Director Kobi Libii explains how his debut, The American Society of Magical Negroes, has sparked « white discomfort, » and why that’s a good thing.
Look around on social media, and you’ll find a lot of wince-inducing responses to the title of Kobi Libii’s debut feature, The American Society of Magical Negroes, ranging from people offended that it exists to people expressing ghoulish delight that they have an excuse to use the word “Negro” in public. Libii’s film is a darkly comedic satire building off a common trope first popularized as a term by director Spike Lee in 2001 — the Black movie characters, particularly in ’90s movies, who only exist to support white characters and further their character arcs. In Libii’s story, that Black support network is a codified secret society of Black men and women with actual magical powers, which they use to comfort and aid white people so they’ll be less brittle, tense, and inherently dangerous to people of color.
The concept is confrontational, especially since the society firmly believes Black people should (in keeping with the trope) bury their own needs and desires in order to more effectively cater to white people. And the title is equally confrontational — by design. Critics and scholars writing about the trope often bowdlerize it to “magical Black character” or other softened versions of the term — even in the trailer, protagonist Aren (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ Justice Smith) awkwardly suggests that the society should find a more appropriate, modern name.
