{"id":44725,"date":"2012-02-08T12:25:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=44725"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:59:22","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:59:22","slug":"the-magic-of-india-for-white-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/02\/08\/the-magic-of-india-for-white-people\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic of India (for White People)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The phrase “Magical Negro”<\/a> refers to the phenomenon in which a white character in a tv show or movie finds enlightenment through the wisdom of a Black character. \u00a0It is widely considered an offensive trope in which Black people — imbued with special spiritual, religious, or primitive powers of insight, often ostensibly due to some disadvantage like poverty — serve only to support a white person’s transformation. \u00a0The white person, and their ultimate redemption, remains the central story.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t help but think of this when I watched the trailer for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, sent in by Katrin. \u00a0In this trailer, the Magical Negro isn’t a Black person; it’s not even a person. \u00a0It’s the entire country of India.<\/p>\n

See if you see what I saw:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

For examples of the Magical Negro, see our post on The Secret Life of Bees<\/a>, the Magical Negro at Ikea<\/a>, and the Magical Aboriginal Child in an Australian tourism ad<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phrase “Magical Negro” refers to the phenomenon in which a white character in a tv show or movie finds enlightenment through the wisdom of a Black character. \u00a0It is widely considered an offensive trope in which Black people — imbued with special spiritual, religious, or primitive powers of insight, often ostensibly due to some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2104,129,701,1784,285,1759,1757],"class_list":["post-44725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-knowledgeintelligence","tag-media","tag-modernprimitive","tag-nation-india","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44725"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58489,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44725\/revisions\/58489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}