Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2019 September 9

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September 9

Blacks as Betrayers: Possible film trope ?

I am Eastern European. Due to a totally random, triple cinematographic coincidence¹ (to which further examples were eventually added, as time went by), I have come to ask myself whether there might be, by any chance, a (well-known, well-worn, well-studied) Hollywood film trope about depicting blacks as betrayers (not necessarily as evil, traitorous, one- or two-dimensional cardboard villains; their reasons might be humanly understandable, sometimes even acceptable) that I, personally, was not aware of. Googling the web in general, as well as searching about this specific topic on TV Tropes in particular, failed to reveal any significant results. Perhaps it is only my own power of perception (or rather lack thereof), playing tricks on me. — 82.137.55.208 (talk) 22:58, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

¹ _{Dark Matter (TV series), The Arrival (1996 film), The Empire Strikes Back, etc.}

Let me just talk about possible racism in the Star Wars film, since that's the only one I'm familiar with. I assume Lando Calrissian is the "black betrayer" you meant. He didn't have much choice, and did redeem himself later in Return of the Jedi. However, there does seem to be a bit of racism in play. Darth Vader wore a black outfit, and was voiced by black actor James Earl Jones. The guy in the suit was white, but since you never saw or heard him, that doesn't much matter. And "the dark side of the force" was the evil side. Most of the Storm Troopers wore white, though. But the lack of good black role models in the film was a bit troubling. That is, having evil black characters isn't itself troubling, so long as that is balanced out by positive black role models. SinisterLefty (talk) 03:14, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

For starters, thank you for the speedy input. My observations would be as follows: [1]. That's what I meant by not necessarily [depicted] as evil, traitorous, one- or two-dimensional cardboard villains; their reasons might be humanly understandable, sometimes even acceptable. [2]. Light and darkness as symbols for good and evil are universal, and unrelated to (human) skin color. [3]. The guy that played the (original) Predator (and who sadly passed away at a relatively-young age) was also black; but this is most likely irrelevant. [4]. I am interested in finding out whether there actually is an `officially recognized` film trope about such a depiction (e.g., by professional film critics, for instance), rather than in subjective opinions. — 82.137.55.208 (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

This is clearly a case of confirmation bias. If you ignore the thousands of movies in which a white actor portrays a betrayer, you can be left with an assumption that only black actors portray betrayers. Similar confirmation bias is used to claim that black actors always die first in the movie and female actors never talk about anything except how much they admire the men in the movie. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 15:54, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

That's what I meant by I am Eastern European. :-) I really have no formed opinion on the subject, just a suspicion, of sorts, about which I am genuinely unsure. — 82.137.55.208 (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)