrata in %01, through their
sexuality.
Activists focus their efforts on raising people’s consciousness around racism and,
in doing so, they inspire others to make change as the moral thing to do. Like black male
messiahs, black female activists are also associated with controlling images involving
their physicality. However, instead of being framed as violent, some black women
activists use sex, and forms of traditional protest, to make change. By relying on
sexuality, and the use of sex to manipulate men, black women fall into Collins’ (2005)
concept of the common “bad black girl” stereotype that sums up characters like Lysistrata
in %01. In addition to the “bad black girl” stereotype, non-sexual black female
73
activists tend to reinforce the “angry black woman” and “educated bad black girl”
controlling images that are commonly used to denigrate poor, educated black women as
uncivil (Collins 2005). Activists embody those controlling images, adding an
intersectional focus to how activists behave. Like men, black activist’s use of sex, or
anger, is a way for them to reclaim those tactics to resist their oppression. Subversion
reframes the aforementioned controlling images into “counter-narratives” of black female
empowerment.
The main difference between the and is that messiahs (men) use
violence as a liberation strategy because violence is coded as “masculine” in media, while
activists (women) use sex because it is coded as “feminine” in media. Thus, “revolution”
is carried out in ways that are gendered and classed. Poor black men are masculine,
violent, terrorists; poor black women are feminine, sexual, “bad black girls.” Despite the
difference in their methods and presentations, both activists and messiahs want to achieve
the same goal: liberate black people from racial oppression via (gendered forms of)
political action.
The two character archetypes are not mutually exclusive, since messiahs can
exhibit traits of activists and vice versa. Despite the possibility of overlap, they are
largely separate characters. In the upcoming sections, I will explain the messiah and
activist archetypes in more detail as they appear in the films in the sample. The following
section focuses specifically on the messianic hero revolutionary character as it works in
$, , and #//. I center my analysis on these
74
specific three movies because they contain the clearest examples of revolutionary,
messianic characters.
', '
An example of a violent messianic character comes from the movie
$ (2018) and its main antagonist Erik Killmonger. Killmonger is a mercenary who
has connections to royalty in Wakanda, the fictional African kingdom hidden from
normal view that only Wakandan citizens can enter. After Killmonger’s father was killed
by the former king of Wakanda, Killmonger was left behind in the United States where he
grew up in poverty and developed a grudge against Wakanda for not helping him or other
black people like him. Killmonger spends most of his life training to become king of
Wakanda since he does not think T’Challa, Wakanda’s current king, is effective. Wakanda
is a kingdom that is implied to always have or need a king who is chosen through trials-
by-combat, a display of combat skill that is shown early on to be a violent ritual of
domination. This hints that Wakanda is built on a premise of masculine domination that is
reinforced throughout the film. Killmonger eventually finds an opportunity to challenge
King T’Challa to a trial by combat for the throne. Killmonger kills Ulysses Klaue—a
smuggler who stole Wakanda’s most important resource called “vibranium”—and uses
Klaue’s death to legitimize his claim to the throne. Before his fight with T’Challa,
Killmonger explains that he returned to Wakanda to right the wrongs of racial oppression
that T’Challa and his coterie of vassals and advisors refused to deal with,
Killmonger: “I’m standing in your house serving justice to a man who stole your
vibranium and murdered your people…It’s about two billion people all over the
world that look like us. But their lives are a lot harder. Wakanda has the tools to
liberate them all.”
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Killmonger’s claim that “Wakanda has the tools to liberate them all” reflects his role as a
messianic male and the messianic male’s desire for liberation from global racial
oppression, and he reinforces his desires once he presumably commits regicide by
throwing T’Challa over a waterfall and to his “death” in the trial. Once Killmonger
becomes the king of Wakanda, he immediately dedicates the kingdom’s resources
towards waging war against “oppressors” who subjugate black people all over the world.
He sits before the royal council and tells them he intends to turn Wakanda into an empire
in which African people can never be oppressed again as Killmonger states below,
Killmonger: “You know, where I’m from, when black folks started
revolutions, they never had the firepower or the resources to fight their
oppressors. Where was Wakanda? Hmm? Yeah, that ends today. We got spies
embedded in every nation on Earth…So we’re gonna use their own strategy
against ‘em. We’re gonna send vibranium weapons out to our War Dogs.
They’ll arm oppressed people all over the world so they can finally rise up and
kill those in power. And their children…The sun will never set on the
Wakandan empire.”
Killmonger expresses his to desire to use Wakanda’s government to attack white people
who he says oppress black people all over the world. His desire to kill white people who
have oppressed others is messianic.
Killmonger sees Wakanda’s government as complicit in black oppression, which
drives his crusade to overthrow the government by engaging in the violent rites of
passage that are required of all aspiring Wakandan kings. His belligerence revolves
around violent actions, violent political philosophy, and violent governmental power he
plans to wield against world as king. Violence and bellicosity come to define
Killmonger’s goals. He believes his belligerence is noble because it is aimed at
overthrowing an apathetic government in the name of black power and freedom. I
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consider Killmonger to be “revolutionary” because his actions are in response to black
oppression writ large, and he seeks to eliminate that oppression through the language of
violence that places him within a broader narrative of messianic masculinity.
Commandant in #// also fights against his own government to liberate
himself and other Africans whose lives are ruined by war.
Commandant is the charismatic leader of the NDF, which is made up of black
boys who have been orphaned by the war being waged against their people by the West
African government. Commandant thinks of himself as a revolutionary and a hero, and
his boys look up to him as a father-figure working in their interests. Commandant
promises the boys revenge on the people responsible for killing their families in exchange
for their loyalty. He first offers the boys a chance at revenge when he meets Agu, who
had been captured by Strika, a mute child soldier who serves Commandant. Commandant
approaches Agu, and introduces himself and tells him that the government killed his
family. Commandant asks him if he wants to get revenge on the people who killed his
family. Agu agrees, and Commandant takes Agu under his wing, transforming him into a
child soldier.
To serve in Commandant’s army, Agu and the other prospective soldiers must be
willing to do whatever he asks on the battlefield, or be killed. Commandant feeds them
propaganda about the NDF and tells them that their service in the NDF makes them
“fortified” and “pure.” He encourages them to fight for, and with, him to liberate
themselves and West Africa from their oppressive government, which he explains in this
speech he gives to his “army,”
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Commandant: “We are defending ourselves. We have to get revenge. Huh? We
have been defending ourselves against the killings and rapings of our own people
from the PLF and now from the NRC junta. But it has awakened a sleeping beast.
It has awakened a giant. It has put the weapons of this war back in the hands of
you, the young and, therefore the powerful…”
Commandant’s speech to his soldiers echoes Killmongers desire to “put the weapons
back in the hands of” disadvantaged black people. Both Commandant and Killmonger see
military violence as the most effective means to insure black people are liberated from
oppressive forces. The difference is that while Killmonger pulls the levers of military
power in Wakanda from the top down, Commandant pulls the levers of grassroots power
from the bottom up. By having a more grassroots form of “revolution,” Commandant
commands his soldiers to individually commit acts of terrorism to prove their loyalty to
him and their movement. Later in the film, Commandant encourages his soldiers to raid a
village and kill “all of their enemies,” including men, women, and children as a form of
“justice.” Afterward, Commandant continues to make his soldiers fight for liberation
even when it no longer looks like justice is possible. Commandant’s masculine tendency
to treat military violence as a sensible solution to oppression is prevalent not only in
dramas and action movies, but in comedies like .
Black Dynamite centers on the experiences of Black Dynamite, a former CIA-
agent and Vietnam war veteran who finds himself fighting a global conspiracy to weaken
black men. This conspiracy is designed to further oppress black people, in an effort to
empower “The Man,” a conspiratorial euphemism in this movie for white people who
purposefully use institutional racism to maintain their own power. While
’s violence is more satirical than that seen in $ and #/
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/, the movie still shows Black Dynamite as a character who is willing to engage in
physical and political violence to eliminate the racism affecting black people.
Throughout the movie, we see Black Dynamite investigating who might have
killed his brother in a drug deal. As he gets deeper into his investigation, he comes across
plans and conspiracies more absurd than the last, and he learns about Operation: Code
Kansas, a plan that is supposed to “fix all the niggers” as one person overseeing part of
the operation explains. Operation: Code Kansas is a comically convoluted plan to use
chemicals in Anaconda Malt Liquor to emasculate black men by shrinking their genitalia.
This plan is but one part of a larger conspiracy to keep black men addicted to drugs and
alcohol that will severely weaken them to maintain white supremacy throughout the
United States. Black Dynamite eventually learns that Operation: Code Kansas originated
from the President Richard Nixon. The movie implies that the drugs black people were
being arrested and jailed for were deliberately manufactured by the government to justify
racist policies that were designed to “fix all the niggers” who opposed Nixon.
Black Dynamite infiltrates the White House to stop President Nixon and bring
justice to all black people who have been affected by Anaconda Malt Liquor and the
drugs Nixon and his henchmen manufactured. Black Dynamite and Nixon have a fight to
the death. Black Dynamite wins and they exchange dialogue. After their fight, Black
Dynamite makes Nixon promise that he will use all of his powers as President to “take
care of” black people, indicating that Black Dynamite is ultimately a savior of the black
race as a whole in the U.S. While this scene is meant to be humorous, it does speak
directly to the ways in which macho black males like Black Dynamite seek to dismantle
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racism in the U.S. This scene also reflects a real tendency for black males to be
associated with violence as a tactic for broad systemic change. What all of these
revolutionary men have in common aside from the fixation on liberating black people
through violence, is that the violence is used to get revenge for wrongdoing.
Portraying black males as vengeful and violent reinforces hegemonic masculinity
(Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Tyree 2014). Concerning masculinity and violence,
bell hooks (2003) argues, that violence helps men maintain their dominance over women
and society. Aggression is required for men to gain respect in a society in which black
male violence is a normalized masculine identifier. Tyree (2014) explains that the overuse
of violence is part of the “tough guise,” the mask males put on based on extreme notions
of masculinity, that emphasize brutality, strength, and gaining respect through violence or
the threat of it. This tough guise develops from a destructive and exaggerated masculinity
(called ) that emphasizes domination and force and often develops
among socially marginalized men (Herek 1987; Jewkes et al. 2011). Hypermasculinity in
this case arises from the relationship between hegemonic ideals and some men’s inability
to meet them, indicating that the origins of exaggerated masculinity lie in adversity.
Resulting from this adversity is the use of violence (Bourgois 1996; Jewkes et al. 2011,
2013; Mathews, Jewkes, and Abrahams 2011; Fulu et al. 2013). We see
hypermasculinity, and its causes and effects, play out in these movies, especially in the
displays of violence.
In each of these movies, the messianic male chooses violence as a solution to
most of the problems in the film, and these men are respected for it. Killmonger becomes
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king of Wakanda after violently beating T’Challa almost to death and then asks
Wakandans “Is this your king?” before throwing him over a waterfall—a show of
mocking T’Challa’s weakness and penchant for compassion as king. Commandant’s
command to each of his soldiers is to kill those who get in their way, and Commandant is
respected for his actions and commands because he instigates his soldiers’ anger at the
government with promises of revolution and revenge. Black Dynamite is respected in his
community for being willing to fight “The Man” with exaggerated kung-fu in an effort to
vastly improve black communities all over the nation at a time when the government
purposefully acted to disenfranchise them. These men are respected for their violence by
other men, and they use their violence against women in an effort to physically dominate
them.
Erik Killmonger, Commandant, and Black Dynamite embody messianic
masculinity. They are all political actors, or become them, and the women in these
movies are all marginalized in some way. Killmonger kills his own girlfriend to get to
Wakanda, chokes one of his female attendants when she does not immediately do what he
asks her to, and he fights the female members of his own royal guard to complete his
plans to wage war against white oppressors. Commandant commands his soldiers to rape
and kill women, while also promising that they will be rewarded for their efforts with
beautiful women who will admire them after the war. Black Dynamite portrays women as
sex objects for Black Dynamite as many of the women in the movie fawn over him and
find him attractive. When we are introduced to Black Dynamite, he is shown in bed with
two other women and we see women fawn over him throughout the film. Black Dynamite
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is also willing to fight women who get in his way such as when he fights Richard Nixon’s
wife and slaps her into a china cabinet. Women are objects, and sometimes obstacles, to
these men and they marginalize women while empowering the men around them,
especially when we see Commandant lead his group of male rebels to stop the
government, and Black Dynamite’s work alongside an all-male band of pimps, drug
dealers, and activists to stop the President.
'$""10#3
Historical representations of black men as violent originated in colonial portrayals
of black men as beasts, which were often presented alongside the “noble savage”
caricature and other controlling images. The controlling image of black men as violent
and deviant encapsulates the perception that black men are inherently violent and
criminal (Collins 2005). The perception of black men as inherently violent is usually
associated with black poverty in the media (Collins 2000, 2005). Each of the messianic
characters is presented as “threatening” because of his gratuitous overuse of violence to
achieve their goals, a trait that Collins explains is often associated with the poor. What is
interesting about Killmonger, Commandant, and Black Dynamite is that they adhere to
messianic masculinities but they do not adhere to the class dimensions of the concept as
laid out in Neal’s (2013) work. The aforementioned notions of violence as a mechanism
of the poor is where I begin to see the intersectionality of filmic “revolution” and its
connection to expressions of masculinity.
To exhibit messianic masculinity, a black man is supposed to be one of the
“Talented Tenth” which is implied by his middle-class status and education. However,
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black revolutionary men in my sample are highly educated, nor are they middle or
upper-class. None of them have proper jobs or incomes, which means they are coded as
poor. They do adhere to the messianic notion of “saving the black race” using various
methods of governmental resistance. The concept of class nuances, but does not
completely alter, how black male revolutionaries fight against systemic racism.
In theory, middle-class revolutionaries use their superior knowledge and
education to save the black race, reinforcing the notion of “civility” inherent in messianic
masculinity (Neal 2013). Given my findings from the sample, male revolutionaries seek
change through terrorism and political violence while still fitting within the conceptual
frame of messianic masculinity. Theoretically, “middle-class” messiahs seek to be more
diplomatic in their approach to social change and thus might be more similar to male
activists. In contrast, poor messiahs seek to be more coercive in their approach to social
change. Masculinity is, theoretically, the common denominator between middle-class and
poor revolutionaries, and class influences how that masculinity manifests. Both poor and
upper-class male revolutionaries represent some form of hegemonic, messianic
masculinity that affords them the agency to bring change.
Adding to the theme of masculinity, Collins (2005) explains that masculinity is
heavily associated with “hyper-heterosexuality” in which black males are shown to be
wildly sexual. Each messianic male revolutionary character is heterosexual. Commandant
and Black Dynamite especially reflect the “hyper-heterosexual” nature of black male
controlling images. Commandant explicitly encourages his soldiers to kill for him so they
can be rewarded with adoration and sexual attention from women who will admire them
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as African heroes. Black Dynamite is introduced to the audience as a philanderer who
sleeps with multiple women at a time and is adored by a harem of prostitutes. Killmonger
is briefly shown committing crimes with, but not engaging in or talking about having sex
with his girlfriend, who gets little screen time since she is a minor character in
$. Hyper-heterosexuality is definitely a part of how these revolutionary males
function, and it coincides with other concepts of violence and class to form the
messianism that defines these men.
Despite the fact that these men harken back to classic colonial stereotypes of
black men, the use of violence is reframed into character strengths that allows these black
men to fight for themselves and others to achieve systemic change. This means that even
though the overuse of violence is a stereotype of black males, black men in the sample re-
appropriate violence for their own goals. This means that the use of violence seems to
subvert traditional narratives in which black characters are portrayed as incompetent as a
result of their violent tendencies. In the case of these films, these black men are
competent mostly because of their violent tendencies.
While “revolutionary” men frequently resort to violent, and sexist, methods to
achieve liberation, their actions stand in contrast to women whose actions are less violent,
more civil, and some cases more sexual. In contrast to messianic male characters, black
women tend to resort to to save or rescue others. In contrast to messianic
men, women activist have slightly different goals since their work is focused more on
localized racism in their communities. They achieve those goals through the use of
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protest as demonstrated in the movies %01"$"and&,;
(7
#
%01 centers on the actions of a poor woman, Lysistrata, who is in a
relationship with local rapper Chi-Raq. Chi-Raq raps about gun and gang violence and is
held responsible for encouraging gun violence in his community and he is often criticized
for how his lyrics encourage gang activity. After some encouragement from Ms. Ellen,
Lysistrata decides to find a way to stop the gang violence in Chicago, and around the
world, by starting a sex strike to end male violence perpetuated specifically by black
men.
To start the strike, Lysistrata recruits local women who have been impacted by
gun violence. After convincing the women to join her cause, they go to a local church
where a white pastor, a community leader, talks to them about their ability, and
responsibility, to bring peace to the neighborhood. The pastor tells them they need to do
more than protest and strike locally; he says they need to make institutional changes since
gun violence is largely a systemic racism issue. Lysistrata vows not to perpetuate the
“white man’s murderous bidding for him” and the women come to believe gun violence
is a byproduct of institutional racism. From this point in the film, Lysistrata is framed as a
revolutionary whose job now is not just to save her black community but to save all black
communities around the world—to “save us from us” as the pastor claims. Lysistrata
leads a cadre of black women to take over the Chicago, Illinois National Guard armory to
85
eliminate the supply of guns that is held there. Afterward, the women peacefully protest
and demand justice.
Lysistrata’s movement becomes a global phenomenon with women all around the
world who begin restricting men from accessing their bodies, or their services, until men
agree to end violence. The strike causes the global economy to shut down, triggering a
response from the military—consisting entirely of men—that attempts to find a way to
undermine the strike and send millions of women back to work. Mayor McCloud and
Commissioner Blacks devise a plan to lure the women out of the U.S. National Guard
armory—where they have taken refuge—with seductive music, but first, Commissioner
Blacks tries to reason with Lysistrata one final time in the following scene,
Lysistrata: “Don’t give us no smack. Or we’ll beat you to death with pampers,
Gerbers, and similac.”
Commissioner: “Talk that talk, but you’re going to jail. And don’t even think
about bail. Who do you think you are, Rosa Parks? What a damn farce.”
Lysistrata: “Yo, we in a hurry like a Ferguson or Staten Island jury.”
Commissioner: “Those judgments were fair. Look, y’all, nobody cares.”
Lysistrata: “Trayvon Martin. Mike Brown. Tamir Rice. Walter Scott. Rekia Boyd
and Freddie Gray. Black Lives Matter everyday. Not just when you
trigger-happy cops go astray. Dude, you think sister Sandra Bland hung
herself? You kill us with impunity.”
This exchange shows that the sex strike evolves from merely stopping all forms of black
male violence into a movement meant to stop racism through exposing it and educating
(black) people on how black men’s own actions perpetuate racism and black
disadvantage. The movement becomes critical of hypermasculinity and the patriarchy that
creates suffering all around the world. Lysistrata emphasizes her frustration with
patriarchy in her argument with Ole Duke, the leader of the Knights of Euphrates, a
chauvinistic organization made up of members of a black country club, that managed to
86
sneak into the armory. The Knights are frustrated by the sex strike and demand that
Lysistrata call it off since they see it as a farce. Ole Duke criticizes Lysistrata’s desire to
demonize men because he thinks women are just as flawed. Thus, he believes Lysistrata
to be a hypocrite. After calling Lysistrata an “ungrateful bitch” for constantly defying him
and men all over the world, Lysistrata slaps him in the face and explains why she fights
for justice,
Lysistrata: “This ain’t no joke…Dude, this is about life and death, about a
community that’s a wreck. And you wanna sit here and talk about how
women behave? Fool, we trying to free these slaves…Saving lives, that’s
our job.”
Lysistrata’s desire to use her platform to “free these slaves” and bring awareness to
institutional racism and the patriarchy in an effort to change it makes her activism an
extension of the controlling image of poor and working-class black women in the media
as promiscuous and “too-strong” (Collins 2005).
Throughout %01, Lysistrata is introduced and constantly portrayed in terms of
her sexuality. At the beginning of the movie, she is shown having sex with Chi-Raq after
his concert, she infiltrates and takes over the National Guard armory by seducing
soldiers, and she is the leader of a sex strike. The movie revolves around sex and the use
of sex as a means to stop violence. Lysistrata’s effectiveness as an activist is enhanced by
her sexuality and physical attractiveness, which is an extension of the controlling image
of black women as hyper-sexual and ungrateful for the stability (black) men provide.
Lysistrata’s refusal to bow to men makes her strong, aggressive, and independent.
According to the men in the movie, Lysistrata, and other women, do not deserve rights or
87
“liberation” because of how aggressive they are, and society needs to return to patriarchy
to re-establish the social order.
The desire to return to patriarchy is apparent when Ole Duke, and the Knights of
Euphrates, confront Lysistrata and he refers to her as an “ungrateful bitch.” The use of the
word “bitch” is a term that is lobbed at poor black women who lack middle-class
passivity and submissiveness (Collins 2005). Because Lysistrata and the women she
revolts with are not giving men what they want, men all over the world get frustrated and
come to believe that the oppression women experience is justified because, as Ole Duke
says, women are just as flawed as men. Therefore, Lysistrata focusing her activism on
criticizing men makes her an “ungrateful bitch” in the eyes of men. In this context,
“bitches” must be resisted and silenced, especially if they complain about social injustice.
Ole Duke’s use of the phrase “ungrateful bitch” stigmatizes poor and working-class black
women who lack submissiveness associated with the middle-class—a submissiveness
that benefits men (Collins 2005).
As is the case with messianic characters, Lysistrata is framed using a controlling
image that is used to ridicule and subvert black characters. Characters like Black
Dynamite and Lysistrata, for example, are portrayed as unruly and upsetting to the social
order because they openly defy the status quo. The difference between the
aforementioned characters, however, is that men make change through violence, and
women make change through protest and sex. Collins (2005) mentions that the “bitch,”
also called the “bad black girl” trope, takes control of her situation by manipulating her
sexuality for her own gain. The reclamation of sex as a tool of liberation in %01
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subverts the controlling image of the poor, hyper-sexual, and wild. While the “bitch,” or
“bad black girl,” archetype plays out in %01, Sam White, in the movie
$, represents the “angry black woman” stereotype that also has elements of the “bad
black girl” archetype.
Sam White is a student activist who protests racist housing policy at Winchester
University that segregates students into dorms by race. Specifically, Sam criticizes the
university for its segregationist housing policies that the school administration claims is
actually random. Sam sees these racist policies as a way to encourage a form of apartheid
at the university to eliminate the school’s “blackness” in an effort to support white
supremacy, and she seeks to “bring black back to Winchester.” Her campus radio show,
“Dear White People” is Sam’s primary platform to criticize and explain racial and gender
inequalities to students.
Early in the movie, we see posters around the university reading “Missing Black
Culture. Sam White to Bring it Back.” To “bring black back” to the university, Sam runs
to be leader of the Armstrong-Parker dorms to oversee their housing policies and make
changes she and other black students want to see. The dorms are overseen by Troy
Fairbanks, a professional Obama-esque black male student, who seeks to maintain his
position by not challenging the racial status quo at the university. She gives a speech in
an auditorium to make her case for why she should be house leader after her rival Troy,
who says he should be leader of Armstrong-Parker because of his previous and
“exemplary” work as house leader,
Sam: “Troy, my brother, it’s broke. Troy’s a legacy kid. And yet it’s under his
watch that Armstrong-Parker, the bastion of Black culture here, was
89
gutted. By the Randomization of Housing Act, second years of color no
longer have a say in where they go...”
After giving her speech for why she should be house president, she wins and her friends
pressure her to start using her position to protest and make real changes in the university.
Sam’s friends, Sungmi and Reggie want Sam to hold a rally on campus. Sam eventually
backs off of her hardcore revolutionary position after experiencing an identity crisis.
After taking some time for self-care, Sam’s final gambit against racism on the
campus is to send invites to white students to a blackface party to then expose how many
racist students exist on campus. She likens herself to anarchists who did the work to get
black people civil rights. Lysistrata and Sam’s actions are distinctly “anti-hegemony” and
anti-racist and in many ways represent the opposite of what paternalistic men seek to
represent: domination. Sam’s activism in this movie is colored by a different controlling
image than Lysistrata’s activism in %01. Lysistrata was more representative of the
“bad black girl” image that allowed her to take a revolutionary stance using her sexuality
and desire for autonomy as a black woman as a catalyst for systemic change. Sam,
however, is not nearly as sexual, and notions of gender are more implicit with her
character than Lysistrata’s. However, gender is still present in the “angry black woman”
image that Sam represents.
The trope of the angry black woman is about a black woman “acting up” and
showing disregard for civility and decorum by expressing anger at sexism, racism, and
whatever other social issue she is passionate about. Angry black women are typically
lower-middle class, disagreeably, loud, and have chaotic impulses (Harris-Perry 2014;
Judd 2019). Just as the “bad black girl” is an extension of the Jezebel, the angry black
90
woman is an extension of the Sapphire who is also always angry. The Sapphire trope is
designed to prevent women for speaking out against social injustice by stigmatizing them
as perpetually angry and aggressive in an attempt to center their rage instead of their
feelings (Jones and Norwood 2017). More insidiously, this trope is a distortion and
negation of black women’s knowledge. Throughout $, Sam expresses
her anger at white people through her radio show “Dear White People.” She is criticized
for constantly browbeating white people, and she is mocked as a “wannabe Black
Panther.” She is also met with resistance from other black people like Troy and Coco,
who think Sam is irrational, petty, and arrogant because she “boycotts hot combs” and
thinks of herself as an “expert” on all things black.
Sam’s anger is largely perceived as unproductive, unoriginal, and condescending.
Like the “bad black girl” controlling image, Sam is maligned because she is “uncivil” and
upsets the middle to upper-middle class sensibilities of the people at the school. Sam’s
anger is anathema to what the school is supposed to represent: culture, sophistication, and
a semblance of whiteness. However, unlike the traditional angry black woman, whose
anger is used to denigrate and belittle her, Sam’s anger is channeled into activist praxis
throughout the movie. Sam claims that her radio show and anger is “counter-cultural,” at
least in relation to the campus, because she problematizes the omnipresence of racism
and sexism in the everyday lives of black students. Sam eventually realizes that her anger
is her way of overcompensating for a perceived lack of “blackness” within herself since
she is bi-racial.
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Additionally, Sam’s anger did not help her to achieve anything on campus; it
made her an unproductive laughing stock. This is present in a short scene where Lionel, a
black student, tells Sam that there is a blackface party happening at the university long
after she had decided to stop being an activist. She tells Lionel, “I’m done being
everybody’s angry black chick,” and later embraces her role as a revolutionary anarchist
instead. Sam being transformed by her anger into a more effective activist seems to be an
extension of the angry black woman controlling image. Anger, when analyzed from a
black feminist lens, is a “ritual of knowing” and self-discovery that can lead to activism
(Collins 2005; Judd 2019). According to Collins (2000), anger leads to a woman’s ability
to create self-definitions that foster action. Sam’s transformation indicates that her
existence as an “angry black chick” was a moment of self-discovery that led to a more
effective form of activism. The angry black woman stereotype is present in other movies
about anti-racism like in the movie &,;(where we watch Starr Carter who
has to find her voice to stand up for her friend who was shot down by a cop.
Throughout the movie, Starr gets advice from her father, Maverick “Mav” Carter
about how to speak out against police violence. Mav’s role in this film is similar to Ms.
Ellen’s role in %01. Ms. Ellen was an intellectual and academic well-read of black
revolutionary thought. Likewise, Mav is also framed as well-versed in the Black
Panther’s Ten Point Program, a set of guidelines to the Black Panther Party that states
their ideals and ways of operation (Anderson 2012). Point seven in the guidelines, which
is referenced multiple times in the film, references the Black Panther Party’s denunciation
of police brutality and murder of black people.
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Mav raised Starr and her siblings to have the Ten Point Program memorized so
they can apply it to their everyday lives. By teaching his kids how to apply the Ten Point
Program, he begins to encourage Starr to speak out against Khalil’s murder, and he tells
her, “You know, not everybody got superpowers like you. Shine your light. I ain’t name
you Starr by accident.” Starr is unsure of how she should speak out or if she should reveal
that was the witness to Khalil’s murder. She eventually gets advice from April Ofrah, a
local activist, community leader, and civil rights lawyer. Starr begins to challenge the
racism around her more as she morphs into an activist. One scene with her white
boyfriend, Chris, acts as the beginning of Starr’s transformation into an activist who
wants to fight for her people after Chris makes an insensitive remark about police
brutality,
Starr Carter: “Have you ever seen somebody die?…Well, I have twice now.
That’s why my parents put me and my brothers in Williamson. To protect us. And
now, it’s like I have to hide who I am every single day…I turned my back on all
of my people. Do you even know what that’s like?”
Starr’s desire not to “turn her back on” her people is similar to Lysistrata’s desire to help
save black people “from themselves” and the effects of systemic racism in her
community. From this scene forward, Starr takes a much more active role in speaking out
against police brutality. As tensions between police and activists intensify in her
neighborhood, Starr decides to become the activist she believes she has to be in order to
bring justice for Khalil’s murder and to stand up for black people everywhere. During the
“Justice for Khalil” protest, Starr takes a megaphone and decides to make a statement to
the raucous crowd,
Starr Carter: “My name is Starr! And I’m the one who saw what happened to
Khalil! I am the witness! But so are you all! We are all witnesses to this
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injustice! We see it all, and we will not stop until the world sees it too! We
will not stop protesting!”
At the end of the movie, Starr decides to continue protesting for Khalil after she helped
bring some peace to her community through her activism, citing her newfound
“superpower” as her main motivation to keep going,
Starr Carter: “Khalil. I found out that name means something, too. Friend. I’ll
never forget. I’ll never be quiet. I can’t change where I come from, or
what I’ve been through, so why be ashamed of what makes me me? And
I’m going to keep on being Starr…Daddy says my name gives me my own
superpower, to use it. And that’s what I’m going to do. Light up the
darkness.”
Starr’s journey into her role as an activist against injustice parallels the journey of
other activist women like Lysistrata and Sam because Starr evolves from a typical “angry
black woman” character into an anti-racist activist. As is the case with Lysistrata and
Sam, Starr’s anger at the injustices of police brutality leads her on a journey of self-
discovery and transforms her into an advocate for change. Starr does not start the movie
as an activist, she has to become one. Similar to Starr going to her father, Lysistrata goes
to stay with Ms. Ellen who then gives her knowledge on activism using leaders like
Malcolm X as examples. Sam does not necessarily go to a person for advice, but it is
implied that she is even more motivated to fight to “bring black back to Winchester” after
she watches a news story about the eruption of a “race war” at another university.
Lysistrata, Sam, and Starr all experience inciting incidents that get them into more
aggressive activism against racism—Lysistrata sees the effects of gun violence on her
community, Sam sees a news story, and Starr witnesses Khalil’s death.
Women only seem to advocate for justice when other people and/or events raise
their consciousness around racism. Because of they seem to need some kind of support,
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black women revolutionaries are only “black saviors” through the support of others, as
compared to black men revolutionaries who do not need as much support. Black female
characters are less likely to be portrayed as having enough power and/or confidence to
play an activist role from the get go. Thus, they have to rely on others to develop their
confidence. This tendency for women to lack confidence and resources to be activists is a
common trope in media. Women’s activism tends to be invisible because black women
often lack social, political, and intellectual power. Scholars find that women’s visibility
increases through avenues of political participation outside traditional electoral forms.
Thus women’s activism often takes the form of non-institutional participation and private
activism (Holman 2016). In other words, women’s activism tends to take place in
communities and churches. Men have more ability to interact directly with institutions of
power.
Lysistrata starts a sex strike in her community to bring awareness to how gun
violence is bolstered by white supremacy and patriarchy; Sam runs a radio show on her
campus that is designed to subvert people’s assumptions about race and racism to “bring
black back” to Winchester; and Starr speaks out against police brutality during local
protest. Meanwhile, men like Killmonger do not do any community activism and go
straight to the top to make social change. Black Dynamite does work a little with his
community in his effort to stop Nixon, but he ultimately makes the most social change by
attacking the U.S. government directly. Commandant works with local orphaned boys to
fight back against the government. However, Comamndant’s work is not really
“activism,” in the same way as female activists; it is paramilitary, terrorist action. Each of
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the aforementioned events highlight Holman’s (2006) explanation of women’s activism.
The aforementioned events also highlight a difference between male messiahs and female
activists. Men seek hegemony through military domination and violence, while women
seek to intellectualize hegemony. Masculinity is the source of male power, and
intelligence is the source of women’s power, connecting their actions to Patricia Hill
Collins’s & (2000).
According to Collins, black feminist thought demonstrates black women’s
emerging power as agents of of knowledge and how that knowledge translates to
activism; she refers to this knowledge as Afrocentric knowledge. Afrocentric feminist
thought speaks to the importance that knowledge plays in empowering oppressed people.
A key feature of Afrocentric thought is the insistence that social and political change
emerge from people’s consciousness being raised. In other words, new knowledge is
important for change. Most of the actions female paternalists take is influenced by their
knowledge of the oppression around them. Lysistrata realizes violence in black
communities is systemic and it inspires her to make change and it inspires others to make
change. Sam realizes that the university is segregating students and it inspires her to
make change. Both women are encouraging the people around them to do as Audre Lorde
and Toni Cade Bambara suggest, and locate and dislodge the piece of the oppressor that
exists within each of us (Collins 2000).
Lysistrata, Sam, and Starr embody black feminism that emphasizes growth and
self-discovery through anger, which leads to their pursuit of education, which leads to
their evolution into activists. Their embodiment of black feminism is much different from
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Killmonger, Commandant, and Black Dynamite’s messianism. Those three men do not
go through a journey of self-discovery the way women do, since they seem to naturally
possess the ability to more directly initiate change through violence. Black men represent
a form of change rooted in destruction of others, while women represent a form of change
rooted in the construction of themselves who then reach out to others.
Because movies about activists seem to focus more on feminist knowledge and
mobilization, they are distinctly non-violent. By advocating for their positions, black
women can get their voices heard in situations where their voices would not have been
heard otherwise. Men, however, do not have the same struggle to be heard as women
since revolutionary men are more likely to start movies off as staunch crusaders who do
not always need a mass movement to achieve their goals or get taken seriously; men just
need to strategically use or threaten violence to get massive social change. However,
there is some evidence that males, when they are occupying the activist role, can act
similarly to women activists in that they also do not engage in violence and also
intellectualize oppression, but not necessarily from a black feminist perspective.
However, outside of biographical films, there is only one film in the sample—167
-".—that portrays a male as an activist.
&'$
This one activist male character is different from the women because he is more
socially and professionally powerful than movies featuring female activists characters.
His “activism” is contingent upon his lawyer background and education. In 167
-"" Roman is fired from his job working in his partners’s office and taking his
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cases after it is evident that his partner will not be able to return to lawyering after having
a heart attack. Roman is laid off and goes to find a job outside of criminal court, since he
doesn’t think criminal court is effective at bringing justice. He gets a job interview at a
new firm where he meets Maya, to whom he explains his desire to work as a civil rights
lawyer again,
Roman: “…I’m talking about igniting a sustained mass movement, supported by
rule change and injunctive relief. And I could get results using class-action
tactics. I’m talking about a return to using activist litigation creatively,
defensively, counter-offensively…Now, I’m offering at this time to work
exclusively as your…revolutionary, in-house, full-time, paid advocate.”
Roman initiates his desire to be an activist and, unlike women, his expertise gives him
power to negotiate his position and demand that his activism be tied to his career
advancement. Women’s activism is tied to their identities as women since, if they do not
act, their lives, or the health of their communities, could be in danger. Roman’s activism,
at this point in the film, is not to protect his own life, but merely to empower others
through his profession by eliminating the structural barriers that hinder people’s ability to
be heard in court.
Lysistrata and Sam White do not possess formal jobs and they cannot, and do not,
make overtures to institutions in the same way Roman can and does. Lysistrata starts her
activism with local women, and she networks with a local pastor—she does not go to a
professional organization that can directly implement or fight for policy change.
Likewise, Sam networks with students and she does not ever go directly to the principal
or any other organization at her university that can directly implement change because it
is implied that she lacks the resources to do so and must rely on grassroots organizing to
affect change. This seems to be because they lack jobs or any meaningful social status
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that grants them various forms of knowledge and power. Because women lack knowledge
at the beginning, they have to seek out mentors and teachers who can educate them on
racism and inspire them to become activists. Roman does not need this same education
because he starts the movie with all the knowledge he needs, and a job that allows him to
more effectively utilize his knowledge.
Roman can maneuver around Los Angeles and directly impact policy, and this
difference between men and women activists indicates that men have more social,
political, and intellectual power than women who often lack those forms of power and
have to build their sources of power from the ground up. Lysistrata and Sam have to
march and protest in the hopes that higher-ups create policy to address their concerns.
Roman, however, is already in a position where he can create a policy reform, and
advocate for it, in the hopes that it affects people who are worse off than he is as he
explains in a scene with his new business partner and boss, Pierce,
Roman: “…Inside this case is arguably the most important legal brief in modern
legal history. A sweeping federal challenge that could yield nothing less than
a grand, new era of social reform. And I say that with all due competence. The
Constitution guarantees us a right to a fair trial but there can’t be fairness if
ninety-five percent of cases never get heard.”
Roman’s monologue shows that he wants to reform the entire criminal justice system. He
also mentions that the case he wants to bring up in court is one for a legend, or someone
who wants to be one. Towards the end of the film, Roman inspires Pierce to fight for
legal reform. Roman is assassinated and Pierce takes up Roman’s case.
167-"<display of activism reveals a dichotomy when compared to
movies with women activists. Roman wants to be an activist against unfair litigation
standards and trial laws that deter average people from bringing their cases to court. He
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specifically works to eliminate inequality that is implied—not explicitly stated—to
greatly affect black males in the legal system since the movie shows Roman working
exclusively with young black males. Roman is an educated career professional, which
affords him much more agency than women activists, who up to now have been shown to
be relatively limited in their ability to help others through their careers because they
careers or professional degrees. They are poor and lacking mechanisms of
upward social mobility. Roman has access to the mechanisms of mobility which in turn
gives him more agency than women. Thus, the main difference between men and women
activists seems to be agency, and Roman’s agency comes from his profession, whereas
Lysistrata’s, Sam’s, and Starr’s agency comes from developing knowledge of oppression
and converting it into social movements. Therefore, male activists are presented as
inherently more powerful and politically active than women since men are as
revolutionaries and activists.
&1%0/
To summarize my points in this chapter, “revolutionary” characters desire to
engage with and bring about massive social changes. For revolutionary “black saviors,”
defeating oppressive racism, sexism, and classism at all levels of society (systemic,
institutional, and interpersonal) is an imperative for black survival and justice. As their
names imply, “revolutionaries,” seek as their main priority. These characters
are portrayed as “urban,” generally poor or low-income black men and women, and seek
to make broad social changes to confront institutionalized and systemic racial and sexual
oppression, usually through the use of physical violence, terrorism, and/or activism.
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Through the use of violence, anger, and aggression, the revolutionary character
perpetuates pre-existing controlling images of black people as violent, angry, hostile
“agitators.” The image of violent black characters is especially pronounced with black
male revolutionaries, who seem to be the most likely to engage in extreme physical
violence, or the threat of violence, to make social change. Men engaging in extreme
violence is a racial, and masculine, stereotype that is commonly associated with (poor)
black men. However, the violent black men in the sample are often depicted as “noble” or
“heroic” through their use of violence, so the violence is generally depicted as a form of
“empowerment”—meaning that violence is the only way revolutionary male characters
can get what they want from who they want—despite the fact that black male violence is
frequently used as a justification to oppress black males.
On the other hand, women seem to be less likely to use overt physical violence
and are typically presented as non-violent and “angry” activists who are more likely to
protest, march, and strike for social change. This anger connects black women
revolutionaries to the “angry black woman” controlling image that marginalizes black
women. However, I believe that the anger these women express is a way for these women
to find the motivation to fight for social change. In other words, anger is a catalyst for
change in movies with female revolutionaries. Like black male violence, black female
“anger” is depicted as a form of “empowerment” despite how the portrayal of black
women as “angry” is used to mock and marginalize them. Regardless of the violence and
anger the characters express, that violence and anger is aimed at dismantling the systems
of racial oppression.
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Movies with revolutionary characters also provide images of hope that oppression
will change. Therefore, the revolutionary seeks justice, and revenge in some cases,
instead of racial reconciliation the way white saviors do. Movies with revolutionary
“black savior” characters present three broad ideas:
1. that black people struggle from or are victims of intersectional racial, gender, and
class oppression;
2. that racism is mostly, and will continue to be, perpetuated by white people against
vulnerable people;
3. and the belief that black people must demand justice for oppression through either
direct violence against whites and other “oppressors”, or policy reform.
Movies with revolutionary characters are much more pessimistic about the nature of
racism and “race relations” in the United States. However, the portrayal of black people
as racially conscious is necessary for combating colorblindness. According to Bonilla-
Silva (2017), “…the black masses must be as racially conscious as the leaders of the new
movement” to make changes to the racial order (p.213). With Bonilla-Silva’s discussion
in mind, I believe revolutionary characters are “educators,” and the movies they are in
function as “educational tools.” Thus, the purpose revolutionary characters serves seem
to be to bring awareness of racism, and the tools and forms of resistance against the
inimical effects of institutional racism and colorblindness, that continue to harm black
people in the real world.
By existing as educational tools, movies with revolutionary characters also seem
to be social commentary on racism, sexism, and classism and how those problems can be
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solved in the United States. Thus, movies featuring “black savior” revolutionary
characters, as I have discussed them up to this point, provide counter-narratives to white
savior films that depict people of color as wholly dependent on merciful white people by
showing them as able to defend and fight for themselves without help from white people.
In terms of race theory, counter-storytelling is also a tool that contradicts racist depictions
and narratives in order to reveal how white privilege operates to reinforce and support
unequal race relations. Counter-narratives give a voice to the oppressed and facilitate
sociopolitical cohesion, survival, and resistance among marginalized groups, creating
new discourses that have typically been ignored (Delgado and Stefancic 2000).
Following the aforementioned definition of counter-narratives, I theorize that
movies about black revolutionaries are also counter-narratives to controlling images, that
have been used to denigrate black people, by reframing violence, and black male rage, as
a tool of resistance against white supremacy instead of black male rage’s typical use as a
tool that white people can use to demonize black men. Likewise, the “bad black girl” and
“angry black woman” controlling images I discussed in this chapter have been re-
imagined as forms of self-discovery and activism, a la Collins’ & "
which allows black women to define and use their anger and sexuality as a form of
resistance against white supremacist patriarchy.
With the black revolutionary’s focus on raising audience’s consciousnesses about
racism and social justice, one would think that movies like %01 and &,;(
or $ would catch people’s attention and be very popular films because
of how big of a topic racism was during the Obama era (Izzo 2015; Sanchez-Escalonilla
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et al 2016). However, films about revolution did not make a lot of money at the time of
their release. According box office earnings of movies in the sample, movies with black
revolutionaries made $7.54 million dollars on average, which is very low compared to
movies with vigilantes and altruistic characters. I use box office gross averages because
box office profits are the only way for me to subjectively gauge the “impact” and/or
“visibility” of all of these films during the Obama era. The average box office earnings
for movies with revolutionary characters indicates to me that movies with revolutionary
characters and messages were not extremely popular in comparison to movies with
vigilante and altruist characters. Despite their seeming unpopluarity, these films do seem
to empower blackness by connecting it to notions of strength and self-determination ,
which are embodied by , putting these movies in line with civil rights cinema.
As mentioned in the 1"civil rights cinema reduces the complexity
of the movement down to the actions of a few individuals fighting one aspect of
oppression, the movies in the sample also reduce the broader efficacy of the movement
down to specific men and women fighting for justice. This implies that while these types
of movies reference institutional and systemic oppression, only specific individuals are
“exceptional” enough to deal with them. In other words, movies with revolutionaries
represent a type of individualistic narrative, despite how the movies revolve around
systemic racial problems. This is not to suggest that it is odd to find a movie focusing on
characters, as all movies do, but the focus on individuals who are destined to solve broad
problems that are typically beyond any one person in movies about fighting for systemic
reform is a curious pattern.
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Killmonger wanting to “liberate” black people from oppressors all over the world
should be beyond his capabilities, even as a king, because oppression is a very broad
socio-political and historical concept. Black Dynamite fighting “The Man” is something
that should be beyond him because “The Man” is a broad, abstract concept of white
supremacists conspiring to hold black people down via the military-prison-media-
industrial complex. Likewise, Lysistrata fighting patriarchy with a sex strike is equally
absurd, along with Roman J. Israel’s desire to solve most or all of the issues in criminal
litigation and trial law with a single case. However, despite how big the problems are,
these characters solve them because they are exceptional and thus more capable of
saving others. Because they are exceptional, these characters are “mascots” for revolution
within which the collective anger of all black people is projected and summed up.
The summation of an entire group’s desire for change, and anger at those who
prevent that change, affords the revolutionary character a sort of messianic power that
justifies their desire and ability to save all black people because they are, in effect,
! reduced down to one person seeking change. This puts these characters in
the same category as activists in civil rights film in which entire historical moments are
reduced down to the actions of one person who comes to represent the entirety of the
black struggle in a particular moment (Monteith 2003). This reduction individualizes the
historical moment, which means that these movies featuring a revolutionary character
could actually be using oppression as a backdrop for an allegory about what (poor)
can do to solve the problem of oppression as opposed to how oppression can
be solved via broad policy or systemic change.
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Movies with revolutionaries reinforce an individualistic ideology of social change
that seems to care more about counseling black audiences to rely on themselves. These
movies emphasize self-definition, self-determination, and changing oneself to make
problems disappear. In the case of revolutionaries, “changing oneself” requires a person
to take violent action if you are a man, or define yourself and grow into a protester if you
are a woman. Following this logic, if black people each took personal responsibility for
changing ourselves, social problems in the United States would vanish because we would
each be doing our part to bring change. It is interesting to apply my logic to %01 that
has a focus on fighting patriarchy and racism, but a subtheme of the movie is individual
responsibility. The entire film revolves around Lysistrata’s frustration with black men
who refuse to take responsibility for their actions and stop perpetuating gun violence in
black communities. The rapper Chi-Raq speaks the last line of the movie as he is being
arrested for his crimes. Chi-Raq confesses to murdering a child and he lets the authorities
take him away, “What y'all looking at? Time for you to do the same. Take the blame.
Take the claim. Take it on the chin and confess your sins…” Chi-Raq’s final monologue
is a call to action for black people to take responsibility for their actions and for their own
gun violence; he’s calling for black people to make better choices in order to truly change
black communities. The notion of individualism comes from Chi-Raq telling people to
“take the blame” and “take it on the chin and confess your sins.” The ultimate message of
Chi-Raq is that, at the end of the day, the onus for eliminating gun violence is on black
people just like how it was on Lysistrata to start a sex strike. In fact, Lysistrata’s sex
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strike ends with Lysistrata and Chi-Raq agreeing that gun violence should stop and with
Lysistrata, and her community, telling Chi-Raq to turn himself in.
The “revolution” led to a moment of clarity for Chi-Raq where he tells others to
take responsibility for themselves as he decides to take responsibility for his crimes. This
focus on individualism reinforces the neo-liberal notion of “taking responsibility” found
in movies with vigilantes and altruists that also emphasize individualism and, to some
extent, meritocracy as I explain in upcoming chapters. Ironically, the seek to
eliminate systemic problems, but the around those characters reinforces
individualism. In other words, text and subtext do not match in this regard. Systemic
change is front and center, but underneath it lies notions of individualism because the
individuals who seek systemic change are somehow exceptional and perceived as the
only ones who can bring change.
These revolutionary individuals are thus deemed “exceptional” and possess
powers (that vary between men and women) that allow them to fight oppression by
themselves because they are an amalgamation of the collective desires and actions of
black people who seek change. They are portrayals of black people that are universalized
and generalized to fit a particular narrative of how black people respond to oppression
and how change is achieved via the individual skills and abilities of the generalized
character. When we see characters like Starr in “The Hate U Give” talking about using
her “superpower” to speak up and bring change, we can see that the movie sets her up as
somehow exceptional compared to most other people around her. When we see Roman J.
Israel impress Pierce and his colleagues with his high intellect, photographic memory,
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savant-like obsession with, and attention to, detail and a strong sense of justice, we can
see a movie that wants its audience to think of Roman as fully capable of “saving the
day” because he is so different compared to everyone else. Because of their exceptional
nature, other characters should strive to be like them, hence the hegemonic nature of the
characters. Let’s take a scene from %01 for example where Lysistrata is being
described by the movie’s narrator, Dolemedes, as a superwoman capable of fighting the
patriarchy,
“Now, I told you about the signifying Monkey and rapped about shine, but this
here tales of two cities is one of a kind. It all started with a gorgeous Nubian
sister. Baby so fine, she made George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson wanna kiss
her. As tough as Coffy and sexy as Foxy Brown. Hell, Beyonce Knowles herself
even had to bow down. They call her Lysistrata, a woman like no other...She
could put fear in a pit bull, made Bruce Lee flee, knocked out Frazier and Ali,
then ran Money Mayweather up a sycamore tree. With a mind like Einstein and a
truly luscious behind…”
Lysistrata is described here as almost superhuman and sensual at the same time, which
reinforces controlling images of black women as hyper-sexual and, as seen in Lysistrata’s
character arc, as “angry black women” who use their sexuality to their advantage. She is
portrayed here as a woman with the power to “save the day” because she is a combination
of all of the most desirable and idealized traits of a strong black superwoman by
expressing that she has “a mind like Einstein” “a truly luscious behind.” The
description thus reinforces Lysistrata’s adherence to stereotypical expressions of
femininity.
Moreover, the narratives of the films featuring revolutionary characters are often
complemented by hegemonic gender ideologies that place the “revolutionaries” in
positions of power and/or leadership. The revolutionary character’s paternalistic
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expressions of power reinforces hegemonic and/or messianic masculinities if the
paternalist is male, and the “angry black woman” controlling image if the paternalist is
female. This means males are more likely to seek to rescue others through domination,
violence, and rage. Women are likely to intellectualize and/or engage in protest against
oppression, and women do not seek to save others through domination. In each of these
movies, revolutionaries acknowledge broader institutional oppression, and they generally
seek to defeat individuals who perpetuate that oppression. A focus on individualism is
prevalent in vigilante films, which add to this theme of individualism.
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CHAPTER V
VIGILANTE HEROES
Like revolutionaries from the previous chapter, I find that vigilante movies rely on
the motifs of revenge and violence to make broad systemic changes. The difference,
however, is that the methods and strategies vigilantes use to achieve those changes are
different from revolutionaries. Vigilantes use violence to directly confront specific
individuals instead of institutions. As a result of those confrontations, it is implied that
vigilantes make institutional and/or systemic change such as police reform,
and/or eliminating or reducing racism. Vigilantes also use violence to rescue specific
people such as girlfriends, wives, children, or other loved ones from criminals, as
opposed to large groups of people. While revolutionary messiahs and activists engage in
terrorism or protest to combat racism and sexism, vigilantes carefully plan, strategize,
hunt down, and murder racists and sexists who have wronged them. Regardless of the
methods the revolutionary and vigilante seek to make, narratives surrounding both
characters maintain the idea that specific exalted individuals can “save the day” to
eliminate racism, sexism, and forms of corruption.
In this chapter, I analyze how vigilante characters “save the day” by fighting
against local criminals. I begin this analysis by exploring the actions of three vigilante
males and one vigilante female vigilante across five movies from the sample (See
4). I follow that discussion with a look at masculine vigilantism and vigilante
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femininity that come to define these characters and how these concepts play out in the
films. Finally, I end this discussion of the vigilante with a discussion of the implications
of this character, and its connection to intersectional literature.
Unlike revolutionary characters, vigilantes do not subdivide into smaller more
nuanced archetypes like the “messiah” or the “activist.” Instead, the “vigilante” archetype
found in the sample encapsulates the entirety of filmic vigilantism, and this chapter will
examine how black vigilantes in film operate. While there are not any archetypal
distinctions I notice, there are gender differences between men and women vigilantes.
First, men adhere to masculine vigilantism, while the only vigilante female, Mary,
adheres to vigilante feminism.
'3
Male vigilantes represent a masculinized form of vigilantism that seems to be a
confluence of hegemonic masculinity and violent controlling imagery, in which men
operate outside the bounds of the law by utilizing extreme violence to get revenge. By
adhering to this type of vigilantism, vigilantes are angry, violent, hyper-masculine, and
tough on crime. Male vigilantes lash out at individuals in society because they are
frustrated by the failures of society. Films featuring vigilante black men present us with
men who are both frustrated with and emasculated by the white power structure, so they
circumvent it by operating outside the bounds of the law for the purpose of correcting the
issues of police corruption and racism.
In the sample, there are more movies featuring black male vigilantes than black
females, with there being only one movie in this study that comes close to having a
proper vigilante woman as its main character. This shows that vigilantism is primarily a
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masculine strategy employed in worlds that revolve around the lives of men. Women are,
more often than not, excluded from these stories. When women are included, they are
girlfriends, wives, or damsels in need of a hero. The fact that women are portrayed as
weak or submissive side characters and love interests implies that women in vigilante
movies are subordinate to men. This means men are expected to rescue women and they
look more heroic doing it.
Heroism is masculinized through physical violence which, as I explained in the
previous chapter, perpetuates a controlling image of black males. A hallmark of
vigilantism is that it arises from community insecurity that is brought about by the rise of
criminal kingpins, pimps, drug dealers, corrupt police officers, and other “bad apples”
who upset the social order and need to be eliminated. It is also implied that vigilantes are
necessary in the neighborhoods depicted in the films because local law enforcement is
ineffective or corrupt, meaning that community safeguards do not properly function or
exist. By getting of rid of society’s “bad apples,” vigilantes aim to make society fairer
and just for vulnerable people. Thus, vigilante men ultimately have the power to make
society better for others.
The trials and tribulations that men go through in vigilante movies are wrought
with hypermasculine indicators such as: men being the only people with the ability to
save their local communities, exceptional “superhuman” skill, and the use of women and
children as objects or trophies for men to save. The aforementioned indicators make
vigilantes extensions of messianic male characters. The vigilante male is an
amalgamation of masculine tropes and signifiers that contrast it with the vigilante female,
which leads me to the second gender difference I find in the study: the lone female
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vigilante in the study, Mary from $', uses violence to fight against her own
domination by other men. This contrasts her with her male counterparts since she does
not have the power to fight against broader problems like sexism, for example. Mary’s
efforts in her film represent vigilante femininity, which I discuss in more detail later on
when I discuss $' in more depth.
The differences laid out above show that vigilante narratives in the sample are
also intersectional entities. While black male vigilantes are shown saving women and
children to shore up their image as masculine heroes, the lone woman vigilante is
portrayed more as a character longing to be a mother who also saves a child, shoring up
her image as a black matriarch. Vigilantes, both male and female, fight to help specific
people, usually loved ones who are threatened by local kingpins and evildoers. The
remainder of this chapter will explore just how vigilante characters “take matters into
their own hands” and what implications their actions might hold in the movies :
;, &9" and $'. These are the movies most useful from the
sample in an analysis of the vigilante trope.
'3 .# 3!
Vigilantes work to defend people who cannot defend themselves. However, how a
vigilante defends the weak is gendered. This section focuses on how male characters,
Django and Robert McCall, use their superior skills to help others. Specifically this
section focuses on the aforementioned characters’ extensive use of violence as tools to
avenge themselves and others. Django’s vigilantism in : ; develops
through his interactions with a white bounty hunter named Christophe Schultz, a German
dentist-turned-bounty hunter, and Django a slave whom Schultz purchases from Ace
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Speck (before killing him) because of Django’s knowledge of Schultz’s targets. Schultz
offers Django his freedom in exchange for Django’s cooperation with him to find and kill
wanted slave masters. After realizing that Django is naturally skilled with a gun and
decides to train Django to a bounty hunter after learning that he is trying to rescue his
enslaved wife, Broomhilda.
Schultz and Django leave together after killing Ace Speck, and they rest at an
empty saloon. Schultz tells Django about his job as a dentist-turned-bounty hunter. It is
implied that Schultz’s role as a bounty hunter means that he operates outside of the law to
hunt down and kill slave masters. Django wants to know more about what “bounties” are
and how he can get involved,
Django: “What’s a bounty?…You kill people and they give you a reward?…Bad
people?”
Dr. Schultz: “Ah! Badder they are, bigger the reward…”
Django immediately takes interest in learning to become a bounty hunter to kill “bad
people” for a reward. Schultz and Django’s first bounty takes them to the Bennett
plantation in search of the Brittle Brothers. While Schultz goes into the mansion to make
a deal with the owner of the mansion, Django waits outside, as he is not allowed into the
mansion because of his skin color. Django speaks to Betina, one of the slaves on the
plantation, and asks her for information on the Brittle Brothers. Django takes out his
spyglass and points in the direction of a figure out in a cotton field and sees Ellis Brittle.
Betina tells him how to reach Ellis Brittle and Django pursues him. We are shown a
flashback of John Brittle tormenting Django and preparing to whip his wife. Django
offered to receive the whipping instead, but John Brittle takes joy in whipping
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Broomhilda. Django begs John Brittle to stop whipping his wife, and John Brittle says to
him “I like the way you beg, boy” and continues the whipping.
Returning from the flashback, Ellis is about to whip a slave and Django
approaches him, “John Brittle!” John Brittle slowly turns and faces Django. “You
remember me?” Django asks, extending his arm as if he is going to shake his hand. Dr.
Schultz’s derringer arm contraption hidden in his sleeve places a tiny gun into his hand
and he fires a bullet into Big John’s heart. “I like the way you die, boy.” John Brittle
looks up in shock and then dies. Little Raj reaches to get his gun but he fumbles and
drops it to the ground, Django picks up John Brittle’s whip and begins whipping Little
Raj across the face and chest, all the other slaves gather behind and watch. Django whips
him to the ground and then throws the whip away, he picks up John Brittle’s gun and
faces the others slaves watching him. He shoots Little Raj, emptying the gun. Schultz
comes out of the mansion, after hearing the commotion, and kills the final brother, Ellis.
Django killing John and Roger “Little Raj” Brittle is purely vengeful and
malicious, but it is presented as heroic and noble since Django was the victim of violence
himself. This scene is the first of many “eye for an eye” scenarios that begin to make
clear that vigilante films revel in violence as a form of cathartic revenge and power
fantasy. The bloodlust for revenge against specific oppressors highlights Django’s
transformation into a vigilante. Django’s vigilantism is emphasized further in a later
scene as he and Schultz talk at a campfire about freeing Broomhilda from her
enslavement.
As Django and Schultz eat dinner, Schultz tells Django the myth of Brunhilde,
daughter of Odin, who is saved from imprisonment by a fearless hero,
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Schultz: “It’s a German legend, there’s always going to be a mountain in there
somewhere. And her father puts a fire-breathing dragon there to guard the
mountain, and he surrounds her in a circle of hellfire. And there Brunhilde
shall remain unless a hero arises brave enough to save her.”
Django: “Does a fella arise?”
Schultz: “Yes, Django, as a matter of fact he does. A fella named Siegfried.”
At a later point in the scene, Schultz finally decides to formally train Django to be a
bounty hunter who works alongside Schultz, as opposed to simply working as his valet.
After this scene, we are supposed to view the remainder of Django’s journey through the
lens of a Germanic fairytale, and Django’s experience with racism and racial violence.
Django becomes an example of black heroism in spite of the systems of oppression
operating against him. After he hears the fairytale, Django’s masculinity trumps race as
he is framed as a man whose job it is to rescue a woman. In other words, gender becomes
normative.
Django becomes superheroic, and his vigilantism is only enhanced by his new
chivalrous edge that allows him to save the “princess.” Thus, Django’s image as a hero is
(re)generated through violence and revenge, and his character falls into the conventions
of a male vigilante. For : ; the macho mythos created by the movie
affords Django autonomy, authority, and power through the romanticization of violent
revenge against slave masters (Fierce 2015:51). Django’s autonomy and agency as a
vigilante is legitimated by the Germanic fairytale of Brunhilde and Siegfried. The movie
continues to demonstrate Django’s vigilantism when he escapes the LeQuint Dicky
mining company to rescue his wife. As he makes his way to Candyland, John Legend’s
“Who Did That to You” plays. The lyrics in the song speak directly to Django’s role as a
vigilante bent on revenge and vengeance against the slave master who owns his wife.
Specifically, the song has this line, “I'm a vigilante, my love's defender...” This line
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directly frames Django as a vigilante male. He is positioned as his “love’s defender,”
which uplifts his adherence to masculine vigilantism through making him the hero who
saves the damsel, his wife, from bad people. Towards the end of the movie, we see that
the way he plans to rescue his wife is through violent revenge. He makes his way back to
Candyland where he gets revenge in one last scene where he kills the inhabitants of
Candyland plantation.
Django finally shoots Stephen, a black slave who fully supported his slave
master’s mistreatment of Broomhilda and thousands of other slaves, in the knee caps and
then reveals that he rigged the house with dynamite so it would explode as he left.
Django and Broomhilda leave together. By the end of the movie, Django is a free man.
The larger issue of chattel slavery and white supremacy are not fully eliminated.
However, it is implied that Django will continue to be a bounty hunter who kills slave
owners, meaning that Django will continue to use micro-level actions of defending
vulnerable slaves and killing slaves masters to fight macro-level systemic racism.
Defending the vulnerable is a motif in &9 series where the main
character, Robert McCall, is less a mythical bounty hunter like Django, and more of a
violent mercenary. McCall’s foray into vigilantism happens when he decides to help Teri,
a local prostitute who goes by the name “Alina,” who bonds with him over her desire to
become a singer. McCall finds out that Teri is “owned” by a Slavic sex trafficker named
Slavi. Slavi abuses Teri and allows other men to horribly mistreat her. McCall goes to
Teri’s rescue after Slavi flippantly gives him a business card in case he ever wants to see
Teri again. McCall tracks Slavi down using the business card and bargains for Teri’s
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freedom without ever contacting the authorities. McCall offers Slavi $9800 for Alina’s
freedom,
Slavi: “You want to give me $9000?”
McCall: “Ninety-eight hundred. Cash.”
Slavi: “For what?”
McCall: “Her freedom.”
Up until this point in the movie, “Alina” has been presented as beleaguered and
defenseless. She feels like she is trapped and cannot be herself, and it is implied that her
job as a prostitute is what makes it hard for her. After Slavi takes her away from McCall,
she is brutally beaten and hospitalized. McCall goes to purchase her freedom so she does
not have to be a prostitute any longer. This is McCall’s version of “rescuing the
princess,”as mentioned in Django’s story, by getting revenge on Teri’s white male captor.
In other words, rescuing a woman helps emphasize McCall’s “tough guy” image. Alina, a
woman, is “weak” and defenseless, but McCall is “strong” and powerful because of his
masculinity and courage—both of which Alina supposedly lacks. Thus, rescuing Alina
makes McCall more “heroic” because the woman he is avenging is vulnerable. McCall is
not vulnerable because he is not a woman being sexually exploited. He is a “tough guy”
whose actions place him within the conceptual frame of hegemonic masculinity.
As the scene continues, Slavi rejects the payment and McCall decides to use
violence. He goes to check outside the door to the room to make sure no one is around.
He sees no one outside and locks the door behind him. McCall focuses om Slavi and all
the men in the room with their weapons, presumably analyzing how he will kill or injure
them. McCall quietly starts counting to himself and beats up Slavi’s men and kills all of
them with their own weapons. McCall finally shoots Slavi in the neck and he quickly
bleeds out as McCall stands over him. In this instance, McCall’s masculinity
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becomes vigilantism when he decides to murder Slavi and his men, which
happens outside the confines of the law.
McCall’s violence is so extreme and efficient that it makes him seem superhuman
and he is framed, from Slavi’s murder to the end of the movie, as exceptional just as
Django is perceived as “exceptional” because of his affinity for creative displays of
violence. As is the case with : ;, &9 comes across like a black
power fantasy that, once again, paints a black man as completely independent, efficient,
and self-sufficient. He uses his independence to get revenge on a white man who
wronged him, which emerges as a theme across both movies presented thus far. McCall’s
fight against criminal white men continues in the film.
After killing Slavi, McCall takes a more active role in his community to help
people in need like his friend Ralphie whose mother is being harassed by two white cops
who extort money from her restaurant. McCall encounter the cops and encourages them
to return the money or he will expose their corruption. When they refuse, he beats them
up. As he does so, he says that they should represent justice, yet they have abandoned
their responsibilities as officers, “You’re supposed to stand for something, punk. Protect
and serve. Uphold the law. Justice. Remember?” Afterwards, the cops return the money
to Ralphie’s mom. The reason McCall has to “take matters into his own hands” is because
of corrupt officers refusing to do their job of maintaining security in society. Confronting
the cops and meeting “violence with violence” seems to be a hallmark of masculine
vigilantism. The movie concludes by showing McCall in a restaurant posting an ad on a
website entitled “Odds Against You? Nowhere to Turn?” This ad is not fully shown on
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camera, but it is implied that he offers his services to anyone in need, evidenced by the
response he receives reading, “I’m in trouble. Can you help?” McCall responds “Yes.”
McCall embraces his role as a local vigilante, and his heroism continues into &
9* where he hunts down and murders more corrupt cops to save people. In &
9*, McCall follows the same themes of defending those who cannot defend
themselves, such as when he confronts a Turkish man on a train to make him release his
daughter by to her mother. There is also a scene where McCall avenges a white woman
who is implied to have been raped by a bunch of young white businessmen in a hotel
room. &92 does not provide anything new to McCall’s character or the
vigilante theme that &9 does not present, but &9* does continue to
emphasize McCall’s role as a local hero looking out for the little guy. Likewise, I find
many of the same themes of rescuing and helping women and the vulnerable in
in which he does favors for and helps local women like the prostitute
Honeybee whose money was stolen from her by a hustler named Nipsy for example.
Each of these characters’ actions are direct and specific, aimed squarely at “bad people”
who hurt defenseless people, and the world is indirectly made better once those bad
people are eliminated.
3 '""#3
What is most emphasized for these vigilante male characters are the stereotypes
affixed to them. First, the characters are hyper-violent. So, regardless of how they save
people, they are still violent and angry killers who are to be feared to an extent. Despite
their heroism, black men are always “threatening” in these movies. Second, the vigilante
males in the sample are presented as urban and “ghettoized,” except for Django who is a
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slave without a clear background. By situating these men as “ghetto,” these movies not
only center the experiences of men, but the notion that black men are dangerous
(Guerrero 1995; Brown 2008; Tyree 2014). Black vigilantes want to change the world,
starting with their communities. However, to “change the world,” they operate at the
micro-level by targeting individuals and I believe this is because violence is all they have
access to. They cannot assault political leaders or overthrow political systems like
revolutionaries because they lack power and access. Vigilantes can, however, assault cops
and pimps, kill them, and “improve” society in that way. Django kills slave masters and
Robert McCall kills corrupt, racist cops, Russian thugs, a thief, and a Slavic sex
trafficker. To summarize: vigilante males typically make “better” worlds by fighting
racist white men who make daily life worse for people. Swift, direct, violence is the
strategy these characters use to eliminate racists. The traits outlined thus far connect
black vigilantes to black superheroes.
Black superheroes are also pigeonholed into violent roles and identities, meaning
that the link between vigilante men to superheroism is evident, especially since so many
of these movies feel like power fantasies. The reason I describe them as “power
fantasies” is that they show black men ignoring the rules to assert their power and
authority over others with impunity. This sort of agency is often afforded to white men in
film. If vigilante black men are met with a challenge, they can rebuff their challengers by
killing them. Therefore, I return to my earlier claim that most vigilante movies in the
study are black male power fantasies that use violence as a man’s strategy employed in a
man’s world in which only have power, and women are either marginalized or
absent. Thus, vigilante movies center (hegemonic) masculinities. Masculinity in these
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films is generated to grant black men as much freedom and autonomy as possible,
creating an idyllic image of black males as: the hyper-masculine, muscular, competent
warrior as opposed to the incompetent, scrawny “wimp” (Tyree 2014).
By portraying black males in such an idyllic, hegemonic way, these movies also
subtly reinforce heterosexuality—since the men only have affection for and avenge
women—and this is shown in movies like where Black Dynamite is
shown early to be a Casanova who sleeps with multiple women. The black vigilante
male’s body is a site of hyper-masculinity and hyper-efficient physicality which, when
these two concepts combine, create a theoretical “black superhero” (Coogan and O’Neil
2006;Tyree 2014). This is not to say that the vigilante and superhero characters are
exactly the same, but there is a lot of overlap. They are similar in terms of their
performance of masculinity and violence for the sake of making society “better” for
people in need. Alongside vigilante men are vigilante females who use violence as well,
but it is used to fight individual sexists (not sexism) instead of racism as seen in $
'.
&3 .3!
$'=the only movie in the sample with a vigilante woman—features
Mary, an assassin, who kills her target Marcus Miller in his apartment. After she kills
Marcus, she sneaks around his home and realizes that Marcus has a son, Danny, who does
not hear the assassination because he is playing video-games with his headphones on.
Mary feels guilty and quietly leaves the apartment instead of killing him since she does
not target children. Mary spends a year monitoring Danny on the streets. After his
father’s death, Danny lives on his own and works for a drug dealer who calls himself
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Uncle. Danny delivers money to Uncle, who notices some of the money is missing. When
Danny tells him he used some of the money to get food, Uncle beats him and threatens to
cut off his hand if Danny steals from him again.
The beating leaves Danny with a concussion and he rests on a park bench.
Someone steals his bag, and Danny chases him and retrieves his bag. The concussion
causes Danny to pass out on the street where Mary finds and rescues him. She takes him
to her apartment and decides to start taking care of him due to the guilt she feels after
taking his father’s life. Danny wakes up in Mary’s apartment and looks for his bag with
Uncle’s drugs in it. He tells her he needs to get to Back Bay to give Uncle his drugs.
Mary tries to feed him while she subtly interrogates him about his relationship with Uncle
because she wants to help him. She finds out Uncle abused Danny and she drives off in
her car to confront Uncle. Mary returns Danny’s drug supply to Uncle and tells him that
Danny is done dealing drugs. Uncle mocks her and they argue over Danny,
Uncle: “Danny belongs to me.”
Mary: “Danny belongs to no one.”
Uncle calls his men and Mary beats them up. Uncle pulls a gun on her and Mary kills him
in self-defense. As Mary and Danny escape the scene, Danny asks what she just did to
Uncle. She admits to Danny that killing Uncle was a mistake, but she did it for him. Mary
killing Uncle for Danny’s freedom mirrors McCall fighting Slavi for Alina’s freedom,
and fighting the Turkish man on the train for a child’s freedom; and Django fighting the
residents of Candyland plantation for his wife’s freedom.
They return to Mary’s apartment and she takes care of him and treats him well.
However, once word gets out that Uncle is dead, his death sparks a turf war. Mary is
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called to a meeting with her “family,” Benny (her black “father” and boss), Walter (a
white assassin), and Tom (Mary’s black ex-boyfriend) who are all members of an
assassination ring. Before she leaves for the meeting, she tells Danny not to go into her
room (that is where she hides her guns and disguises). The next day, Danny suspects that
she killed Uncle and is impressed. Danny tells Mary his story about how his own mother
abandoned him and, after his father died, his grandmother took care of him before she
died. He ran away from Child Services and was brought to Uncle to work as a drug
runner. The next day, Mary goes after her next target, Walter, whom her boss Benny
assigned her to kill as a way to prevent the turf war. As she heads out to kill Walter, she
reminds Danny not to go into her room. While she is gone, Danny goes into her room and
finds her various weapons and disguises she uses in her assassinations. When Mary
returns, she notices Danny went into her room and she scolds him,
Mary: “The next time I tell you to do something, you better listen.” She moves
closer to him and putting her finger in his face. “Do you understand me?”
Danny: “Yeah, whatever, man.”
Mary: “Don’t ‘whatever’ me.” She grabs him by his shirt.
Danny: “What are you gonna do, huh? If you gonna hit me, just do it.” Mary
apologizes for being so aggressive with him.
What is interesting here is that Mary apologizes for her aggression. Male vigilantes do
not ever feel the need to apologize for their aggression, which points to a gender
difference. Mary has to be careful and more thoughtful because she is acting as a mother-
figure for Danny. This means Mary has to ultimately be aggressive and violent than
her male counterparts.
Later on in the movie, Mary takes Danny to go shopping for a nice suit to wear to
Benny’s wife’s birthday party. She tells him to get rid of the hoodie he usually wears.
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Danny and Mary continue bonding and arguing the way a mother and child might argue
at a store indicated in the following dialogue about getting Danny a new jacket,
Danny: “I don’t wanna put on the damn jacket.”
Mary: “Watch your mouth.”
Mary is being built up to be a mother with these lines as she upbraids him for talking
back to her. Danny asks her who is going to the event she’s taking him to. She tells him
it’s Benny, Tom’s father,
Mary: “Benny’s Tom’s father and he used to take care of me when I was a kid.”
Danny: “Take care of you like you take care of me?”
Mary: “Kind of...”
Danny: “Kind of how?”
Mary: “When I was a kid…I ran away. And I was living on the streets for a
while.”
Danny: “Like me?”
Mary: “Yep just like you.”
What I find interesting about these lines is that Mary experienced the same traumatic
experiences Danny experienced before she saved him. Mary acting as Danny’s caretaker
is all to keep him from going through any of the abuse and insecurity she experienced
growing up. Vigilante feminism is rooted in protecting others from the trauma vigilante
women experienced. Mary keeping Danny from living on the streets the way she did
speaks to this particular element of vigilante feminism, and is generally not a facet of
masculine vigilantism. Mary’s desire to leave the business is expanded upon when she
tells Tom that she wants to give up her life as a vigilante to raise Danny.
After the party, Mary talks to Tom privately, as they work together on a hit job,
and she tells him that she wants to move on with her life, but Tom tells her than Benny
will not let her leave—no one leaves the business once they are in it. Tom informs her
that Benny basically owns her, and Benny feels entitled to that ownership because he
raised her from a young age. During their mission, Mary is shot and she makes it home in
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time to keep herself from dying. Danny sees Mary lying on her bed weak and almost
dead from the gunshot. He plots to find Benny and require him to set her free because he
knows that she got shot doing a mission on Benny’s orders. Eventually, Danny finds
Benny in his office and threatens him with a gun. Danny demands that Benny let Mary go
so she can be who she wants to be, paralleling how she attacked Uncle for Danny. Danny
manages to take Danny’s gun from him and threatens to shoot him with it. Mary comes in
to rescue Danny. Mary begs Benny to let her go but Benny refuses. She shoots him in the
heart and escapes with Danny. Tom learns of his father’s death and he kidnaps Danny
after one of his henchmen tells him that Danny killed Benny.
Mary gets in her car and goes to save Danny from Tom. We get a big action scene
set to Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary” as Mary kills Tom’s men by running them over with
her car and shooting them. Mary makes her way through a warehouse and kills several of
Tom’s men. She finds Danny strapped to a chair and gagged. Mary helps him by talking
off his restraints as Tom approaches them,
Mary: “Tom, I’m leaving out of here, and I’m taking the kid.”
Tom: “I can’t let that happen.” Mary tells Danny to get up and run to safety.
Mary: “I’m walking out of here, I’m gonna find Danny and I’m leaving...”
Tom: “News flash, Mary: you ain’t the mothering type.”
She kicks the chair Danny was restrained in at him. Tom shoots at her and misses, and
Mary shoots him in the chest. She stands over him and says, “News flash, asshole: I am
the mothering type,” and shoots him in the head. Mary’s last bullet in the movie was
reserved for this line. This implies to me that the bullet was a metaphorical “period” at
the end of a sentence that I sum up as: ' "0
9"##! !7This
sentence makes Mary’s vigilante feminism more apparent. While motherhood is not a
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requirement for vigilante feminism, it is part of a larger feminist project in $' in
which Mary turns to vigilantism to fight against the men in her life. In Mary’s case, these
men are keeping her from being the woman she wants to be, therefore she has to fight
them herself. What is noticeable is that she does not fight sexism or patriarchy the way
men seem to fight racism. Men have the power to fight larger systems of oppression, but
Mary only manages to fight for herself, indicating a gendered power difference between
Mary and the men in the study. Mary’s actions, including the scale of her actions, are
encapsulated in the concept of vigilante femininity as I explain in the next section.
'"2.3 %
-
Vigilante femininity is a form of feminism that performs “as an outlaw, working
outside the boundaries of feminist praxis that is rooted in peace and the eradication of
systems of power and dominance…” (D’Amore 2017: 390). Simply put, vigilante
femininity refers to the performance of vigilantism by girls and women who protect
others, and themselves, against physical or sexual violence and trauma. Mary’s vigilante
feminism is a combination of her feminine power with characteristics traditionally
associated with masculinity, such as violence and revenge, in order to attain a sense of
empowerment (Graham-Bertolini 2011). Mary’s femininity is militarized and she uses
violence outside the bounds of the law. Due to its over-reliance on violence, vigilante
feminism does not dismantle patriarchy but it reappropriates masculine tactics for
feminine ends (D’Amore 2011). Thus, Mary’s vigilantism uses violence as a form of
individual empowerment and rebellion against the men in her life. Mary does not
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dismantle patriarchy, she appropriates it and uses it to gain agency and control over her
choices.
Vigilante feminism represents a type of feminist power fantasy that rebels against
patriarchal men and sexist dominance over female bodies. By fighting sexists, vigilante
feminism reflects themes of the “angry black woman” controlling image, like the activist
characters in the previous chapter. Specifically, this genus of the angry black woman
stereotype is more reflective of how the trope was used in blaxploitation films in which
angry black women were like black male superhero counterparts. Angry black women in
blaxploitation were physically attractive, and aggressive rebels, who were willing to use
their sexuality and guns to get revenge on corrupt officials, drug dealers, and violent
criminals. While black men were often targets for their rebellion, their anger was not
focused solely, or primarily, at black men. Rather, it was focused at injustice and the
perpetuators of injustice. Due to the vigilante female’s connection to controlling images,
the vigilante female archetype is intersectional because it is imbued with class and gender
ideologies that inform the way Mary operates against evildoers.
The intersectionality of Mary’s character comes from the fact that she acts as a
mother for Danny. Since she is not Danny’s biological mother, she is what Patricia Hill
Collins (2000) would call an “othermother.” Othermothers care for children the way
biological mothers do. “Care” in this case is essentially adopting a child and/or guiding
him. Mary saves Danny after he passes out in an alleyway and she immediately “adopts”
him as her own by the end of the movie. Adopting Danny in this way serves the purpose
of helping the vulnerable in her community since Danny is a poor, powerless drug dealer
for Uncle. In addition to helping someone in need, Mary chooses to raise Danny which
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seems to be empowering for her as she is willing to define herself by the end of the movie
as “the mothering type” before killing a man who tells her otherwise. By acting as an
othermother, Mary discovers who and what she wants to be and that self-definition helps
her fight the sexist men in her life.
Another intersectional aspect of Mary’s character is how she exemplifies a
“female outlaw” which has some connections to the “angry black woman” controlling
image. The first peculiarity, aside from the fact that Mary is a sensitive leading woman in
a subgenre dominated by stoic and belligerent men, is that Mary is mysteriously
preoccupied with being an othermother in this movie. My interpretation of Mary’s desire
to be a mother-figure for Danny is that $' simply reflects a pattern of female
subordination in vigilante action movies where women are subjugated and manipulated
by men. Mary’s subjugation as a woman triggers her motherly instincts, and it shows in
her narrative arc with Danny. While this is my interpretation, there is some discussion of
vigilante feminism that shows that Mary’s behaviors are not just the result of creative
freedom. Her behaviors subtly reinforce other narratives that have defined vigilante
females in other media. It is important to understand what her behaviors, and motivations,
are before I can connect them to literature.
As is the case with vigilante men, Mary is an urbanized black woman who relies
on violence to achieve her goals. She is portrayed as violent, like men, and is thus
“masculinized” since violence is often framed as a masculine trait. Because she is
masculine, she adheres to similar controlling images that men fall into. Namely, because
she is presented as poor, the only avenue for change, and thus the only power she really
has throughout the movie, is violence. Recall that the association between poverty and
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violence is an age-old controlling image that is used to negatively frame black people as
uncivilized and belligerent, necessitating disciplinary, political, and police intervention.
This is even more pronounced in vigilante movies where black people work outside the
bounds of the law.
Despite using violence to help herself and Danny, she is still violent at the end of
the film, and she relies upon violence throughout the film, which connects her character
to negative imagery of black men and women that has been used to justify their
oppression. A difference between Mary and other male vigilantes is that she is not
portrayed as a “superhero” character the way men are. She comes across as an “angry
black woman” with a gun who defends Danny. I think this is because $' does
not focus on Mary’s skills the way vigilante male movies do. The movie instead focuses
on Mary’s desire to take care of a child. So, Mary’s character is less “superhero” and
more “aspiring mom” that presents a gendered contrast between her and her male
counterparts.
What is interesting about how Mary’s character is established, compared to male
heroes, is that she is not helping Danny because she has some strong sense of justice. She
helps him because she feels bad about leaving Danny alone with no father. As a woman,
Mary is made to feel bad about her actions in a way that men are not. Male vigilantes do
not feel bad about their actions and are often mindlessly violent. They are allowed to be
violent and destructive, and there is often not much consequence for their violent
tendencies. Their mindlessness is what enhances their ethos as heroes because it makes
them look efficient, strong, masculine, and “moral.” For Mary, however, violence is not
“heroic;” violence is largely immoral outside of instances where she defends Danny from
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the men who try to hurt him. There are some instances in the film where Mary indicates
that she does not truly enjoy her job but she is not allowed to leave, as Tom implies. Thus
she is trapped in a cycle of violence. Despite murder being a job requirement, Mary is not
allowed to be violent in the same way as her male counterparts. Her violence has to be
purposive, thoughtful, and consequential lest she end up hurting the wrong people like
Danny or even herself.
Moreover, Mary’s use of violence is not a byproduct of her own agency. She
works for Benny and Tom who, throughout the movie, tell her who to kill at different
times and when she can and cannot leave her “job” as a hitman. The only time she has
any agency of her own is when she is acting as a matriarch for Danny. She chooses how
and when she takes care of him, she gives him orders like not to go in her closet, to stay
at home while she goes out, and to watch his language. She tells him what to wear, and
she decides that she wants to take care of him. When she is not surrounded by her male
bosses, she makes choices.
Mary’s preoccupation with some form of motherhood might be a way for her to
liberate herself from the trappings of patriarchy that control. Being a mother is what gives
her control over her life because she believes herself to be, or she wants to be, “the
mothering type.” $' is a narrative about Mary liberating herself and Danny
from the men who control her by telling her who she is, such as when Benny refuses to
let her leave the “family,” and when Tom tells her she is not “the mothering type.” Mary
gets to define herself by the end of the film by killing off the men around her, and her
character arc is one of oppressed femininity violently clashing with oppressive
masculinity. Mary’s story is is similar to how Lysistrata operates in %01, for example,
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when she speaks out and protests against toxic masculinity and its harmful effects on
black women’s lives.
The main difference between Mary and male vigilantes is that Mary is more
concerned with emancipation from, and revenge against, specific agents of patriarchy. In
movies featuring black male vigilantes, patriarchy is normative, invisible, and unspoken.
In $', patriarchy is not explicitly named, but it is implied and it does more
directly influence Mary by limiting the actions she is allowed to take. Mary’s arc is about
rebelling against the limitations placed upon her by patriarchal actors Tom and Benny.
Mary embodies vigilante femininity because of how she employs physical violence to try
and get out of her life as an assassin—a life she was implied to have been forced into
when Benny found her living on the street.
Recall that vigilante femininity is defined by women rebelling against patriarchy
through the use of physical violence. The type of violence her character embraces is
and violence—hallmarks of the vigilante male. As I mentioned in this chapter’s
introduction, vigilante feminism combines femininity with masculinity for feminist ends.
The “feminine end” in $' seems to be liberating Mary from the toxic men in her
life, and guns seem to be the mechanism through which liberation is achieved. Mary’s use
of a gun in the movie empowers her because, like the men she associates with, she can
threaten and kill others with impunity. What is interesting about showing a woman being
as violent as Mary is that her vigilante femininity is not portrayed as powerful or effective
enough to defeat or completely dismantle patriarchy. She uses violence simply to achieve
her goal of preserving both her and Danny’s lives—again, liberation is the endgame.
$' is thus a black feminist power fantasy in which a black woman rebels against
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(black) men by employing their own violence against them, as a form of revenge, and as
a way to seek restitution for all of the time she lost serving their needs at the expense of
her own.
Returning to an earlier discussion of Mary’s connection to controlling images,
Mary’s expression of vigilante feminism is masculine but not very “superheroic” like the
males she is emulating. Mary’s vigilantism reflects themes of the “angry black woman”
controlling image, like the activist characters in the previous chapter. Specifically, this
genus of the angry black woman stereotype is more reflective of how the trope was used
in blaxploitation films in which angry black women were like black male superhero
counterparts. Angry black women characters in blaxploitation were physically attractive
and aggressive rebels who used their bodies, brains, and guns to get revenge on various
“bad guys” for harming them and their loved ones.What is interesting about angry black
women, as I explained in the previous chapter, is that they focus their anger at black men
who perpetuate injustice. Mary reflects this controlling image more implicitly than
characters like Sam White in $, for example. Despite how underplayed
Mary’s “anger” is in the movie, she laments the ways her life has been hobbled by men
and the requirements of her job.
What separates Mary’s expression of anger from Sam White’s for example is that
Sam came across to others as irrational and petty with her constant criticism of racism on
her campus. Mary’s anger is expressed through gun violence that allows her to exist as a
leading lady who symbolizes vengeance rather than subservience like the “mammy”
character that black women are constantly associated with. Because Mary represents a
character that is oppositional to stereotypical depictions of black females who are
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subservient to men, Mary’s use of a gun to fight off men suggests a subtle, and maybe
more figurative, “call to arms” to other women who have fleeting but expressed doubts
about what they are doing with their lives and how easily they do them.
Mary changes her life only by acting as a type of “angry black woman” with a
gun who is fed up with men telling her what to do. So, she deals with those men the way
they deal with her: through physical violence. Femininity is militarized to rebel against
sexist men. Therefore, Mary’s expression of anger is not “revolutionary” in the same way
Sam White or Starr Carter’s anger is because she is not directly advocating for systemic
change. Mary’s story is more personal and, thus, more individualistic than revolutionary
women, and vigilante men who want broad social changes. Mary exemplifies this
individualistic take on women’s progress in a patriarchal system. She does not fight
against patriarchy, but she instead fights individual men who embody it. This implies that
she lacks the power to even make systemic changes the way men do because men
unencumbered sexism and patriarchy that Mary deals with. Mary’s oppression reduces
her power to indirectly make broad systemic changes because she is so busy trying to
gain agency in her life which is taken away from her by men. Men have agency and use it
to their advantage.
-3 ,
Vigilantes and are typically “urban,” poor or low-income character that relies on
extreme displays of violence to kill corrupt cops, racists, drug dealers, sex traffickers,
hustlers, and other types of criminals. Interestingly, movies with vigilante characters
made much more money on average compared to revolutionary characters, with an
average box office gross of $166 million dollars. This indicates that violent vigilante
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movies are much more “visible” compared to movies with violent revolutionary
characters.
Movies with vigilante characters imply that killing “bad” people improves
communities since society’s “bad apples” have been eliminated. Compared to
revolutionaries, vigilantes want to transform their communities and they do it by
confronting individuals who are portrayed as having ruined said communities. So, instead
of revolution and large-scale political reform, vigilantes want community # that
does not change people’s lives all over the world, but it does bring justice to people in
city’s or neighborhoods for more localized forms of change. And, in making these social
changes, vigilantes restore social order, normalcy, and community safety. In other words,
vigilante characters are a combination of revolutionary and altruistic character traits
given the vigilante’s emphasis on individual actions to make indirect institutional
changes. What vigilante movies imply is that social reform comes more from eliminating
“bad” people. By eliminating “bad” people, society improves. So, vigilante movies offer
slightly different methods for achieving social change when compared to revolutionary
characters.
Since vigilante characters “save” their communities indirectly (while directly
targeting corrupt institutional actors), it is easier for vigilante movies to focus on
individualistic solutions to various problems. In other words, racism and patriarchy are
treated as if they are something identifiable, isolated, and surmountable, by the individual
vigilante, rather than larger systemic, ideological, and persistent problems. For example,
in The Equalizer, McCall sends out his online ad for his services that reads “Odds
Against You? Nowhere to Turn?” and replies to a person who wants his help. Along the
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lines of his ad, McCall offers his assistance throughout the movie, and he confronts a few
different corrupt police officers and local criminals. Despite McCall assisting people who
need help throughout the movie, by the end of the movie, institutional corruption for
example, is never directly dealt with. The individuals who engage in corruption, however,
dealt with, and social change is a consequence of their elimination.
One outstanding example of McCall’s insistence on individualistic justice is when
he confronts the two corrupt white cops who harass Ralphie’s mom. As McCall beats the
cops, he says “You’re supposed to stand for something, punk. Protect and serve. Uphold
the law.” Beating up the cops is a vengeful power-fantasy that speaks to McCall’s
frustration that the cops had been doing their job. Extrapolating this scene to the real
world, police violence is a hot issue that frustrates people all over the United States.
McCall’s assault on the white officers could be subtle social commentary on the state of
policing in the U.S. to express his anger that racism has not yet been overcome and was
maintained by bad individual police officers. McCall beating them up is his way of
making social changes that revolutionaries would try to make by attacking governments,
or the institution of polici "for example.
Like &9series, where McCall resorts to violence as the only means of
making change, Django directly confronts slave masters and gets his revenge on them for
humiliating him and his wife. Django, being a former slave, lacks social power and thus
he has to directly confront slave masters in order to get what he wants. Violence is the
only way he save his wife since the racists around him do not take him seriously and have
no problem trying to intimidate him. By confronting the individual slave masters, Django
indirectly confronts slavery. Like McCall, Django seems like an avatar of black
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frustration with racism and the black power fantasy involving the humiliation and/or
destruction of certain racists. In the same way Django and Robert McCall represent the
frustration with racism, Mary represents black women’s frustration with sexism and she
eliminates the sexists in her life in order to be an othermother to Danny.
Movies with vigilante characters do not seek to “educate” people in the way
movies with revolutionaries do. It seems that movies with vigilante characters take a
slight colorblind stance that overlooks societal problems in favor of more individualistic
ones. For example, despite : ; using racism and slavery as the context for
its narrative, and movies like &9having a scene where McCall fights off racist
cops, I believe that both of these vigilante films encourage colorblindness. Both movies
allow white audiences the opportunity to feel angry about racism, which enhances their
own antiracist self-image and their sense of living in a “post-racial” society (Doane
2019). However, : ; presents racism as a phenomenon endemic to chattel
slavery, which has been outlawed. Therefore, the events of the movie are easily, and
incorrectly, dismissed as the “past,” which helps to fuel the colorblind storyline of “the
past is the past” and that the effects of chattel slavery have no effect on the United States
today. Therefore, : ; can help people minimize the effects of racism
today despite the movie’s open disdain for, and rightfully negative portrayals of, racism
and racists.
Likewise, in &9*, Robert McCall does lean into colorblindness (more
than he does in &9) when he tells Miles, a black male he mentors, “…You got
a choice. You got talent. You got a chance. And I don’t want to hear about your
environment. And what your momma didn’t give you. And the white man won’t give you
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no shot…” McCall explicitly tells Miles not to blame “the white man,” which reflects his
colorblindness. Ultimately, vigilante films, featuring men or women, tell audiences that
the solution to social problems are, or should be, individualistically solved via violence
and the societal change will follow on its own. However, not all characters in the sample
are violent. In the next chapter, I discuss altruistic characters who are vastly different
from revolutionaries and vigilantes in terms of behavior.
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CHAPTER VI
THE ALTRUIST
In this chapter, I discuss black characters who are altruistic: they tend to other
characters’ well-being and rely on compassion, guidance, and counseling to empower
those characters to make changes in their own lives. Unlike violent revolutionary or
vigilante characters, altruists are more peaceful and do not attempt to make broad social
changes. Instead they want to help others to: study harder, leave abusive relationships,
think about their futures more, and to stop relying on narratives of victimization and
helplessness to make sense of their struggle, I focus on teachers and parents because they
share the same goal: to empower others by teaching them to take personal responsibility
for their problems. When those characters take responsibility, they become more
confident in themselves and achieve greater success by the end of the movie. Despite
having the same goals, teachers and parents have different strategies for achieving those
goals—strategies that reinforce paternalistic, colorblind, and hegemonically masculine
ideologies. I do not focus on political characters like Dr. Helmsley, in *>)* who
convinces world leaders to save people’s lives during a catastrophe, or minor characters
who might give some advice to others like Lisa in &,;(because their
“altruism” is minor and is not the focus of their character arcs in their respective films.
139
In this chapter, I discuss how the altruists in my sample encourage individualism
by counseling and advising other poor, uneducated black characters across eight films:
"/ "$"#""'(6"
'<,*, and &,. First, I discuss the two categories—the “teacher”
and the “parent”—that I find best encapsulate each “altruistic” character in the sample
(See 4). Second, I provide examples from my analysis of each of the
aforementioned eight films to show how the characters in these eight films fit within
either the “teacher” or “parent” categories. Finally, I synthesize my data and discuss the
altruistic category, and its implications for the study, in terms of how paternalism can be
used to empower and inspire others through the use of colorblind racial ideology.
While gender has an explicit influence on altruistic behaviors between characters
in the sample—males are more prone to use “tough love,” displays of aggressions, and
punishment, while women tend to be more nurturing—social class has a more implicit
influence on how altruistic characters interact with others. Social class is implied through
language and imagery used throughout the films, especially in films with “teachers” who
subtly rely on classist language and actions around their students. Women like Carrie in
/ and Madea in '(6have a “masculine” edge that makes them
similar to male altruists who tell their subjects what to do, which ultimately takes some
agency away from their subjects. More “feminine” characters like Blu Rain in $
and Big Momma in '<,*, work to offer people choices and possibilities
instead, providing their subjects with more agency than they use to have.
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&
Teacher characters in the sample are wise, smart, and more educated than the
people they interact with. Teachers typically work with young people who might be
troubled or disadvantaged in some way that keeps them from realizing their full potential.
These young people are portrayed as lacking the proper discipline to utilize their own
skills and talents. Therefore, they require help and counsel from a teacher to educate them
in order to help them reach their goals. By working selflessly to educate the youth,
teachers help move them away from poverty, insecurities, or abuse. By moving people
away from those negative forces, teachers inspire the youth to want better for their
families, their communities, and, most importantly, themselves. To more effectively help
people, teachers tend to be working or middle-class coaches and educators who demand
that their subjects think about what they can do as individuals, without an analysis of the
social structures, to help themselves improve and the people in their immediate
surroundings. The movies in this sample with teachers imply that black characters in need
have some deficiency brought about by their growing up in poverty. Thus, to escape the
trappings of poverty, students need to make better choices that get them out of poverty
and into the mainstream society, or other aspects of success.
These movies subtly suggest that, with the help of an educated middle-class
benefactor, and the application of personal resolve, anyone can “make it.” Disadvantage
exists, but it is nothing a little hard work cannot overcome. They also perpetuate notions
that the “urban black poor” and their communities do not possess the traits of “hard
work” or “personal resolve.” Because success is reduced to individual choices, there is no
discussion of the larger society around these characters, and audiences are not encouraged
141
to really think about the systemic perpetuation of inequalities such as: sub-par schools in
predominantly minority areas, the effects of poverty on poor students’ lives, and the
students’ lack of community support networks and social safety nets. This implicit focus
on individualism means that these movies reflect the culture-of-poverty thesis.
The culture-of-poverty thesis falsely implies that residents of poor inner-city
neighborhoods are poor because they have the “wrong values” and the “wrong attitudes”
about their work, family, and school lives (Bulman 2002). The culture-of-poverty thesis
implies that poor people do not have the “right values” to succeed. The values poor
people need to adopt are the values of the “normative” middle class which coincide with
materialism, rational calculation, and a belief in meritocracy. Thus, the poor remain poor
because they do not adopt the aforementioned values (Bulman 2002).
The middle-class black teacher is a representation of blackness with origins that
lie in the domesticated image of Uncle Tom and the commodified image of Uncle Ben
(Collins 2005). Just like how Uncle Ben is used to sell consumer goods, the black teacher
character is used to sell ideas of blackness and individualist solutions to racism that
reinforce ideas of what black people be like. This notion of what black people
“should be like” is an example of the idea that black people should be denuded of their
blackness, which reinforces colorblind, individualistic, and meritocratic ideals.
, $, and / are “colorblind” by virtue of their lack of
analysis on the effects of racism on people’s lives, and the implicit assumption that
anyone can make it if they make the decision to work hard enough. As I explain in
upcoming sections, teachers initiate students into middle-class individualism.
$
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Parent characters in the sample fall into typical “mother” and “father” roles. Both
mothers and fathers take care of, or provide for, a family or children, including non-
biological children. For example, Mary, acts as an “othermother” to Danny in $
'. As one would expect, how the characters parent others depends on gender. In this
study, I make a distinction between “parents” and “parent-figures.” Parent-figures act as
parents for kids in need, but they might not necessarily be the biological parent for the
child. These characters tend to take the role and responsibility of mentoring or coaching
kids when the kids’ parents neglect them. For example, parent-figures include Dr.
Larabee in who acts as a father-figure for Akeelah.
0
In terms of gender, fathers and father-figures in the sample are often strict and
demanding of their kids. They come across as mean, intimidating, cold, distant, and/or
harsh, and they are generally not very nurturing or caring. Some of the father-figures, like
Troy Maxson in , resort to violence or the threat of violence in order to control
others. The use of violence is frequently associated with black males, reinforcing
stereotypes of black men as barbaric and uncivil, which is frequently used to disparage
poor black men.
Adding to their mean and/or violent behavior, fathers are often portrayed as tragic
characters who have either lost kids or were raised in poverty themselves. Thus, they
work to make sure their kids do not suffer as they did. Fathers and father-figures are
motivated to help and/or raise other kids to atone for or cope with their tragic pasts as if
parenting is a form of redemption. Black father figures in the sample reinforce
stereotypes about low-income urban black males through how they work to distance
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themselves or their children from urban poverty. The desire to move children away from
poverty is a strategy fathers and father-figures use to assimilate their children into, and
construct their identities around, the middle-class (Lacy 2004; Pattillo 2005). Like other
“altruistic” characters, fathers provide their kids with life lessons and advice that focus on
individualistic solutions to social problems, suggesting that their kids’ problems are
purely personal. However, what separates fathers, and their lessons of individualism,
from mothers is that fathers initiate their sons into masculinity and reduce it to a series of
individual choices and personal failures. Mothers also utilize notions of individualism,
but it is less gendered in comparison to fathers.
''0
Like fathers, mothers occupy a traditional gender role in which they act as
caretakers. These women raise and/or support children, to help them escape their personal
or environmental situations. This can be achieved through teaching them various life
lessons. In order to teach their children, mothers are kind and caring to their children, and
are much more involved in their kids’ lives than fathers. As mothers teach their kids, they
also stress the importance of taking personal responsibility for their actions. Mothers are
typically working or lower class and tend to be uneducated, like men. However mothers
do not usually use violence and are not portrayed as mean or intimidating.
The emphasis on women’s kindness and nurturing behavior in these movies
reinforces gender stereotypes of mothers. Mothers are traditionally expected to be
involved in their kids’ lives, and they are usually expected to be more involved with
raising kids than fathers are. So, what is interesting about altruist characters in general is
how quickly and easily they fall into gender roles, norms, and expectations. As I will
144
explain in upcoming sections, mother characters are more one-dimensional than fathers,
and they tend to be representations of “mammies” or “sapphire” controlling images that
reduce them to servants or spitfires.
The reason I believe altruists in the study trend toward parenting and teaching is
because they are the characters who are the most likely to interact with poor, abused, or
unsuccessful black children or black young adults. Children and young adults tend to
need guidance in these movies, and are often troubled in some way, requiring help from
an older, wiser adult. Because altruists interact with children, whether their own or
someone else’s, they take the responsibility of raising them and giving them advice when
no other adults will. The mothers and fathers in this sample have some overlap with
teachers, since parents and teachers both seek to educate and advise their kids. This
advice is used primarily to inspire students and children to make better life choices. I start
the analysis of altruistic characters with an analysis of the three most prominent male
teachers and parent characters male characters in this section"Dr. Joshua Larabee in
"Troy Maxosn in"Cypher Raige in#7In their
attempts to be “helpful,” these characters come across as authoritarian and
hypermasculine, and I explain how these two qualities manifest. I then transition into a
discussion of Blu Rain in $"Carrie in / "Minny in &,, and
Madea in '(6. These are the teachers and mother characters whose
altruism occurs in tandem with their emphasis on individualism.
%.'&
Black teachers in film act differently based on their gender. I find that the only
black male teacher in the sample is authoritarian, and thus does not provide his student
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very many choices. I begin this section with a discussion of Dr. Larabee in
7 Dr. Larabee is eager to become Akeelah’s coach for the spelling bee after
realizing that she has a natural talent for spelling. As he gets to know more about
Akeelah, he is framed as being the only person who can help Akeelah achieve what she
wants to achieve specifically because the movie emphasizes his role as the instructor who
is brought in to improve student test scores at Akeelah’s middle school.
To add to Dr. Larabee’s ethos as a mentor, the movie quickly introduces the
audience to Akeelah’s neighborhood, its incivilities, and all of the urban decay that de-
motivates Akeelah. The neighborhood is portrayed as run-down and unkempt, indicating
to the audience that the area is poor along with its residents. As Akeelah walks to school,
she explains why she is apathetic about school due to how her neighborhood is “ignored”
and “unimportant.” She is self-conscious and does not value her skills or her community,
putting her at risk of never reaching her full potential. The school’s principal introduces
Akeelah to Dr. Larabee and tells him about Akeelah’s spelling talents. Dr. Larabee
immediately takes interest in her development.
Akeelah easily wins her school’s spelling bee and, as she walks off, Dr. Larabee,
who is sitting in the audience, stands up and tells her to spell complicated words like
“prestidigitation,” which Akeelah does. She finally misspells the word “pulchritude,” and
school bullies laugh her out of the room. The principal and Dr. Larabee catch up with her
and Dr. Larabee consoles her,
Dr. Larabee: “They laugh because you intimidate them. But if you’d have stood
your ground, you might have earned their respect.” He speaks to the
principal,“Bob, the girl has potential but she needs to be coached.”
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Dr. Larabee tries to insert himself into her life as a disciplinarian, but his sentiment comes
from a place of kindness and sets his role as a mentor for Akeelah in motion. Akeelah
“needs to be coached” because she is portrayed as unrefined, and she “needs to be
coached” by someone more “pristine” and “proper” like Dr. Larabee who comes from a
prestigious university. After Akeelah decides to compete in spelling bees in hopes of
winning the national tournament, she goes to Dr. Larabee’s home to start her training. Dr.
Larabee lives in a nice suburb devoid of the incivilities shown in Akeelah’s impoverished
neighborhood. His home is portrayed as clean and, and he tends to a well-maintained
garden in his backyard in his spare time. Dr. Larabee’s altruistic desire to help Akeelah
learn to be a “proper” speller is paired with his “no-nonsense” and humorless attitude that
establishes him as an authority figure,
Dr. Larabee: “…The first thing most serious spellers do is learn all of the winning
words and their origins.”
Akeelah: “Well, maybe I ain’t that serious.” Dr. Larabee gives her a stern look
before turning back to his garden.
Dr. Larabee: “Well, neither am I.”
This argument is worth noting because it represents a clash of classes: middle-class
versus poor. The class dimension is subtly emphasized in Dr. Larabee’s line, “The first
thing most serious spellers do is learn all of the winning words and their origins.” When
we look at Akeelah’s background, Dr. Larabee’s strategy sounds very out of touch since
Akeelah is show to not have the resources to “learn all of the winning words and their
origins” like Dr. Larabee does.
As their argument continues, Dr. Larabee continues to reinforce class-based
stereotypes about “urban” black students. He implies that “real” spellers act and speak
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“properly” like Dr. Larabee, not “ghetto” like Akeelah. This brief exchange between them
highlights Dr. Larabee’s disdain for Akeelah’s way of speaking,
Akeelah: “So why are you home during the day? Ain’t you got a job?”
Dr. Larabee: “Do me a favor, leave the ghetto talk outside, alright?”
Akeelah: “Ghetto talk? I don’t talk ghetto.”
Dr. Larabee: “Hm, ‘ain’t you got no job?’ You use that language to fit in with
your friends. Here, you will speak properly or you won’t speak at all.
Understand?”
Dr. Larabee has some contempt for Akeelah and her “ghetto talk” and he tells her to
speak “properly.” Films featuring teachers like Dr. Larabee typically focus less on a
students’ education and more on the process students go through to reject conformity to
societal norms or expectations in order to express their true selves (Bulman 2002). The
norms Akeelah subscribes to are those of her neighborhood, norms Dr. Larabee deems
“ghetto.” Dr. Larabee’s lines imply that, with his help, she will receive the refinement and
training she needs to succeed as a speller and, more importantly, as “herself.” Hence, her
“ghetto talk” is frowned upon because there is an implication that being “ghetto” is not
who she is, since “talking ghetto” is something he assumes she only does to fit in
with other low-income black students. Thus, Dr. Larabee’s job in the movie really is to
move Akeelah out of her “ghetto” roots and turn her into someone more “respectable”
and “serious.”
Dr. Larabee’s disdain for all things “ghetto” is a middle-class, mainstream,
dismissal of qualities stereotypically associated with blackness. Because black people are
stereotyped as “ghetto” and thus low-class and uncivilized, viewing urban black people’s
way of speaking as “ghetto” reinforces the idea that being “ghetto” and thus “too black”
is a liability to black people’s ability to be taken seriously (Lacy 2004). Therefore, Dr.
148
Larabee requires that Akeelah adopt a different, more “proper” way of speaking in his
presence since he has, more-or-less, assimilated into some aspects of middle-class
“whiteness” as he is shown to live in an ostensibly middle-class suburb replete with white
neighbors. It is implied that he is trying to strategically assimilate Akeelah into
“whiteness” as well by teaching her to be like him so she can be taken seriously and
succeed as a speller.
Later on, she returns to his house for serious coaching. They meet in his office
and she tells him she can use her training with him to substitute for her summer school.
He asks her if she has any goals,
Dr. Larabee: “Goals—what would you like to be when you grow up? A doctor, a
lawyer, a standup comic?”
Akeelah: “I don’t know. The only thing I’m good at is spelling.”
Dr. Larabee: “Go over there and read the quotation that’s on the wall. Read it
aloud please.”
Akeelah: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that
we are powerful beyond measure…And as we let out own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
I provide most of this scene because it is a continuation of a theme throughout this movie:
Dr. Larabee’s job is not to help Akeelah make better grades, it is to help her make what he
believes are “better” choices for her life and success—choices that will help her get taken
“seriously” as a speller and help her fit into the social “mainstream.” Dr. Larabee asks
Akeelah if she has any goals, and she says she does not. If she is going to him for spelling
bee coaching, why ask her if she has goals that do not relate to her spelling? It is because
spelling is a means to a subtler end of helping Akeelah discover how to be a “better”
more “proper,” “serious,” and more confident version of herself. Thus, one of the choices
Akeelah has to make is to believe in herself. Despite Dr. Larabee’s altruistic attempts to
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help Akeelah believe in herself, he yells at her at one point in the movie, scolds her, and
makes her go through extensive training drills. It is implied that all they do is train for the
spelling bee and it causes Akeelah to experience burn out. In other words, Dr. Larabee is,
as Akeelah describes him, “dictatorial,” “truculent,” and “supercilious,” as shown in this
brief exchange,
Akeelah: “All we’ve done for eight months is study words. Why can’t we take a
break, go to a movie, to a basketball game? Why can’t we have fun?”
Dr. Larabee: “I told you…you can have fun after the bee,” he yells.
The most important takeaway here is that Dr. Larabee’s lessons are implied to be
grueling. The difficult nature of his training adds to his cold and calculated exterior that
makes him seem like an authoritarian. Dr. Larabee’s behavior seems distinctly
hegemonically masculine. Hegemonic masculinity legitimates unequal gender relations
between men and women (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). In this case, Dr. Larabee
telling Akeelah what she will definitely do, and not do, in his presence reinforces his
character as one that is much more powerful than Akeelah, who lacks power to make her
own choices. Dr. Larabee’s “authoritarian” impulses are not unique to him. Father
characters in the sample also display authoritarianism towards their sons.
%.
The fathers in this section stand out because of their adherence to hegemonic
masculinities that emphasizes traditional signifiers of masculinity such as toughness,
aggression, and the domination of women (Connell and Messersachmidt 2005). While
fathers do not seem to explicitly advocate for dominating women, they do try to teach
their sons to be more traditionally masculine by being emotionless and aggressive. The
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theme of hegemonic masculinity is prominent in the movies # and ,
which both feature intimidating, tough guy fathers who interact with their meek sons.
Cypher Raige in # is noteworthy because of his relationship with his
son, Kitai. It is a relationship marked by tension as we watch Cypher give his son orders
in a cold, commanding tone that connects Cypher to characters like Dr. Larabee who are
strict and authoritative. When Kitai and Cypher crash land on the planet Iphitos, Cypher
gives his son a direct order, “…You are going to retrieve that beacon, or we are going to
die…” He ends with one final comment, “Do exactly as I tell you and we will survive.”
This line is very similar to Dr. Larabee’s line where he tells Akeelah “You’ll win using
my methods” as they begin training for the spelling bee. Both characters are framed as
the only ones who can lead their kids to their goal. Additionally, Cypher has to guide, or
coach, Kitai through his mission.
The entire time, Cypher gives Kitai orders and commands, just like Dr. Larabee
does for Akeelah. Just as Dr. Larabee acts as a disciplinarian for Akeelah, and helps her
make better choices to become a champion, Cypher does the same for Kitai. For example,
when alien monkeys attack Kitai, Cypher chimes in over Kitai’s headset and yells at him.
While Dr. Larabee and Cypher approach how they interact with their kids (or in Dr.
Larabee’s case, student) with strong and direct commands, what is different between Dr.
Larabee and Cypher is that Cypher’s coaching and guidance is meant to make his son’s
a choice. To become like Cypher, and thus to become respected, Kitai has to
learn the ghosting technique. To learn the technique, Cypher tells his son that he has to let
go of all of his fear,“… and it dawned on me…Fear is not real…Now, do not
misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice.” Claiming that fear is not
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“real” strikes me as a way for Cypher to encourage his son to be hypermasculine since
being emotionless and fearless are typically associated with men and, coincidentally,
being fearless is a form of empowerment that will save their lives.
Like the teacher characters I previously discussed, Cypher’s job in this movie is
not merely to save their lives, it is to encourage his son to make a choice to be a “real
man” or not. Kitai makes that choice by deciding whether he wants to give into fear or
not, which requires that he believe in himself. This means that if Kitai fails his mission,
he will have failed because he was not “man enough” to succeed. His failures can then be
attributed to his choice to embrace fear and emotion instead of apathy and cold
detachment. The focus on Kitai’s emotions and choices allows Cypher, and the audience,
to ignore the reality of the mission’s difficulty. Cypher’s coaching is really designed to
initiate Kitai into masculinity, which is framed as a solution to his problems. I also see
this happen in in interactions between Troy Maxson and his son.
Troy’s relationship with his son, Cory, is very tense and defined by masculinity.
Cory, tries to emulate his father—who was denied a chance to become a baseball player
due to racism—by trying to become a professional footballer. Troy is dismissive of
Cory’s chances of playing professional football, claiming that he does not want Cory to
fail in athletics like he did. Troy does not necessarily “coach” Cory in this movie, the way
Cypher does for Kitai, but he does try to advise his son in a harsh and mean way.
Troy is very strict with Cory and tells him that he cannot play football because of
racism in sports. He wants Troy to learn a trade so he can have a steady stream of income
so he can live a better life than Troy does as a garbage collector. Troy wants this for Cory
because he believes “real men” take care of their family. Cory believes that Troy “ruins
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his life” by disallowing him to do things he wants to do because he believes Troy hates
him. Troy tells Cory that he does not hate him,
Troy: “…I go out of here every morning …bust my butt…‘cause I like you? …
It’s my job. It’s my responsibility! You understand that? A man got to take
care of his family…”
Troy operates on traditional gender norms that place the man as the family breadwinner.
Both Cypher and Troy treat masculinity as an individual choice and treat their sons with
contempt when they do not make the choice to adhere to hegemonic masculinity. To get
their sons to be more “masculine,” both fathers engage in aggression, either through the
use of harsh commands and language, or through physical violence such as when Troy
and Cory have a fight in the backyard. In # and , being a “real man” is
the only mission in a man’s life.
Both Cypher and Troy have an inability to emotionally respond to and embrace
their children due to their masculinities. Due to their adherence to highly toxic notions of
hegemonic masculinity, Cypher and Troy create situations for their sons in which they
will never be good enough until they are “man enough.” This “aggressive father” trope is
rooted in patriarchy that demands that men be “emotional cripples” (hooks 2010). In
patriarchal systems, males are denied full access to emotional well-being and their lives
are worse as a result. Patriarchy in these films is about children living up to lofty
standards of “manliness,” and their fathers expect them to choose to live up to those
standards or risk being seen as supposed failures. Along those lines, Cory and Kitai are
being taught to use stoicism as self-defense mechanisms to help them survive in the
world.
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"
The ghosting technique I discussed earlier seems to be a metaphor for the “tough
guise.” The ghosting technique in # masks a person’s emotions to make them
unreachable, undetectable, and unfazed by the world around them, and this technique it
said to have saved all of mankind from extinction. At the beginning of #,
Kitai’s mother describes him as a “feeling boy,” but those feelings have to be suppressed
if he wants to survive on Iphitos. Likewise, Troy’s expectation that Cory be a “real man”
is also a way to protect him from being hurt in the racist ‘50s as demonstrated in these
lines,
Troy: “…The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football no
way. You go on and get your book-learning so you can work yourself up
in that A&P or learn how to fix cars or build houses or something, get you
a trade. That way you have something can’t nobody take away from you.
You go on and learn how to put your hands to some good use.”
Troy does not want Cory to play football because white people will never give him a
chance to succeed anyway, and Troy thinks it is more important for Cory to be
responsible and take care of a family by doing traditionally masculine things like putting
his “hands to some good use.” Troy had his future taken from him by racism, and it made
him bitter; he does not want Cory to have the same problem. Troy is trying to “buffer” his
son from the effects of racism by preparing him to face racism. By trying to prepare his
son, Troy is helping Cory strategically assimilate into the “mainstream” by encouraging
him to learn a trade so he can earn decent pay, have a decent living, and ultimately live a
life with dignity—these are things Troy believes white people cannot take away from
Cory.
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Not only is Troy trying to help his son “assimilate” into the mainstream, he is also
trying to buffer him from the “hidden injuries” of class (Sennett and Cobb 1972). The
“hidden injury of class” refers to how class societies create “injuries” in which being poor
and black (in the case of this film) limits Cory’s freedoms and social mobility, especially
in the 1950s. In this case, Troy was unable to be the athlete he wanted to be due to
racism. He tries to get his son to realize that sports leave him vulnerable to class
“injuries” and he tells him that he cannot and should not play sports. Society is upheld by
an unjust social class order that provokes feelings of anger and personal responsibility for
his, and his family’s situation. Thus, Troy tries to correct the situation by making sure his
son is on track to living a more successful life than he did. The problem here is that
Troy’s career loss made him bitter and angry, and he turned that anger toward his son
whom he believes will be a “failure” if he does not start “taking responsibility” and
taking care of himself and his family “like a man.” Masculinity warps Troy’s relationship
with Cory and makes Troy into an authoritarian figure who, in trying to aggressively
“help” his son, hurts his son by actively reducing his son’s agency in order to ensure that
his son does not get hurt by racism and the “injuries” of class.
Along with Troy’s loss, Cypher lost his daughter because Kitai expressed fear
around an Ursa alien and the loss made Cypher stern and stoic. Cory’s sole mission, like
Kitai’s mission, is to provide and defend himself and his family, not to ever be emotional.
Like Troy, Cypher tries to buffer his son from supposed failure by trying to make sure his
son is as emotionless (and hypermasculine) as possible. In this film’s case, Cypher wants
to help his son succeed by assimilating him into the “mainstream” through demanding
that his son be emotionless in a society that honors stoic males.
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The “ghosting” both Cypher and Troy ask their sons to do occurs in different
contexts, but “ghosting” and the “tough guise” are both masculine responses to past
traumas that reassert the effect hegemonic masculinity has on Kitai and Cory’s lives,
similar to how aspects of hegemonic masculinity manifest in the lives of characters like
Erik Killmonger, Black Dynamite, Commandant, Django, and Robert McCall discussed
in previous chapters. The tough guise makes all of these men bitter and aggressive, and
their aggression is born from past traumas and grievances which influence their
expression(s) of paternalism. In the case of # and "Cypher dismisses his
emotional son Kitai, while Troy emotionally abuses his “lazy” son Cory, all because they
are not as masculine as their father’s want them to be. Fathers are very similar to teachers
in that they both act as unquestionable authorities to the children, even though they act as
authoritarians in different situations. However, in contrast to authoritarian male teachers
and fathers, female teachers and mothers are more humanitarian. Blu Rain, a black
female teacher in $"is more loving, compassionate, and open to giving her
students more choices than her male counterpart Dr. Larabee and fathers like Troy and
Cypher.
&.,
$ tells the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones, a poor, pregnant black teen
who lives in a dangerous part of Harlem with her abusive, lazy mother. Her mother
constantly demeans her intelligence, makes fun of her weight, and physically abuses her
to the point that Precious has no self-esteem and very little motivation to succeed. On top
of being abused, Precious is pregnant with her second child and has no real forms of
support. Early in the movie, Precious takes her high school teacher’s advice to get her
156
GED and she ends up in Blu Rain’s preparatory course. Blu Rain comes into Precious’s
life at a time when she needed it the most and works with her to become who she wants
to be: educated and independent. However, to be educated and independent from her
mother, Precious has to decide to be a “better” mother for her children by getting an
education, which Blu Rain encourages her to do.
When Precious meets Blu for the first time, Blu directs her to a desk at the front
of the class and tries to get her to discuss something she does well during her icebreaker,
but she cannot find anything, showing her lack of self-esteem. This is Blu’s “Have you
any goals?” moment that Dr. Larabee has with Akeelah. Just like how that moment
between Dr. Larabee and Akeelah establishes the lesson Akeelah must learn, Blu’s
icebreaker establishes that Precious needs to learn self-confidence. To help her gain
confidence, Blu works with her very closely and gives her kind and helpful advice,
making her a compassionate and caring teacher opposite of Dr. Larabee’s more drill
sergeant-like approach to helping Akeelah. For example, toward the movie’s midpoint,
Precious gives birth to her second child and spends time in the hospital. In the hospital,
Precious completes a journal assignment where she writes about possibly giving her baby
up for adoption. Blu leaves responses to Precious,“Dear Precious, I think your first
responsibility has to be to yourself. If you keep Abdul, you might have nothing…” The
two of them write back and forth and respond to each other through Precious’ journal
entries. Each entry explains Precious’ angst as a mother and each of Blu’s responses is a
piece of advice to help guide Precious toward “optimal” life choices,
Precious: “Ms. Rain, you ask too many questions…I just wanna be a good
mother.”
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Blu: “Being a good mother might mean letting Abdul be raised by
someone who’s better able than you to meet your child’s needs.”
Precious: “Ms. Rain, I is the best to meet my child’s needs.”
Blu: “Who’s gonna help you? How will you support yourself? How will
you keep learning to read and write?”
Each of these entries and responses is important because they each feature Precious
expressing decisions about her role as a mother with Blu gently telling Precious how to
be a supposedly “better” single mother by getting her GED in the short-term and thinking
more strategically about her long-term future. Specifically, Blu tells Precious to focus on
herself because, at this point in the film, Precious is not able to fully take care of her
children. While Blu subtly pressures Precious to give up her child, Abdul, Blu asks
Precious more questions, rather than telling her what she should definitely do, because
she is concerned about Precious’ future. She questions Precious’ choices, which
ultimately gives Precious some semblance of autonomy over herself and her choice to
give up her child. Blu’s method is different from Dr. Larabee’s, Troy’s, and Cypher’s
methods that are more direct, disciplinarian, and judgmental. For example, Akeelah was
told she had to speak properly, or else he would stop coaching her. Blu never threatens to
turn her back on Precious, in fact she offers to let Precious and Abdul temporarily live in
her home until they can find a place to live. In other words, Dr. Larabee is authoritarian;
Blu is humanitarian. I believe this difference is rooted in gender stereotypes of men as
stoic and “aggressive” and women as more comforting, loving, and/or more open to
giving their students choices for how they want to proceed in life.
The love Blu has for Precious develops over the course of the film as we see when
Blu and her wife take Precious into their home and help her raise Abdul. As Precious and
Blu bond, Precious expresses her gratitude for Blu in a brief narration, “They’re so nice
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to me and Abdul.” Dr. Larabee is never described as “nice” or “kind.” He is framed as
qualified and knowledgeable, but kindness is not a quality that is ever associated with
him. Blu, however, is associated with kindness. This is reinforced in a bit of narration at a
party Blu throws for Precious after she wins an award for literacy. Blu and her classmates
celebrate. Thanks to Blu’s kindness, Precious develops enough self-confidence to take her
two children, leave her mother, and start a new life. While kindness and nurturing are be
gendered in the female “teacher” role, Carrie, from the movie / , for the most
part, does not neatly fit into this gendered role. She is not an “authoritarian” like Dr.
Larabee, nor is she very nice like Blu Rain.
Carrie is a combination of masculine (aggressive) and feminine (kind) traits. She
is introduced as a raunchy, no-nonsense spitfire when she is first introduced to Teddy, a
black man who never finished high school, who goes to night school to get his GED.
Teddy is in an interesting position in his life. He is low-income and uneducated, since he
does not have a GED, but he pretends he is high-income to impress his upper-class
girlfriend. However, once Teddy loses his job, he cannot maintain the illusion of his
wealth, thus he has to get a GED to get a job that pays well to prevent his girlfriend from
learning he has been lying. However, to get his GED, he needs to go through Carrie. She
is described as having an attitude such as when she sarcastically tells Teddy “No, I’m just
the bitch that likes to wear blouses. Yes, I’m the night school teacher” when he asks her if
she is really the night school teacher. This line is supposed to be a sarcastic and funny
way to introduce her character, and she comes across as angry while she says it,
reinforcing the fact that she has an “attitude.” She also tells her students that if they are
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not in her class to learn then they should immediately get out of her class, and that they
will not pass by trying to suck up to her.
She is immediately presented as intimidating, but passionate, like Dr. Larabee,
albeit with more curse words for comedic effect. And, like Dr. Larabee, she is harsh with
her students and even yells at them such as when she discovers that they cheated on their
GED exam. Unlike Dr. Larabee, Carrie is shown to be a nurturing individual when Teddy
watches her play cards with a special needs student, which is reminiscent of Blu teaching
Precious to read. Teddy asks her for her assistance in helping him work past his learning
disabilities to pass the GED. Carrie helps him prepare for the GED, but she does so
through comedic violence, which involves her taking him to a mixed martial arts (MMA)
octagon and punching him repeatedly until he gets the right answer to her questions.
I attribute Carrie’s use of violence to the fact the movie is trying to be funny, but I
also think that Carrie’s character is an “angry black woman,” or “sapphire,” a stock
character in black sitcoms who is loud, stubborn, and violent in order to belittle “lazy,”
“ignorant,” or “flawed” black male characters (Jewell 1993). Angry black women are
frequently used in sitcoms with “egocentric” black male leads. In the context of comedy
films, angry black women exist to keep black men’s egos in check by exposing their
flaws, usually through insults and sassy witticisms. While Carrie is aggressive, she is not
an “authoritarian” given her willingness to work with Teddy and offer him the choice to
succeed or not; she does not tell him what he will do or how he will do it.
In and $, the teachers are interacting with black girls
who have little confidence and self-esteem given their poor upbringing. Those girls
become more confident at the end of the movie. However, / features a low-
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income, pompous black male student who is overconfident, but does not openly admit his
faults the way Akeelah or Precious do. Since Teddy has an ego, it is implied that he
cannot be reached in the ways Akeelah and Precious can be. Since Akeelah and Precious
are presented as destitute, they are portrayed as being in need of a mentor to guide them
towards a goal.
However, Teddy is not portrayed as destitute from the beginning (since he has a
fiance who is well-off), and he does not yet seem to require a mentor to guide him
towards a goal. But, the moment Teddy loses his upper-class fiance, his job prospects,
and his nonchalant attitude is when he finally becomes someone whom Carrie can help
because, in those moments, Teddy lacks confidence. In this case, “confidence,” can be
replaced to mean he lacks the “right values”that encourage hard work instead of
“laziness,” lying, and quick solutions to problems, which are all stereotypes associated
with urban black males. Carrie’s implied role in the movie is to ultimately move Teddy
away from that stereotypical association and towards something more “serious” and
successful. At the beginning of / , Teddy’s overconfidence comes from his
having the “wrong” values that move him toward cheating and manipulating others to get
by. When those strategies stop working, Teddy has to develop new values of hard work.
Carrie is presented as an “angry black woman” stereotype because she is
mentoring Teddy who has gone his whole life pretending he is better than he actually is.
Teddy believes he can smooth-talk his way through night school instead of working,
creating a point of contention between him and Carrie. Carrie’s angry sassiness is a way
for her to break down Teddy’s ego, and point out his penchant for always taking the easy
solution to problems. Once Teddy sees and accepts his flaws, Carrie opens up to him and
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he goes to her for guidance so she can do what altruistic teachers do: teach him a lesson
that requires him to make a choice. In this case, Teddy has to choose to be a hard worker
or a liar and cheater, and I surmise Carrie’s use of violence in the MMA octagon is a way
to slowly encourage Teddy to make this choice. Either he chooses to study for, and pass,
the GED or she will fight him the way angry black women in comedies do with black
men. In the following scene, Teddy has decided getting his GED is not worth it and he
works at a fast food restaurant. Carrie finds him and convinces him to take the test, or
else,
Teddy: “…I appreciate the whole after-school special treatment. But…I am where
I’m supposed to be…”
Carrie: “Your destiny is to work at a fast food joint next to a strip club?…Teddy,
you are a lot of things…But you are not dumb…Now, you either get in the car
and take that test, or I continue to tenderize your ass! Your choice.”
Teddy dropping out of night school to work at a fast food restaurant perpetuates a class
stereotype that people who do not work to get their education are destined to work in fast
food places; it is where they are “supposed” to be, as Teddy claims. This scene is meant
to be humorous, but Carrie is acting as an “angry black woman” by threatening to
“tenderize” Teddy in this scene to get him to take the GED because he is allowing his
flaw of always taking the easy way out influence his choice to work at a fast food
restaurant. Additionally, Carrie is doing to Teddy what Dr. Larabee did to Akeelah where
he tries to convince her that being “ghetto” is not who she really is. Carrie tries to tell
Teddy that working in fast food is not who he really is evidenced by her question, “Your
destiny is to work at a fast food joint next to a strip club?” This question signals to
Teddy, and the audience, that working a low-wage job is not who Teddy is and he has to
make the choice to be “better.” It also implicitly devalues low-wage work (at strip clubs
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and fast food joints), which reinforces class stereotypes and the implicit value of being
middle-class instead of poor.
Teddy takes the test and fails the GED, but he is willing to keep working to get
his GED, which he does by the end of the movie. This montage showing Teddy working
hard to get his GED is a very direct overture to class-based notions of individualism and
hard work that pervade these kinds of movies. After Teddy finally passes his GED, he
says during a graduation speech, “And it wasn’t until I met my amazing night school
classmates and a teacher that actually believed in me that I was able to accept who I
was...” As with other teacher movies, Carrie helps her student discover and find
confidence in himself—through adopting “meritocratic” values—to work hard to get
what he wants, a narrative pattern throughout all of the movies discussed thus far that all
emphasize the necessity of making “good choices.” While Blu and Carrie use
“compassion” to encourage their students, mother characters also rely on compassion to
encourage children and young adults.
%.,'"'"
When a mother is in a movie, she is often a minor character. Because of how
minor mothers tend to be, there are only three mothers who stand out in the sample: Big
Momma, in '<,*, Minny in &,, and Madea, in '(
67These characters are interesting when compared to father characters because of how
these characters represent controlling images that help justify black women’s oppression.
Compared to fathers, mothers are not working to socialize kids into a gender. Instead,
mothers act as advisors who teach people, often white people, life lessons and give
individualistic advice on how to solve their personal problems by instilling confidence in
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them. This section will focus on Big Momma, Minny, and Madea since I have not
discussed them in previous sections. I also find their representation as mammies and
sapphires an interesting contrast to fathers and teachers, who are not portrayed as pure
controlling images.
The representation of mammy characters places the filmic portrayal of mothers
within the intersectional theoretical framework of controlling images since the mammy is
central to interlocking systems of race, class, and gender. The mammy controlling image
is associated with poor and working-class black women (Collins 2000, 2005). Mammies
are faithful, obedient domestic servants used to justify the economic exploitation of house
slaves and to explain black women’s long-standing affinity for domestic service (Collins
2000). The mammy is also a character who tends to take care of, and serve, a white
family, which requires that they leave behind their own black families. The description of
the mammy controlling image perfectly fits Big Momma in '<,*.
This movie is about detective Malcolm Turner who puts on a fat suit and wig to
investigate a white family’s mob connections. Malcolm leaves his eight months pregnant
wife, Sherry, at home to infiltrate the middle class white family, the Fullers, as a nanny
known as “Big Momma” who loves taking care of kids. The Fullers neglect their kids and
the kids have very regimented schedules and lives. Because the Fuller kids do not see
their parents often, they each lack confidence and guidance. Big Momma takes it upon
herself to help the Fuller kids and save the family from danger with the mob and from
falling apart. For example, Big Momma tries to save the Fuller family by using her
wisdom to upbraid Mrs. Fuller,
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Leah: “I want my children to be able to seize every opportunity that they can.
And they might want to go to Harvard. And if they do, I want to make sure
that that is a possibility.”
Big Momma: “Andrew is jumping off the cabinets, eatin’ Brillo pads. He’s not
goin’ to Harvard…These red pegs, you might wanna go easy on ‘em, all
right?”
What is implied in this scene is that Mrs. Fuller is a negligent mother who has high, and
unrealistic, expectations of her kids, like wanting them to go to Harvard. Mrs. Fuller does
not spend time with her kids and instead micromanages her children’s lives with a peg
board designating the activities they have to do and at what time. Because Big Momma
spends time with the children, and cares about them, she knows that they are not going,
and do not want to go, to Harvard. Big Momma tries to help repair the dysfunction in the
family as she gives Mr. Fuller subtle advice on how to be a better father,
Big Momma: “Ooh, That’s a nice family you got back there.”
Mr. Fuller: “Yeah.”
Big Momma: “The reason I point it out—Because I’m not sure you’re around
enough to notice.”
Big Momma’s work throughout the movie is essentially about “healing” the Fuller
family, by listening to the excuses the parents and children make to justify their
misbehavior, and paying attention to their flaws which she uses to leave the family better
than she found it. Let’s take this scene between Big Momma and the oldest daughter,
Molly, is a rebellious white teen who is involved in a relationship with a guy Big
Momma does not think is safe. Molly is involved in this relationship because she wants
affection. However, Big Momma uses her wisdom to try and advise her while they are on
the beach,
Molly: “I don’t want to be here.”
Big Momma: “Really? But you look so comfortable.”
Molly: “Yeah, well, this is who I am, okay? So get used to it.”
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Big Momma: “Ooh. Well, it might be. It might be exactly who you are. Or maybe
it’s just something you’re tryin’ to impress some boy you got no business
trying to impress.”
Once again, Big Momma is trying to help restore the family by helping Molly think about
her actions to insinuate that her rebelliousness is not who she really is. Likewise, when
Big Momma speaks to Mr. and Mrs. Fuller, she subtly tries to convince them that the way
they behave is not who they really are or should be. Recall that Dr. Larabee and Blu Rain
work with their students to help them discover themselves and help them make better life
choices; Big Momma is doing the same things throughout this movie with Molly. Trying
to get Molly to make “better choices” in regards to what she rebels against and who she
dates is an example of Big Momma encouraging individualism. Once Big Momma
successfully helps the family, and solves the case, her job is done and she disappears. So,
what Big Momma does is: enter the Fuller family’s life, calls out the family’s flaws, fixes
those problems by providing advice, and then disappears. Likewise, characters like
Minny in &,also work to heal white families.
&,has multiple story lines, but the one of most important in this analysis is
the story of Minny, a black maid, who is “sassy” and frequently angry at the white
families she works for, especially a mean white woman named Hilly. After losing her job
working for Hilly for using her bathroom, Minny is hired to be a maid for a white
woman, Celia. Minny teaches Celia how to cook, and other basic household and social
skills, to save her marriage, and keep her social life from collapsing. After Celia is
shunned by the women she wants to be friends with (after vomiting at a fancy party),
Celia tells Minny she wants to move away to Sugar Ditch, but Minny consoles her and
tells her not to give up on her goals,
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Minny: “You can’t go back to Sugar Ditch. You gon’ leave your husband ‘cause
you throw up at some party? …But if you leave Mister Johnny, then Miss
Hilly done won the whole ball game…”
Minny tells Celia that she needs to stay and stand up for herself against Hilly and her
friends. By giving Celia this advice, Minny is trying to help Celia maintain her
relationship with her husband, Johnny, the way Big Momma works to maintain the Fuller
family. Towards the end of the movie, Johnny Foote, accosts Minny and tells her, “…I
also know the minute you started working here, she started getting better. So you saved
her life.” Celia and Johnny’s relationship is repaired thanks to Minny’s help. Johnny tells
Minny that she is a lifesaver and he is grateful.
Not only does Minny help keep Celia and Johnny’s relationship together, she
helps to make Celia more confident as a wife who now knows how to cook and make
friends. Celia evolves from an outsider who is afraid of not belonging to a braver woman,
just like how Big Momma works with Molly and Mrs. Fuller, for example. This theme of
mammies coming into people’s lives and making them better is repeated in '(
6, where Mabel “Madea” Simmons, briefly helps empower black female inmates.
However, compared to Big Momma and Minny, Madea’s role as a mammy is
overshadowed by her role as sapphire or angry black woman character.
Madea is a mammy character who is more angry, bitter, and aggressive. In this
way, she is an amalgamation of the “mammy,” who is nurturing and motherly, and “angry
black woman” stereotype, who is easily frustrated and prone to violence. Despite Madea
aggression and anger, she still behaves similar to Big Momma because she gives advice
on how the inmates in the movie can change the course of their lives. '(6
has a few plot lines, but the most important one is the story of the prostitute Candace, a
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poor young black woman who is frequently shown with messy hair and dirty clothes,
who is in dire straits as she struggles to survive on the street. Men mistreat her and it is
implied that she is raped at one point in the movie. She tries to get help, but it is too little
too late and she is thrown in jail after she refuses to show up to her trial for prostitution
after unknowingly soliciting an undercover officer for sex. Madea meets Candace after
she is sent to jail for destroying a white woman’s car. While in jail, Candace is attacked
by hostile inmates. Madea protects Candace and the two decide to take a self-help class
while in prison. This class focuses on forgiveness and healing the pain that helped put
them in prison.
One inmate begins discussing how she is angry at her father for abusing her, but
Madea interrupts her and gives the inmates advice for how to heal,
Madea: “…You’re in jail because of what you did. Learn to take responsibility for
yourself…I can’t stand folks who want to be the victim…No matter how
good, or how bad, the life was it’s up to you to make something of it…
What you do with that life is up to you. Stop being a victim.”
Madea’s lines here are examples of crude straight talk to transform the inmates from
victims to victorious (Morrison, Trimble, and Okeowo 2015). She suggest that the way
that they heal is through taking responsibility, to “stop being a victim,” and to take
control of their own lives. This is what the mammy characters in the sample do: they
ultimately try to get characters to discard the idea that they are byproducts of their
upbringing and environment in favor of a more individualistic understanding. Just like
how Big Momma came into the Fuller family and disappeared once she helped them get
better, Madea does the same thing, although her interaction with Candace is short. Madea
goes to jail, meets Candace, notices the excuses she makes for herself, and then calls
them out in class in an effort to help Candace get her life on track.
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'""' /
Movies with mammies as mother-figures ultimately seem like movies that suggest
racial reconciliation is possible. This makes these characters similar to magical negroes.
Entman and Rojecki (2001) claimed that the magical negro served three key purposes in
relation to white characters in film: 1.) to assist them, 2.) to help them realize and make
use of their spirituality, and 3.) to offer “folk wisdom” used to resolve their problems.
Denzin (2002) adds that in magical negro films, “interracial friendships in movies arise
from the need for Blacks to get what they need from Whites and for Whites to get what
they need from Blacks, usually soul” (p.61). Denzin suggests that magical negroes work
with whites, and vice-versa, to achieve some form of enlightenment or empowerment by
the end of the film.
The interactions between Big Momma and the Fullers, and Minny and Celia, falls
in line with Denzin’s thesis. Mammies come into white households and gain something
they need through interacting with them, while white people gain something in return:
Malcolm learns how to be a better father to his family, and Minny finds the courage to
leave her abusive husband. This connection to magical negroes implies that these mother
characters are doing something more than raising white families—they are doing what
teachers do and encouraging white people to make better choices. How mammies advise
is rooted in individualism.
Likewise, Madea tries to convince (mostly black) female inmates that they need
make the choice to stop “playing the victim.” This message resonates with Candace, who
eventually does learn to take control of her life while in prison. Madea’s whole purpose
for being in prison with Candace is to be an example of strength, resilience, and
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independence which changes Candace’s self-perception and causes her to be more
independent like Madea. Candace stopped “playing the victim,” which helped her make
better choices towards the end of the film, from which she becomes a better, more
confident woman and is eventually set free from literal (and figurative) prison.
Madea’s frustration with “victims” is a fairly typical presentation of the angry
black woman/sapphire trope because the angry black woman is really a way to portray
“passion and righteous indignation…used to silence and shame black women who dare to
challenge social inequalities, complain about their circumstances, or demand fair
treatment” (Pilgrim 2015:121). I infer that Madea’s frustration with victims comes from
her adherence to aspects of hegemonic masculinity, which emphasizes toughness and
enhances her anger. Her “masculine traits” are more obvious when we take into account
how violent she is throughout the movie. She is shown to have an extensive criminal
record, a willingness to engage cops in a car chase, wields a gun and threatens people
with it, and a judge sentences her to anger management classes for her excessive use of
violence.
Madea’s combination of masculine and feminine traits is similar to Carrie’s
characterization that allows her to break down Teddy’s ego. In this film, Madea’s
character is used to build up other women. Madea’s age, combined with her masculine
and feminine qualities, gives her authority in the prison. Her authority as a matriarch is
grounded not in nurturing affection of a traditional mother, but in a frank, violent
sternness typically associated with men like Robert McCall in &9and Carrie
in / . Because of the masculinity of the character, Madea’s reaction to the pain
young women experience is not to coddle, like mammies, but to empower them to fight
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back, resist, and/or get revenge. In Candace’s case, Madea encourages her, and other
inmates, to resist the temptation to be victims and “suck it up and shut the hell up,” as she
tells them.
Interestingly, movies with altruistic characters like Big Momma, Minny, and
Madea are much more “visible” and profitable than movies with revolutionaries and
vigilantes. Movies in the sample with altruistic characters made $188 million dollars on
average in the Obama era. The discrepancy between box office averages is interesting
when we look at how different the altruist character is compared to revolutionaries and
vigilantes. What is interesting about altruistic characters is that they want people to look
into themselves and think about how they can make different life choices to “improve”
their lives. Because altruists focus on individual choices, instead of institutional changes,
they want their subjects to engage in # in order to take personal !.
By demanding reflection and “responsibility,” altruists inspire the people they work with
to make personal changes in their lives that are implied to be “improvements” from their
current situation, similar to white saviors. Altruistic characters reify and reproduce racial
inequality and oppression while making it seem natural.
Compared to vigilantes, altruists more rely almost entirely on colorblind
individualism to teach others “life lessons.” The altruist’s deference to colorblindness is
why I believe they made the most money in the Obama era. In other words, I argue that
they earned more money because of how “safe” most of the “altruistic” black characters
are by comparison. “Altruistic” characters like Dr. Larabee and Blu Rain, for example,
are characters who do not require audiences to have any sort of racial consciousness
because these characters are generally “relatable” as “blank slates” onto whom audiences
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can project any number of meanings and associations. Dr. Larabee and Blu Rain do not
bring a racial consciousness into their stories in a way that disturbs the audience. I
theorize that movies with black “altruist” characters in them are so popular because they
have no, or hardly discernible, racial plot lines or elements aside from the fact that the
casts in these movies are mostly black. I believe this lack of discussion or plot focus on
race is important to make the characters in these movies as “non-controversial” as
possible by making the movies as “universally appealing” to (white) American audiences
as possible.
When movies with primarily black casts and themes are made, studios are
supposedly taking an economic “risk” in making and promoting them (Erigha 2019).
These movies are “risks” because, generally, they are thought of as “too black” and “too
political,” which is why movie studios shy away from “black films,” and movies with
strong “black themes,” revolving around race and racism, which are both seen as
“political” and therefore not universally appealing (Erigha 2019). This creates a negative
feedback loop in which “black films” are often either underfunded or not produced by
major movie studios because they are “too black,” and blackness supposedly does not
sell. So, whenever a “black film” is made, it stands out as unnecessarily “political”
because that movie focuses “too much” on issues that are important to, impact, and/or
harm black people. Therefore the movies with black characters like Dr. Larabee, in
, and Carrie, in / , need to be as “marketable,” palatable,
and likable as possible.
Another issue that I believe drives the supposed popularity of these films with
altruistic character is how whiteness is privileged at all levels of production in the film
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industry, from writers to actors, directors, producers and marketers (Hughey 2014; Erigha
2019). Black people, and other marginalized groups, are largely underrepresented at each
level of a movie’s development. As a marginalized group in Hollywood, black people
have very little control over how black characters are portrayed, thereby allowing racist
stereotypes and culturally racist assumptions about black people to dominate
“mainstream” and/or big budget movies (Erigha 2019).
Understanding Hollywood now, and in the Obama era, requires an understanding
that the film industry developed colorblind discourses in the 1960s, a time when overt
racism was outlawed. Hollywood openly disavowed outright racism—taking a
“progressive” stance on race—in favor of a market rationale that assumed movies with
white casts would make more money than movies with casts of color. The reasons for this
subtle racial discrimination are couched in cultural and economic language, theoretically
creating an industry preference for colorblindness and whiteness in films designed to sell
to as large an audience as possible.
By taking “progressive” stances on social issues, especially those involving race
and racism, Hollywood offered themes and characters that rejected notions of racial
exclusion but also provided “symbolic gestures of liberalism” that offered symbols of
diversity and inclusion without there being concrete evidence of such inclusion in the
industry (Erigha 2019:30). These “symbolic gestures” are similar to Collins’ (2000)
discussion of the “new racism” that can be summed up in the film industry as, using
Bonilla-Silva’s phrase, “racism without racists.” I infer that one of these “symbolic
gestures” in film was to have a black character like Dr. Larabee play the role that would
have otherwise been occupied by a character. In other words, I suspect some of the
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black “altruists” in the sample are really race-bent white saviors for the sake of
“diversity” and “inclusion,” even though Hollywood struggles with diversity at all levels.
So, movies with “altruist” characters were so popular in the Obama-era because
they represented the idea that racism had been overcome; they were generally
“optimistic” about racism, just like white saviors tended to be. On top of this optimism,
these movies focused on black characters, giving people what they wanted in terms of
diverse representation. Because audiences demand racial parity in films to keep movies
from being white dominated, it seems like blackness is grafted onto colorblind
“whiteness” to maintain the lauded liberalism of white savior films while giving
audiences what they claim to want: more faces of color on screen. This realization, in
tandem with the fact that these altruistic movies do not overtly blame white people for
black suffering or inequality, also likely contributes to “altruistic” movies’ commercial
success. They satiate audiences’ desire for diversity and inclusivity while secretly
maintaining the status quo. These movies are very “safe” as a result. In other words, they
make more money because more people are more comfortable seeing them and thus they
draw in larger crowds.
I theorize that movies like %01"#//"$"or
&,;( are “less appealing” to audiences and the Hollywood film industry
because these movies explicitly address and aggressively confront white racists, and they
link white people to contemporary racism, which is controversial and uncomfortable for
many people. This also helps explain why some vigilante movies do so well: they subtly
encourage colorblindness by reducing racism to one particular time period, location, or
the actions of a few “bad apples.” Therefore, vigilante movies are (mostly) “safe” to
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produce and watch. But, the question becomes, why do vigilante movies make less than
films with altruistic characters? The answer is, once again, fairly complex, if not
impossible to answer succinctly. But, I argue movies with vigilante characters make less
money than movies with altruists because of the vigilante’s use of hyper-violent content,
which could be offensive to some audiences. So, the difference between altruists and
vigilante box office earnings could be a function of the differing types of violence in the
films rather than the themes of the movies, although vigilante movies do tend to show
black people beating up on white people.
Given that movies with subtle controlling images and colorblind themes seemed
to be more “popular” in the Obama-era, one question arises: do American audiences
# “colorblindness” in their movies? While I cannot make any substantive claims
about what American movie-goers “prefer” without proper survey data, based on all of
the arguments I previously made, I would say that Americans seem to necessarily
“prefer” colorblindness in films. For one, colorblindness is often reinforced and
normalized through its invisibility and subtly. Many people may not pick up on the
colorblind racial ideologies, rhetoric, or controlling images in the films they watch.
Additionally, most films in the sample made several millions of dollars, or even billions
of dollars like $, which is an outlier in the study in terms of box office
earnings and worthy of a brief discussion.
$’s success is anomalous, and comes in large part due to its
connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an extremely successful, and popular,
American media franchise and shared universe revolving around a series of superhero
films produced by Marvel Studios. When $ came out, it received a lot of
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mass marketing and merchandising that generated a lot of excitement for the film.
Additionally, because the movie had a majority black cast, which is rare for a superhero
film, it was considered to be a cultural moment, especially since Black Panther (the
character) was going to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first major black superhero.
As a result, $ was a box office success and was extremely profitable.
I mention $’s success, for example, to show that people are watching
these movies regardless of “character type” or paternalistic “strategy” employed in them.
However, it seems the “liberal” film industry does like to produce these “colorblind”
movies because of how easy they supposedly are to make, consume, and profit from.
Compared to movies with altruistic characters in them, vigilante and revolutionary
characters are more likely to be “offensive” given their tendency to vividly portray the
brutality and cruelty of racism and how black people respond to such racial cruelty,
issues many people in the United States are uncomfortable with. The unfortunate thing is,
colorblind movies do not help people confront racism, but they do teach people how to
confront personal “failures.” This means that if we want the problem of colorblindness to
become less profitable in film narratives, the film industry has to become decoupled from
its all-encompassing whiteness, and the worldviews and assumptions of whiteness, at the
structural level which might help reduce the colorblindness, and other racist imagery and
ideologies, in movies.
."%!"-
To summarize this chapter, ultimately, “altruistic” characters are more “suburban”
and middle-class and focused on “individual, personal change.” Unlike revolutionaries
and vigilantes, altruists are the most similar to white saviors in terms of how they help
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people. For example, white saviors take a broad activist stance and engage in “acts of
racial uplift” to help dismantle structural and ideological racism—by upbraiding racist
instead of the racist systems of inequality—that prevent people of color from
being treated with respect (Schultz 2014:207). Altruists function similarly, assuming they
deal with individual racists. Schultz’s description of white saviors as characters who
make changes to the system by only engaging with racist individuals also sounds like my
description of vigilante characters. So, the vigilante and the altruist also have some
similarities in terms of their engagement with individualistic, and colorblind, notions of
social change.
Regardless of how these characters encourage others, all of the “altruists”
discussed in this chapter minimize racism and structural race and class inequalities, while
simultaneously reproducing them, and rely upon abstract liberalism to stress the
importance of meritocracy. Gender inequalities are also minimized, but through
intersections with race and class. This minimization is an example of “colorblindness.”
“Abstract liberalism,” is an aspect of colorblindness that asserts that society is not
contingent on racial formations and social practices, but on meritocracy, equal
opportunities and the idea that people of color should work harder if they want to get
ahead (Hughey 2015; Bonilla-Silva 2017). Along the same lines as abstract liberalism,
“minimization” downplays the effect of racism in life outcomes and experiences. This
frame shrinks the import of race because it frames racial progress as slow, if not
impossible, because racism is not recognized (Hughey 2015; Bonilla-Silva 2017). These
two frames drive how altruists function. All of the characters discussed in this chapter,
from Dr. Larabee to Madea, encourage their subjects to ignore external social forces and
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focus on their own failures, stop “playing the victim,” and not to blame their failures on
how white people treat them7
Despite how these characters might hint at their awareness of how society
oppresses and mistreats people of color, altruists demand that their urban, low-income or
poor subjects subjects overcome whatever barriers hold them back by working hard; this
perpetuates racial and class stereotypes. The film suggests that poor, disadvantaged, and/
or misguided characters can only achieve if they display the requisite: work ethic, respect
for authority, obedience, lawfulness, and discipline, all of which fail to indict social
structures for their role in creating disadvantage. Thus, the dominant gender, class, and
racial ideologies of colorblindness, benevolent paternalism, and individualism supported
in these movies creates false consciousness about how progress can be made and how
altruists can ultimately lift people out of perdition. This colorblindness is also
problematic because it invalidates people’s struggles with racism and opens a discussion
of the “benefits” or the necessity of individualism.
Additionally, what I find interesting is that movies with “altruistic” characters use
black characters to reinforce specific notions of individualism. In fact, throughout my
discussions of revolutionary, vigilante, and altruist characters, I have discussed how each
character category reinforces individualism in some way either by reducing the solution
to systemic oppression, disadvantage, or personal failure down to the actions and choices
of one person. The focus on specific individuals throughout all of the films in this study
places an emphasis on how each character “saves,” “rescues,” and “empowers” other
people. In the next chapter, I discuss how the focus on individuals who save others makes
them a type of “savior” character similar to white saviors.
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CHAPTER VII
DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I summarize my findings from the previous three chapters and
discuss their implications for, and connections to, past literature on white saviors.
Specifically, I return to the arguments I introduced in Chapter I where I suggest that the
paternalistic black characters mentioned in this study fit a different kind of “savior” role
(some more than others) in such a way that they are what I call “black saviors” that is
different from white saviors. “Black saviors” operate in some similar ways to white
savior characters, given the “black savior’s” desire to intervene in people’s lives to
improve them in some way. Thus, I use the “savior” concept to discuss black characters
given their actions which are directly or indirectly meant to “save” people in various
ways. However, “black saviors” are different from white saviors because they (at least
revolutionaries and some vigilantes) in some ways critique and “resist” white supremacy,
patriarchy, and capitalism in ways that white savior characters do not. These movies also
afford black people agency that white people used to have a monopoly on in film. I
explain these nuances more throughout this chapter.
First, I summarize and nuance this study’s findings from the previous three
chapters and the discussion of the nuances of those findings. Second, I provide a
discussion of the implication of the aforementioned nuances by discussing Collins’
(2000) discussion of controlling images. Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion of
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what my study’s findings mean, and what these black characters could mean going
forward, and how future scholars could advance the study on these black characters.
#%
To study black revolutionary, vigilante, and altruistic characters more closely, this
study sought to answer three key questions:
1. How does a black character’s class and gender influence how they rescue, inspire,
guide, or redeem other characters in Obama-era films from 2006-2018?
2. How are their acts of rescuing, inspiring, or redeeming similar to or different from
white saviors?
3. What are the implications of these similarities or differences?
Through my analysis of the twenty films used in this study, I have found very prominent
differences in regards to how paternalistic black male and female characters behave. Men
tend to rescue, inspire, guide, or redeem other characters through “tough love,”
aggression, and violent confrontation either with the people who need to be “saved,” or
the people causing harm. The theme of aggression is prevalent across all of the types of
characters (revolutionary, vigilante, altruist) being analyzed. Women tend to vary in the
methods they use to “save” others. However, they tend to be more motherly and nurturing
for the people they save and, in some cases such as in &, or '<,
*, black women come across as mammies and Jezebels who are servile. Other black
women like Mary in $Mary, or Madea, in '(6, take on more
aggressive masculine traits making them come across as angry black women and
sapphires. Regardless of their presentation, black women tend to protect and fight for
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children and/or their local communities, while men tend to fight for the entire black race
or very large groups of people at once.
When engaging with the sociological literature, it is clear that academia focuses
heavily on white people as the only ones who can “save” and help others given their
portrayal as “better” than the people they are saving, which uplifts whiteness writ large.
However, my findings from this study shows that the concept of a filmic “savior” is not
just a white phenomenon and can be extended to certain black characters as well. How
these black characters “save” and “rescue” others is highly nuanced, with each
complexity influencing how they attempt to make social change.
Since each character type works differently to engage with social change, each
character’s actions lie on a “spectrum” with “broad societal change” (correlated with
revolutionary characters) on one end, and “individual, personal change” (correlated with
altruistic characters) on the other end, with more “localized social change” (correlated
with vigilante characters) sitting in the center, which I explain in future chapters. In
addition, each character on the spectrum has different priorities that are focused on
(revolutionary characters), # (vigilante characters), or #
(altruistic characters).
These “priorities” seem to be influenced by class, with poorer characters
advocating for revolution and reform, and characters who are more generally middle or
upper-class advocating for reflection. These priorities are also important because they
simply indicate what each character’s “strategy” aims to accomplish in terms of dealing
with racism, sexism and other forms of oppression, and what type of “consciousness”
each character possesses. For example, I believe is correlated with “race
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consciousness” in general, while #?! is correlated with
“colorblindness.” 1# is correlated with elements of both colorblindness and race
consciousness.
Despite each character’s differing characteristics, each type of character seeks to
save, empower, and protect vulnerable people from racial and/or gender oppression or
harm. What ultimately separates each “type” of black character, and the strategies they
each use, is how they achieve that “salvation.” Each character archetype discussed in this
study embodies some form of power because the characters are portrayed as having
power and/or status through their ability or efforts to make change (even if it is simply
personal change). Black men are portrayed as violent, and actually as having greater
physical power, but they are also portrayed as educated, knowledgeable, and capable, as I
discuss with the altruistic characters. So, black men are shown to embody greater
diversity in characteristics across all of the films as compared to women. Black women
are portrayed in more disempowering ways across all the films, and are generally not as
educated, knowledgeable, or capable.
'!% -
What I theorize from these nuances, and what I believe is this study’s major
contribution to the literature, is that the black characters I have discussed in this study
have more nuances in 21
st
century film that allow both characters to reject and conform to
certain controlling images. Returning to the theory of controlling images, Collins (2000)
argues that controlling images are pervasive, negative, stereotypical representations and
images of black women that continue to justify their oppression. She implies that
controlling images are “static” and immutable caricatures that are constantly repeated
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without variation across time and institution with very little complexity or nuance.
Controlling images are simply reductionist takes on black womanhood that are meant to
mock black women as “inferior” to white women.
Contrary to Collins, I reiterate that controlling images are not static images, as
evidenced by some of the characters and categories discussed in this study. These
characters change and evolve over time in their movies based on the narratives around
them, their motives, and their character arcs. My argument opens space for characters to
exist as typical “mammies” and “angry black women” at the beginning of their movies,
who then end up fighting their oppressor, and encourage others to do the same, by the end
of their movies. In fact, even when different characters supposedly represent “controlling
images,” how these characters represent them is often completely different. For example,
Sam White’s expression of the “angry black woman” is different from Starr Cater’s
expressions. Django’s expression vigilantism is different from Robert McCall’s. This
implies that the “controlling image” concept may need to be thought of as being more
varied instead of a one-dimensional expression. In other words, controlling images can be
reframed, repurposed, and/or re-appropriated to create different expressions of the
stereotype that do not neatly fit Collins’ original conceptualizations.
For example, Lysistrata is only able to become the “activist” because she is an
“angry black woman” whose anger motivates her to improve her community. Being an
“angry black woman” in this case, does not hinder her agency and make her seem
“subordinate” or “inferior,” the way Collins theorizes controlling images do. I find that
being an “angry black woman” enhances Lysistrata’s agency, and allows her to take the
necessary actions to make change. Lysistrata’s activism against systemic patriarchy and
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racism subverts the racism inherent within the “bad black girl” and “angry black woman”
controlling images by reframing her supposed “bitchiness” (that she is seemingly known
for in the film) as something righteous and revolutionary.
Likewise, Big Momma is only able to help the people around her, because of her
status as a “mammy.” Big Momma starts off being portrayed as a simple, lowly
“mammy” who takes care of the Fuller household, but her character develops in the film
and she ends up acting as a “mammy” at the end of the movie who the Fuller
family from harm which is only possible because of her “mammy” role. In other words,
Big Momma is able to both take care of a family and fight off evildoers who seek to harm
it which seemingly contradicts the traditional description of the mammy image as
someone who is incapable of anything other than raising a white family. Her portrayal as
a doting, servile nanny is actually reframed, and portrayed, as one of her strengths
because her role as a “mammy” makes her unassuming and makes it easier for her to help
others by investigating crime. Therefore, Big Momma does not neatly fit into the
“mammy” archetype even though she is a mammy on the surface. I see this same
dynamic with male characters who embody certain black male stereotypes.
Take Black Dynamite, for example. He starts his movie off as a poor, violent,
black male, all of which are controlling images of black men that seek to justify black
male oppression. However, Black Dynamite undergoes an evolution in his movie in
which his portrayal as a “violent black male” is reframed, and portrayed, as a “positive”
for him at the end of the movie in which he is portrayed as a hero only because of his
belligerence. The stereotype associated with him does not make him seem “inferior”; it
makes him seem “heroic.”
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Like Lysistrata and Big Momma, Black Dynamite’s violence subverts the typical
narratives of black “incivility” that often utilize white characters to “tame” violent black
men. Subverting controlling images through the repeated use of stereotypes as tactics for
liberation instead presents a counter-narrative to the idea that black men are “uncivil” and
“savage” and in need of a white person’s help. Theoretically, Black Dynamite, and other
violent black men in their movies, becomes self-sufficient and independent ! he
uses violence, and he uses it for “liberation” instead of destruction. Thus violence
becomes a masculine liberation strategy for men like Black Dynamite, just as being an
“angry black woman” is a “liberation” strategy for women.
Therefore, I return to my early assertion that these characters, and their
expressions of controlling images, might be “counter-narratives” to the white supremacist
notions inherent within these controlling images. Thus, the use of controlling images as a
way to subvert racist ideas of what black people are capable of seems to be a way to
reclaim the black image as emblematic of strength and self-determination instead of
weakness, degeneracy, and unruliness as Collins’ original definitions imply. This could
mean that controlling images can be used as purely negative literary devices that
dehumanize black men and women. Or, as I find in modern movies, they can be nuanced
and used as ways to tell stories that challenge the dehumanization of black people and
white supremacist patriarchy as a whole. With this in mind, I think Collins’ discussions
of controlling images can be expanded to include these newfound nuances that makes the
controlling image concept more amorphous and influenced by the period in which they
are used. The images I discuss in this study seem to be influenced by the time period in
which they were used (i.e. the “Obama era”) which means that they are likely not going
185
to reinforce the same themes as controlling images developed during slavery, for
example, and will always shift over time. This seems to be a deviation from Collins’
conception of controlling images.
.1# % - @/1A
In addition to my previous argument, I also argue that even in films with more
nuanced black characters and representations, I still see the reproduction of ideas about
racism that perpetuate colorblind racism, white supremacy,. In other words, while each
character each archetype I analyze in the study is portrayed as having power and/or status
through their ability or efforts to make change, the ways that they make change often
reproduces pre-existing controlling images that oppress and marginalize black people.
Their acts of “empowerment” in some ways actually serve to continue black male and
female disempowerment in society. Therefore, while I previously argued that characters
could reject controlling images, I also argue that in some instances they can reinforce
them, often simultaneously and at different points in their movies. This seems to creates a
paradox in my analyses. If I claim that some of the characters in the study represent more
nuanced controlling images that may actually help “subvert” and “challenge” white
supremacy and patriarchy (at least in the context of a movie narrative), how can these
characters also help reproduce white supremacy and patriarchy?
Part of this paradox is a concept called the “new racism.” New racism supports
the social order while seemingly challenging the racial inequality within the social order
(Collins 2005; Hughey 2009). The new racism explains contemporary racial inequality as
reproduced in ways that make up the “post-racial” myth of America and American racial
politics (Collins 2005; Hughey 2015; Bonilla-Silva 2017). As I have shown for the
186
movies in this study, because all of the characters represent specific controlling images
and stereotypes, I argue that these images and portrayals play some part in perpetuating
the oppression of black people through portraying them as “ghettoized,” “urban,” and
“violent.” The perpetuation of negative themes through the mélange of mass media
representations of black men and women creates a (global) context for a type of racism
that frames black people as “problematic,” “violent,” “ghetto,” or “uncivil” all without
needing specific racial, racist, or sexist language that once defined the racism of the past
(Collins 2005). The portrayal of black people as “problematic” is easily perpetuated
through subtle characterizations and narrative choices in movies, which helps to create
and perpetuate colorblind ideology, undercutting racial progress globally.
Undercutting racial progress is even more alarming when we realize that it comes
from certain black characters. Since the characters in the movies in the study are all
black, it may make it harder for audiences to notice that the movies in some ways
reinforce colorblindness and/or the “new racism.” Therefore, many people might see
movies with black characters calling for revolution, like %01, and view the movie as
“positive” and “progressive” even though the movie ends with a black character ranting
about how black people need to “take the blame” for the role they play in their own
oppression. Because movies have such a large reach, and the film industry is an industry
with the ability to shape cultural perceptions, this means that movie plots and their
subliminal messages are very important and can seep into the broader collective
consciousness, which gets me into another related topic: cinethetic racism.
One extension of “new racism,” in relation to film, is called “cinethetic racism”
(Hughey 2009). “Cinethetic racism,” according to Hughey (2009), is a type of racism that
187
describes “black friendly” and racially “progressive” films. However, these films
combine overt manifestations of racial “equality” with covert expressions of anti-black
stereotypes (Hughey 2009). Movies like &9, &9*, '<
,, and &, fit into Hughey’s description of cinethetic racism because they
show characters like Robert McCall, Big Momma, and Minny who work and cooperate
with other people to help “save” others. Yet, despite their “heroism,” they are still
stereotyped as violent (Robert McCall) or subservient (Big Momma and Minny).
Likewise, even characters like Lysistrata and Sam White are presented as heroic
and fearless activists who stand up to oppressors, even though they embody specific
degrading stereotypes of black women as angry, petty, mean, and bitter. This mismatch
between empowerment and dehumanization in the films in this study demonstrate the
problem of “new racism”: the perpetuation of certain aspects of the status quo while
seemingly “challenging” it, specifically around black people’s place in the social order.
For example, recall from Chapter V where I discuss that vigilante characters,
similarly to black superheroes, are portrayed as “superheroic” yet are also portrayed as
extremely violent, which subtly reinforces black superheroes and vigilantes as
“threatening” or “harmful” all without needing to explicitly say it. That is an example of
cinethetic racism because the portrayal of vigilantes seems to highlight the power,
efficiency, and heroism of black males while underlining those portrayals with a negative
stereotype. The aforementioned portrayals are thus the equivalent of getting a back-
handed compliment. This also brings into perspective why the theme of
“exceptionalism” is so prominent in these movies: only the black characters who are “not
like the others” get to be powerful heroes and leaders while the black characters who are
188
not “exceptional” need to be “saved.” So, the malleability of the controlling images
discussed in this study in some ways seems to be a function of this new, cinethetic racism
that is meant to add to a post-racial, “back-handed” (to use my own term) colorblind
discourse that in many ways framed Obama’s presidency.
%
Ultimately, this study furthers Patricia Hill Collins’ discussion of controlling
images by showing that controlling images are malleable, as opposed to static, entities.
The malleability of certain controlling images implies that movies in the 21
st
century that
present black characters as “saviors” of some kind, while still using stereotypes to frame
them, still perpetuate racism, sexism, and classism in very nuanced ways. The
contradiction between the “positive” portrayals of black characters and the racist imagery
and assumptions that underlie those portrayals implies that movies with “black savior”
characters are actually part of the “new racism” fueled by the same colorblind
individualism that framed Obama’s presidency.
This study takes a novel approach to studying black characters in film by focusing
on black main characters in movies released during the Obama era from 2006-2018.
Throughout this study, I have analyzed how black characters act paternalistically using
three different strategies: revolution, vigilantism, and altruism. In addition to analyzing
these strategies, and the characters in the sample who seem to use them, I analyzed how
these characters’ race, class, and gender influenced how they utilized the aforementioned
“strategies” to rescue, inspire, guide, or redeem other characters in Obama-era films from
2006-2018. Obama’s presidency showed a powerful, authoritative black man leading the
nation into “prosperity” and “change.” His presidency also represented “proof” that
189
America had overcome its racist past, meaning that his presidency ushered in a wave of
colorblind rhetoric that downplayed the effects of racism as a “thing of the past,” and this
rhetoric may have made its way into film narratives and representations
Despite the colorblindness Obama’s presidency represented, race and racism were
dominant themes of the movies at the time in which black people were characterized in
Obama’s image as powerful and paternalistic. Analysis of paternalistic black characters
in films, released during Obama’s presidency, reveals how blackness and black agency
was framed and conceptualized in order to impact the ways race was understood then,
and how race is understood in the United States today.
With this study, I also sought to understand how black characters addressed the
issues of racism that tends to pervade movies released at the time. I ultimately found that
many movies featured black characters who were angry at and sought to partially correct
the harmful effects of institutional racism through “revolution” or “vigilantism.” Other
black characters, like most of the “altruists” in the study, did not deal with racism at all
and opted to focus on individualistic, and colorblind life lessons and general advice to
“help” others.
Of these three character types, and their preferred strategies discussed in this
study, the movies that were the most colorblind—movies that reflected the “post-racial”
ideologies that Obama ultimately represented—were the most “profitable” and “popular,”
meaning that movies with colorblind and individualistic narratives were generally most
effective at drawing crowds at the time. The popularity of all of the more colorblind
“black savior” films also seems to be the result of a structural issue in the film industry
that is white-dominated and infamous for its portrayal of black people as “leaders” as a
190
symbolic display of representation and inclusivity. While these representations are
typically viewed as “progressive,” these movies also subtly reinforce the social status
quo, which represents the harmful effects of the “new racism.”
One way to address this new racism is to have more directors, writers, and
producers of color in control of their narratives and the portrayals of people of color. This
will not totally eliminate the production of racial stereotypes and the cynical desire to
depict people of color in order to appease racially diverse audiences. But, what having
more directors of color will do is wrest control of the film industry away from people
who are more interested in tokenizing people of color rather than humanizing them.
However, even with directors and writers of color in the industry, we still see portrayals
of black males as dependent on physical violence, aggression, and rage to get their way,
and we continue to see black women portrayed as mammy, sapphire, and Jezebel
controlling images.
All of these portrayals across every movie I discuss in this study, except for
portrayals of “altruistic” characters, continue to reinforce the “savagery” and “incivility”
that black people have been associated with since the colonial narratives of the “noble
savage.” Altruistic characters are presented as “civilized” or “domesticated,” since they
have, in some ways, assimilated into certain aspects of whiteness like middle-class social
values. This connection to the middle-class makes altruists not only the most similar to
white saviors, but the most similar to Obama himself given their adherence to
colorblindness, and their desire for their subjects to follow rules and develop the “right
values” that will help them succeed and escape their “urban” environments. Thus, it
makes some sense that movies with these characters were not only the most profitable in
191
the Obama-era since these movies implicitly suggested ways for society to create more
“respectable,” “successful,” and “introspective” people who sought to only change
themselves instead of the status quo.
#
The primary limitation of this study is that the analyses of the characters in the
films used in the study are limited to films selected through my criteria which limits the
“depth” of the sample. First, the sample for this study is relatively small and does not
include “true stories” or biographical films. I discuss my reasoning for the size of the
sample and for not including biographical films in previous sections. However, the
selection process I used in this study limited the kinds of characters I analyzed and the
conclusions I drew from these analyses. For example, one of the criteria for the study was
that the study needed to have a black/main antagonist and/or protagonist character who
occupied a role associated with power and/or leadership in relation to other characters.
This study’s focus on black main characters hindered the overall scope of the
analysis because I did not focus on all of the potential characters who could have also
been paternalistic, which may have added an additional layer to my discussion of “black
saviors” because of their differing interactions with the lead and/or other characters.
Because I only focused on lead characters, I did not provide an analysis of “minor” or
“supporting” characters. This lack of focus on all characters in the films greatly limits the
scope of the study and the analyses herein. To elaborate, I focused on main characters
because many studies did not focus on black main characters. In fact, most studies of
black characters in film focus on supporting or minor black characters, but I decided not
to focus on them because black main characters were unexplored. Despite the novelty of
192
my approach, an analysis of all potentially paternalistic black characters in films would
have added more depth to the analysis by adding more depth to my analysis character
interactions at all character “levels,” main characters, supporting characters, and minor
characters.
The timeline of the study is also a limitation. This study only analyzes films from
2006-2018. The use of this specific timeline limits the sample and prevents the study
from looking at movies with characters who could have also added depth to the study. I
used a timeline to reduce the “universe” of films down to an amount of films with a
shared context (the Obama era) that was more manageable. By creating this specific
timeline, I actually prevented the study from looking at movies like '<,,
the first movie in the '<, series, which may have added more to my
discussion of Big Momma’s character. The timeline keeps the study from looking at films
before 2006, which limits the depth of the sample.
Finally, I lacked resources that would have helped me conduct this study more
efficiently. For example, while I ultimately preferred to use Microsoft Word to do my
analyses, that preference was influenced by my lack of resources to afford and/or use
more advanced technology that would have made staying organized and systemic in my
analyses a little easier. The lack of resources in general limited the number of films I
would reasonably be able to analyze in a reasonable timeframe. Therefore, with more
resources, I believe this study could have been expanded to include more films and/or an
audience analysis of the films which would have moved the study away from my
personal interpretations. A view on these movies from an audience is what I believe this
study is missing, and it is missing the audience perspective because I lacked the time,
193
finances, and other necessary resources to assemble an appropriate audience, which
limited the scope of the analyses to twenty movies that I interpreted.
1#1
Future research into supposed “black savior” characters could look at a larger
sample of films as this study settled on twenty films. With a larger sample, researchers
will have more data from which to develop more new categories for analysis and
discussion that could potentially add nuance, or challenge, the concept of black agency
and power in film. Future research could analyze films in which there is possible a “black
savior” who is more of a supporting character, and how the supporting role compares and
contrasts with “black savior” lead characters. Since this study only focused on “leads”
there may have been nuances that I missed because I was not looking at every character’s
interactions. Along these same lines, future studies could look at the lead characters in
blaxploitation films to try and answer the same research questions I addressed in this
study. Black lead characters in blaxploitation films almost exclusively work to rescue or
“save” other black people, and a study that looks at how that is done in comparison to
white savior characters, or even the characters I have discussed in this study, could
provide an analysis on the differences between white saviors and blaxploitation
characters in various racialized and gendered ways.
An analysis of these types of “black savior” characters could incorporate an
“audience analysis” that focuses less on how the researcher conceptualizes characters and
instead focuses on the ways in which movie-going audiences make sense of these
characters. Utilizing audience analysis and commentary adds additional layers of
complexity to the understanding of paternalistic black characters, whether such
194
“paternalism” exists, or whether the actions of black characters in this sample or an
extended sample can be considered “paternalism” at all. How people make sense of what
they watch could provide more powerful and theoretically interesting insights into how
racial meanings are constructed through filmic imagery, and what kinds of people make
what types of meanings from what they watch. This could not only add to literature on
the effects of media on people's understanding of race and racism, but it can also add to
our understanding of how different people’s intersectional identities influence what
movies they consume and how that might influence how different people interpret
movies, what movies are produced, and how those movies are reviewed. An analysis of
the “cycle” of audience perception-movie production-movie review could provide a
nuanced understanding of the film industry and its relationship to its audience that goes
beyond simple market trend data and into a discussion of the social construction of
(racial) reality, and (race) knowledge, and their relationship to capitalist production and
consumption writ large.
Given the context of the Black Lives Matter protests and broader cultural shifts,
future research should also consider how the portrayal of black characters in film might
reflect, or influence, the way in which people perceive these racial movements and shifts,
and/or how filmic portrayals of black people might influence how mainstream media, and
politicians, discuss these movements given that the media and political actors influence
policies that impact the ability to engage in social protest. It would be interesting to
compare how the “modern” language that is often used to describe the current protests,
and protestors, reflects or is influenced by the portrayal of black people in movies and/or
television shows.
195
Finally, there are some questions that arise from this study that future studies can
attempt to answer:. Do black people need a “savior” and a “hero” especially in the
movies? Are these characters even helpful? Can a “black savior” truly be a
“revolutionary” character who truly upbraids or “fights against” systemic racism? What
would that look like given how the film industry produces movies? Answers to these
questions, which are neither simple nor succinct, will allow a deeper analysis of the film
industry itself and its importance in shaping culture.
I want to conclude by saying that the study of black characters in film is not just
about the film industry, but the humanization and dignity of black people in the United
States. While there are endless depictions of white people, white men in particular, there
are not that many versions of black people in the culture. Culture has a powerful way of
telling people what they can and cannot be. For people of color, the options for what we
can be are limited. This study was an attempt to expand those options to show that black
people can be more than “magical negroes” who are dependent on white people’s mercy.
Black characters can fight for, and “redeem” ourselves because we are also powerful, and
the narrative of “black people as powerful” is a narrative that has only developed in the
past few decades. The centuries-long repertoire of black representation is full of
embarrassing and dehumanizing imagery with harmful implications for the black
experience throughout United States history, and that harm continues to this day.
Since the film industry has gained more racial and gender diversity—with more
people of color and women directing movies in the past five or six years—the amount of
movies with strong racial or gender themes, narratives, and allegories has become more
196
prevalent. However, despite the diversity gains, Hollywood still has a long way to go
before it really becomes inclusive and devoid of its colorblindness. Movements like
#OscarsSoWhite are so important due to their focus on placing a spotlight on “black
movies” like $ and $ and &,;( that all
problematize the whiteness that pervades the United States. #OscarsSoWhite specifically
highlighted the ways in which film and television awards shows like The Oscars, Golden
Globes, Critics’ Choice Award, and Screen Actors Guild Awards overlooked the
contributions of black directors, writers, and actors in favor of mostly white male
directors, writers, and actors, which only served to perpetuate the exclusive whiteness of
the film industry.
Theoretically, this means movies with no overt or “controversial” racial themes
that challenge white supremacy will continue to make a lot of money, win a lot of
awards, and get more opportunities to be produced, while movies that challenge white
supremacy, like the movies with revolutionary characters and themes, will be “fringe”
novelties that get little recognition. Likewise, this continued focus on creating colorblind
movies for white consumption highlights the necessity for the current Black Lives Matter
movement and the current protests for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other victims
of police brutality. These movements highlight the myriad ways in which black people
are oppressed, dehumanized, and failed by society. The common portrayals of black
people in films with colorblind narratives play a role in that societal failure because they
encourage people to overlook black oppression.
But, fortunately, people are becoming more aware of racial oppression thanks to
mainstream mega-hits like $ that speak very directly to racial animus in the
197
United States. There are other movies about the struggle against racism, like
and "and several television shows likethat have
received “mainstream” recognition, which goes a long way in raising people’s
consciousness about racism and its global legacy. As society grows more aware of
racism, we might see a surge in racially progressive and conscious films with more
“revolutionary” characters and themes. For example, $ is slated to get a
sequel in the year 2022 which might have more racially charged themes that raise
people’s awareness of and desire to combat racism. This gives me hope that the future of
black portrayals in film will continue to trend toward more “positive,” powerful, and
progressive images that humanize and dignify blackness all around the world. These
positive images and narrative will not come just because of the increased diversity in
Hollywood, but because people will realize, with help from movie narratives, that black
lives have always mattered, they just have not mattered much in the movies. Hopefully,
the Oscars will not look so white in the future.
198
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APPENDIX A
216
APPENDIX B
Film Year Genre Minutes Director Distributor
Gender of
Lead
U.S. Box
Office
Gross
Savior
Occupation Social Class
Akeelah and the Bee 2006 Drama 112 DougAtchison Lionsgate Male 19M Teacher Working-middleclass
Big Momma’s House 2 2006
Action/Crime/
Comedy 99
John
Whitesell 20thCenturyFox Male/Female 138.3M
FBI
agent/grandmothe
r Workingclass
2012 2009 Disaster 158
Roland
Emmerich ColumbiaPictures Male 769.7M
Presidentofthe
UnitedStates Upperclass/eliteclass
Black Dynamite 2009 ActionComedy 84 ScottSanders
Apparition;
DestinationFilms Male
296,557
thousand
Warveteran/CIA
officer
Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes
to Jail 2009 Comedy-Drama 103 TylerPerry Lionsgate Female 90.5M Minister Workingclass
Precious 2009 Drama 110 LeeDaniels Lionsgate Female 47.4M Schoolteacher Working
The Help 2011 PeriodDrama 146 TateTaylor
WaltDisney
StudiosMotion
Pictures Female 216.6M Maid Poor-workingclass
Django: Unchained 2012
Drama/
Blaxploitation/W
estern 165
Quentin
Tarantino
TheWeinstein
Company Male 425.4M Slave/Apprentice Classless
After Earth 2013
Post-
Apocalyptic
ScienceFiction 100
M.Night
Shyamalan ColumbiaPictures Male 243.8M General/Ranger Upperclass
Dear White People 2014 Comedy-Drama 108 JustinSimien
Lionsgate:
Roadside
Attractions Female 5.4M
Student/Anti-
RacistActivist Poor-workingclass
The Equalizer 2014
VigilanteAction
Thriller 132
Antoine
Fuqua ColumbiaPictures Male 192.3M RetiredMarine Workingclass
Beasts of No Nation 2015 WarDrama 137
CaryJoji
Fukunaga
BleeckerStreet;
Netflix Male
90,777
thousand RebelLeader Lowclass
Chi-Raq 2015
Musical
Comedy-Drama 127 SpikeLee
Roadside
Attractions Female 2.7M Communityleader Poor
Fences 2016 PeriodDrama 139
Denzel
Washington
Paramount
Pictures
Male(Troy)
andFemale
(Rose) 64.4M Parents Middle-workingclass
Roman J. Israel, Esq. 2017 LegalDrama 122 DanGilroy ColumbiaPictures Male 13M Lawyer Poor-workingclass
Black Panther 2018 Fantasy/SciFi 134 RyanCoogler
WaltDisney
StudiosMotion
Pictures Male 1.347billion KingofWakanda Upperclass/elite
Night School 2018 Comedy 111
MalcolmD.
Lee UniversalPictures Female 103M Teacher Workingclass
Proud Mary 2018 ActionThriller 88 BabakNajafi
SonyPictures
Releasing Female 21.8M
Assassin/maternal
figure Classless
The Equalizer 2 2018
VigilanteAction
Thriller 121
Antoine
Fuqua
SonyPictures
Releasing Male 190.4M Retiredmarine Workingclass
The Hate U Give 2018 Drama 133
George
TillmanJr.
20
th
Century
Fox Female 34.9M
High-school
Student Classless
217
APPENDIX C
Revolutionary Archetype
Dimension Observed Messiahs Activists
Key Elements of Each
Work to save the world or entire
groups of (black) people at once,
usually through military/political
violence or terrorism.
Work to bring awareness to racial
injustices. They tend to be non-violent
and engage in protest and/or marches to
bring about certain changes.
Hegemonic
Characteristics?
Yes. Messiahs tend to be men who
are hegemonically masculine. No.
What Problems are
Being “Solved”?
Institutional or systemic racism
that oppresses black people.
Institutional or systemic racism and/or
injustice that oppresses black people.
Is the Problem Being
Solved Individual;
Institutional; Systemic?
Systemic and global. Racial
oppression in these films tends to
be perpetuated by governments.
Institutional and/or systemic such as:
racism and patriarchy.
Character Motivation?
These men tend to have
experienced, and have seen others
experience, the effects of racism
and want to eliminate it.
These characters tend to have
experienced, and have seen others
experience, the effects of racism and
want to eliminate it.
Consequences of
Revolutionary’s Actions?
Usually, the black diaspora is
“saved” or is at least “better off”
in some way.
There is some massive social reform
passed to correct broad injustices OR,
people become much more aware of
injustices.
Associated Controlling
Images? Violent/angry black male
Angry black woman; “Bad black girl.”
None for male activists
Movies Associated with
each category
Black Panther; Beasts of No
Nation; Black Dynamite
(Total: 3)
Chi-Raq; The Hate U Give; Dear White
People; Roman J. Israel, Esq.
(Total:4)
218
APPENDIX D
Vigilante Archetype
Dimension Observed Masculine Vigilantism Vigilante Femininity
Key Elements of Each
Use extralegal violence to
rescue women and children.
Similar to black superheroes
who fight white men
Use extralegal violence to rescue a child and herself. Violence is a way for female
vigilante to fight black men
Hegemonic Characteristics?
Yes. Hegemonic
masculinity
No. However, femininity is combined with masculine traits (ex. Use of violence,
etc)
What Problems are Being “Solved”?
Vigilante males tend to fight
white male racism The vigilante female character fights black men/ elements of patriarchy
Character Motivation for Vigilantism
Revenge (for harming loved
ones/community) to restore
social order Liberation/Freedom (from male control) so she can be a mother
Consequences for Vigilante’s Actions?
People/community is save
and vigilante treated like a
hero Child is saved and vigilante moves forward with her life
Associated Controlling Images? Violent/angry black male Angry black woman
Movies Associated with each category
Black Dynamite; Django:
Unchained; The Equalizer;
The Equalizer 2
(Total: 3)
Proud Mary
(Total: 1)
219
APPENDIX E
Altruist Archetype
Dimension Observed Teachers Fathers Mothers
Key Elements of Each
Use their wisdom to educate students who
are disadvantaged by inspiring them to
make better life choices. Reinforces
individualism and colorblind race ideology.
Use their life experiences to
educate/advise their sons on how
to make better life choices by
reinforcing notions of
masculinity. Reinforces
individualism and colorblind race
ideology.
Use their life experiences to educate/advise children,
young adults, families to make better choices in life.
Reinforces individualism and colorblind race ideology.
Hegemonic Characteristics?
Yes. Male teachers are mean, intimidating,
and aggressive; traits found primarily in
men in the media
Yes. Fathers teach their sons to be
hegemonically masculine.
Yes. Mothers tend to be “mammies” or “sapphires” who
teach others to make better choices (like teachers).
What Problems are Being “Solved”?
Student failures and their implied lack of
proper values.
Sons want to achieve some goal
but they are not “man enough” to
do so.
Families (typically white) are dysfunctional and need
guidance.
Is the Problem Being Solved Individual;
Institutional; Systemic?
Individual – teachers teach students to
make better life choices
Individual – fathers teach sons to
be more masculine
Individual – mothers teach children, young adults,
families to make better life choices
Character Motivation for Altruism?
Teachers often see “potential” in their
students and/or pity them
Fathers want to create the best
future for their children/subjects
Mothers want to create the best future for their
children/subjects
Consequences of Altruist’s Actions?
Student succeeds and becomes the person
they want to be and/or they integrate into
mainstream society
Son becomes less emotional or
moves closer to masculinity to
become a better version of
him/herself
Child, family, young adult becomes a better version of
him/herself that is more confident or resilient emotionally
and socially.
Associated Controlling Images? Violent/angry black male Violent/angry black male mammy or sapphire
Movies Associated with each category
Akeelah and the Bee; Precious; Night
School (Total: 3)
After Earth; Fences (Total:
2)
Big Momma’s House 2; The Help; Madea Goes to Jail
(Total: 3)
220
CURRICULUM VITAE
Eric Jordan
ADDRESS: University of Louisville E-MAIL: [email protected]
Department of Sociology PHONE: (502) 852-8045
103 Lutz Hall
Louisville, KY, 40292
EDUCATION
2020 University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, Race and Ethnicity, Applied Sociology,
Ph.D.
Dissertation: “4 @A.%#%
12!0”
2016 University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, Race and Ethnicity, Sociology, M.A.
Thesis: “11"1%.'%#
1$:”
2014 University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, Psychological and Brain Sciences, B.A.
RESEARCH
Publications
Book Chapters
Jordan, Eric. Scheduled for 2021. “Gentrify This!” A Critical Analysis of Gentrification
in Season 5 of Shameless” in, .%$$
& (University of West Georgia)
Jordan, Eric, Derrick Brooms. 2018. “Black and Blue: Analyzing and Queering Black
Masculinity in ' Ain, 1.& # (Lexington
Books)
Encyclopedia Entries
Jordan, Eric, Derrick Brooms. 2019. “White Savior Tropes (films)” in, &
#1% (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
TEACHING
2017 – PresentGraduate Teaching Assistant, SOC 210 (Race in the U.S.), University of
Louisville
Instructor: Dr. Melanie Gast
Taught students to think critically about race and racism
221
Met with instructor to plan and discuss the course
Facilitated discussions sessions where I lectured and discussed race and
racism with students
Planned discussion sessions
Answered student emails
Maintained student grades
Held office hours and met students during that time
2014 – 2016 Graduate Teaching Assistant, SOC 210 (Intro to Sociology), University of
Louisville
Instructor: Dr. Ryan Schroeder (Fall 2014 – Spring 2015)
Dr. Mark Austin (Fall 2015 – Spring 2016)
Taught students the theories, methods, history, and concepts integral to
Sociology
Attended lecture with instructor
Met with instructor to plan and discuss the course
Facilitated discussions sessions where I lectured and discussed relevant class
topics with students
Planned discussion sessions
Answered student emails
Maintained student grades
Held office hours and met students during that time
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Race and Ethnicity in the United States
Race and Racism
Race and the Media
Social Theory
Social Stratification
Diversity and Inequalities
Qualitative Methods
Cultural Sociology
Social Psychology
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
Blackboard
Learned how to maintain student records in this course management
system
GTA Academy
Learned how to teach effectively
Learned to use a variety of teaching strategies to facilitate learning
Inclusive Teaching Circle
Learned how to discuss and understand race, racism, and racial
domination in the classroom
222
