The female �magical negro�: racial and gender stereotyping in the secret life of bees

• Autores: Carolina Pallín López
• Localización: Visiones multidisciplinares sobre la cultura popular: actas del 5.º Congreso Internacional de SELICUP / coord. por Eduardo de Gregorio Godeo, María del Mar Ramón Torrijos, 2014, ISBN 978-84-617-0400-2, págs. 303-313
• Idioma: español
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• Resumen

  • Thanks to The Defiant Ones (a 1958 film directed by Stanley Kramer, with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as protagonists) the term �Magical Negro� came to light. This concept was, and still is, used to refer to the black character who helps, protects or guides the white character towards the right path; sometimes even making use of some kind of magical power. Since 1958, there have been numerous films offering different representations of this figure, most of them as male.

    Some examples of this are found in movies as different as The Shining (1980), The Green Mile (1999) or Hitch (2004), amongst others. The Secret Life of Bees (2008), set in 1964 in the deep South, is one of the few films in which we can find a female �Magical Negro� character, and the only one that is also directed by an African-American woman (Gina Prince-Bythewood). The aim of this paper is to analyze the representation of the �Magical Negro� character (August Boatwright) in The Secret Life of Bees together with the other female characters (Rosaleen Daise, June Boatwright, May Boatwright and The Daughters of Mary). I will also look into how these representations reinforce or shatter female African- American stereotypes (the angry black woman, the strong black woman, etc.). The film offers a wide range of representations that go from the illiterate slave to the independent business owner, thus providing a great piece of corpus to work with. My presentation will take an interdisciplinary approach, taking into account elements from the fields of Gender Studies, Cultural Studies and African American Studies.