The Magical Negro is a supporting stock character in American cinema who is portrayed coming to the aid of a film's white protagonists. These characters, who often possess special insight or mystical powers, have been a long tradition in American fiction.
Many within the African-American community in the United States now express unhappiness about the ongoing use of such magical characters. In 2001, Spike Lee, while discussing films with students at Washington State University and at Yale University, said he was dismayed at Hollywood's decision to continue using the premise; he noted the 2000 film The Legend of Bagger Vance now used the "super-duper magical Negro".
In a Sept. 26, 2012, essay in Time Magazine about President Obama's re-election, author and TV personality Touré argued: "While some may think it complimentary to be considered 'magical,' it is infantilizing and offensive because it suggests black excellence is so shocking it can only come from a source that is supernatural."
Critics use "negro" because its modern usage is now considered to be archaic and sometimes offensive. This underlines their message that a "magical black character" who goes around selflessly helping white people is an archetypal racial throwback to stereotypes such as the "Sambo" or "Noble savage".
Famous quotes containing the words magical and/or negro:
“Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“the negro Babo took by succession each Spaniard forward, and asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white’s.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)