black best friend trope clueless
Think back to every, single movie I just mentioned. Well, if you said that hardly any of them feature Black characters in main roles you, my friend, are seriously killing it right now. And in the three years since we launched the Vox Contributions program, tens of thousands of people have chipped in to help keep our unique work free. "Top Gun's" Goose and Maverick are an iconic duo. Clueless is a 1995 teen comedy from Amy Heckerling, starring Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash and the late Brittany Murphy . His dad is even more of a nerd then he, but fails to realize it. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. diversity element in a film or television show. Please enter a valid email and try again. Several productions have used minorities, specifically black actors, as sidekicks to the white stars. Popular 'Black best friend' examples would be Dion Davenport from Clueless, Chastity from 10 Things I Hate About You, Chad Danforth and even Taylor McKessie from High School Musical, Rhodes in Iron Man, Sam Wilson in Captain America: Civil War, to name just a few. important because they see themselves as a secondary character in their favorite You've got class. Dionne is a fashion icon, a true friend to Cher, and the real star of Clueless in my humble opinion. (The movie's harshest insult, after all, is "You're a virgin who can't drive.") What I didnt learn, was how to be the bestwell,me. Diversity should not be a policy or guideline; it should be a natural occurrence. That's what white heroes are for.) Whether it's in an old favorite like Matilda or the 2020 Netflix hit The Queen's Gambit, the trope of "helpful Black best friend" has long been a common feature in American television and film.This week, The Cut lead producer B.A. On Master of None, Denise ( Lena Waithe) is the smart, deadpan, effortlessly cool childhood friend of Aziz Ansari's Dev and her blackness and lesbianism is treated as a matter of fact, neither. But she does have an established personality as a technophile and occasional, Alicia Fox also became this to Paige in 2014 when the latter recruited her as a, She debuted in 2003 initially winning the Women's Championship in her first match. Like most people my age, I gained aseriouslyconcerning amount of knowledge from watching movies. As a painfully shy Canadian transplanted to suburban Texas and struggling to fit into my new world, Cher's struggles felt like a real epiphany. When people watch Miless character they wont think oh are all white people like this?. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TokenBlackFriend, "Some of my best friends are sassy black people!". Hollywood While its good that the Machiste who, despite being king of his own land, spends most of his time as the loyal companion to Travis Morgan in, When Cap quit being Cap and a new one was appointed by the US government, the replacement John Walker, in that brief interlude before he started getting evil, also had a black best friend, Lemar Hoskins, who was given the costume of and codename of Bucky, Original Cap's, General Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, who manages to ooze almost as much charm and charisma as his old pal Han Solo himself. and Turk. Captain American/Steve Rogers and Falcon/Sam Wilson. character with a white best friend although it does happen. In all, she cant get through all of this without her trusty, bold black best friend In this day and age, it has been and still is time to see change made. Tara and Lafayette (who is gay and black, so he gets the, This is almost a subversion, as Tara not only gets substantial characterization, but her own, season-long plot arcs that sometimes barely intersect sookie's at all. She is flawless to the point of being unreal. Rhodes. In our reality, our world is diverse. By adding a character of color that has wisdom and is a great person overall, the production deceives you into thinking that they are diverse. Countless teachers have told us about how theyre using our work in their classroom. According to, It is not awful that black actors are getting roles. Because that is what people go through so we as a black community should be able to see that even if it is as the white protagonists sidekick. up with new ideas where the main character is black or a person of color. If you count Dale Arden's cameraman/confidant, there are two of these. TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The students at Bronson Alcott are extremely wealthy, but in Cluelesss L.A., that wealth knows no color boundary. ", Also inverted and parodied in "How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police" with this advice: "Get A White Friend. I recently wrote a blog post describing the most difficult thing about being a black female medical student. Not the fake kind where we plop a minority character into a scene without any type of thought process. What is wrong is when that so-called sassiness embodies the beginning and end of the character, when, unlike everyone else in the cast, she is the one person who lacks any degree of agency or importance past making us chuckle from time to time. "Some of my best friends are sassy black people!". Yo-less was once asked if it was racist for him to be Baron Samedi for Halloween. Shes the character who seems to perpetually exist outside of the plot, a sort of one woman Chorus whose main purpose is to cast her eyes to the heavens in the most exaggerated of eye rolls, click her tongue, and make smarmy comments about whats going on while never actually being allowed to take part in whats going on. Oprah's producing a movie with Chris Rock based on it. Do they serve to only advance their story? Black People Are Tired Of Being The Stereotypical 'Black Best Friend' In TV And Movies. However, this doesn't mean this trope still doesn't affect me. His other Grandpa is a Jewish Mummy which doesn't quite work out. (heres the link in case you want to give it a read, its truly fantastic http://appiah.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Is-the-post-in-postmodernism-the-Post-in-Postclonial-Critical-Inquiry-17.2.-1991.pdf). These characters all have one thing in common: they dont particularly have a significant roleor an interesting plotline in these movies or TV shows. Old, teen classics such as Clueless (1995), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) and some of the " Bring It On" movies showcase the black best friend or secondary character trope. (LogOut/ Eubanks was the replacement for original music director Branford Marsalis. [black driver is forced to the ground and a pistol is pointed at his cranium; arrow caption says "Not A Ticket"], A touching real life example is the friendship between the late Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, both football players. Rachel True played a straighter example in the film. That's what white heroes are for.) So, yay for increasing diversity!! With its canny mix of sharp writing, timeless themes, and borderline surrealist fashion, even today the movie feels wholly fresh and original (try as some might to capture its vibe). It really did affect my identity!! You're smart. The token black friend in a sense now becomes a reflection of the entire black community. He may kill every assassin dispatched against him with casual obliviousness, disassemble the evil plot with trivial ease, and otherwise destroy the bad guy's evil empire without ever becoming the wiser. Seeing how little Hollywood cared about casting Black people as more than someone around to give advice and cheer on the white protagonist is the earliest memory I had of seeing how Black people are degraded and belittled in the American media. So Were definitely far from the representation we deserve but I do believe were getting there! The Black friend trope was adjusted to fit the needs of a post-civil rights society, though as demonstrated in the aforementioned recent examples, modern renditions bear a striking resemblance to the platitudes of previous eras. An I learned how to stay true to myself and my friends (Mean Girls), I learned how to dance (Step Up), I learned how to potentially-maybe-one day save the galaxy (Thank you,Star Warsfranchise), and I learned that having great power sure as hell does come witha lot of responsibility (Tobey Maguire fromSpider-Man, please let me know how you did it). Welcome! The problem with the mentality that minorities cannot play big roles is that it can lead to some serious whitewashing (ex. Directed by Amy Heckerling, the movie also stars Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy, Donald Faison, Stacey Dash, and Wallace Shawn. Even America's most famous young black actor couldn't escape it. Then there's Christian (Justin Walker), the transfer student who immediately becomes an object of lust for Cher but is later revealed to be gay. All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all my white friends have one black friend! I thought the lead was pretty strong. Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know. The Black Girl Bestie. The Black best friend is described as a character archetype found in movies and TV shows that center around a white protagonist. on how he realized at a cocktail party that most of his friends were white. Dionne, also known as Dee, was fierce in her Blackness and unapologetic. Now, it has been given a new name black best friend. People watch Clueless and see Dionne's character and automatically assume that black women are not afraid to speak their minds, are sassy, and are always in your face. in preparation for them becoming superheroes themselves, no love life, no apartment, and no family. While the white protagonists grow and evolve as people throughout the series or film. Subverting the usual implication of the character being broad-minded, both Draco and Blaise are pretty big. Good. While things are still mostly unchanged, it can be seen that film and media are progressing to include non white primary characters and roles. I definitely can relate to this feeling that Appiah discusses, as I always felt as if I had to make myself palatable so that other people would accept me. Black characters with their own story, their own distinguished identity and goals; characters who undergo personal growth shouldn't be listednoteFor instance, Green Lantern John Stewart, although created in the same era as The Falcon and James Rhodes, was never created to be a sidekick. Including, When talking about the "sensitive issue of race", Happens a lot in animated shows. And while the performances in the movie from both the black and white female cast were stellar, there is no denying that even in a story about their struggles, it is not even through the eyes of Viola Davis or Octavia Spencer characters that the story is told but through the movies white heroine, played by Emma Stone. 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