Discussion for article #234175
Friday Night Lights --a White Savior TV show is GREAT television.
Breaking Bad–a White Demonic TV show–is even better.
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Does mean the “Magic Negro” genre is dead?
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Well, this essay will revive the reputation of the original White Savior Movie: Birth of A Nation.
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To Kill a Mockingbird is hardly a “white savior” movie. If anything, it’s the opposite. That genre focuses mostly on white folks who swoop in to help minority kids discover and reach their full potential. Atticus wasn’t doing that. He was fighting a quixotic battle against a racist system and the only people who learned anything were his own kids.
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Great essay. It opened up a new way of looking at WSM to me. I was very disappointed in movies like Mississippi Burning. I am uncomfortable with rewriting history to totally airbrush other races out of any narrative. I am more ok with that approach in fiction. Mainly, I agree that any vehicle that gets more opportunities for new faces and talent and that exposes audiences to new perspectives is a good thing.
Well, yes, Birth of a Nation was definitely a WSM, but the Ws were saving the Ws, not the minorities. So, you know, there’s that.
Wut?
I think, unfortunately, we’re still at a place as a society where even the most talented/capable people of color sometimes need a “go between” white person to help them make connections and lend them “credibility” with white society.
I am ok in telling a story from a single perspective in fiction without any need to be inclusive of other viewpoints or to include diverse protagonists or antagonists. A fiction writer is not constrained to tell a true story or a complete story, just a compelling story.
Well, thank the goddesses that Kevin Costner is around to save the Hispanic race, the same way he saved Native Americans in “Dances With Wolves” and African-Americans in “Black and White”. I just cannot wait until he starts shooting that new miniseries where he plays the title role of Booker T. Washington (although, personally, I consider Costner to be a little too “High Yellow” for the part. But there’s always Max Factor!).
Gracias hermano. En este caso, la situacion esta muy complicada. Una persona blanca, a menudo, tiene acceso a recoursos no disponibles en el pueblo latino. Tambien, la experiencia vinculandose con gente latina (de veras, minorias por lo general) usualmente tiene un valor tremendo para un blanquito norteamericano.
and he lost.
Oh. I totally agree with you on the Mississippi Burning thing and other misrepresentations of historical events that favor the dominant class to the exclusion of others. But I took you literally, that you were okay with fiction airbrushing other races out of the narrative. So you’re okay with portraying, say, a white urban family and their trials and travails without any representation of minorities? Or not? I suppose it depends upon whether it’s satire of that genre or an attempt at truth through fiction. My own feeling is that for a long time fiction (written, filmed, broadcast) aimed at a predominantly white audience underrepresented other races and when they were represented they were caricatured. I think this hurt us as a society and I’d prefer that not be done.
That’s why it’s the ORIGINAL WSM; it’s saving the only people deemed worth saving; Whites.
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By appealing to the natural human biases we all possess, we can use the white savior premise to attract white audiences and use the narrative to convey our own, little-seen realities.
What isn’t wrong with this statement? We shouldn’t be catering to biases, but challenging them. Personally, I’m part of that “white audience” and I don’t watch WSMs.
It’s only natural that those better equipped to give back and elicit positive change would be white.
And this is just plain offensive.