Obama goes to the movies.

The role of the "Magic Negro," David Ehrenstein reminds us in the Los Angeles Times, is "to assuage white 'guilt' (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest. As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic - embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle." And now, Ehrenstein provocatively adds Barack Obama's name to the list.

Updated through 3/23.

"Ehrenstein's sad imitation of Armond White doesn't begin to stand up to any kind of scrutiny," comments Ryan Wu. "Obama is all about telling his own story, which is the opposite of what a Magic Negro should be doing, no? In movie terms, Obama is more like Denzel, the charismatic, likable protagonist whose actions drive the story."

Earlier: "Inventory: 13 Movies featuring magical black men," from the AV Club.

Somewhat related: "I did it. And I'm proud of it." Phil De Vellis, the fellow behind the anti-Hillary clip that basically inserts her into Ridley Scott's "1984" ad for Apple, outs himself at the Huffington Post. And now, with much less finesse, as Nick Dawson notes at Filmmaker, someone's hacked up a response.

Update: Rush takes Ehrenstein's op-ed to Limbaughland. Media Matters reports.

Update, 3/23: Thoughts from Chuck Olsen:

A nice fellow at SXSW kept making the same dinner conversation: "What if a foreign power made a persuasive online video to affect our elections?" Lots of thoughtful nodding... My God, you're right. Brilliant. After a beer I finally said, dude, so what? Who cares. Anybody can and will make persuasive online videos for all kinds of reasons, and we won't know who's responsible for half of them. Bring it on. If some foreign power can make a video so incredibly persuasive as to tilt our election toward a certain candidate, then frankly, that is the candidate we deserve to have.

What I may have underestimated is the media's retarded thirst for just such a thing to happen. In effect, the media can make an anonymous political video have exponentially more impact because they're dying for that juicy story. They've had the narrative written all along and have been waiting for a Hillary 1984 video. This troubling fact may deserve our attention more than the video itself.

Posted by dwhudson at March 22, 2007 11:33 AM