Or, even worse, that black characters will quite literally be asked to give up their own lives so that white characters may live more fully. Sadly, the “magical negro” figure still persists in popular American cinema, but the more subtle and arguably more pernicious trope of contemporary black representation lies in the insistence that black characters (magical or not) dedicate their energies to helping white ones realize their humanity. The Sixth Sense anyone? But my understanding that these other characters’ fates were already sealed didn’t require my being an astute viewer so much as having a familiarity with how black characters are frequently called upon to perform particular kinds of labor, both for their white counterparts within the story and for the audience. I’ve fallen for some of the most telegraphed movie twists in history. As I watched Bird Box with my family and they began to speculate about which of the characters might live, particularly the black ones, I felt sad already knowing that no one else in Malorie’s group (save the kids) would get out alive: I knew that making Malorie into someone capable of empathy was a call for blood. This might seem like a cynical or reductive question from an admittedly jaded, black horror fan, but the implicit demand for Malorie’s salvation calls it forth. Early on, after recognizing that the film alternated between the apocalyptic past and the post-apocalyptic present, and that Malorie was all alone with those children on that raft, my first thought was, “How many characters in this story will need to die to earn this white woman the empathy she should already have?” Shortly after watching Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018) one of my homies angrily texted me: “Why did Tom (Trevante Rhodes) have to die? And why did Malorie (Sandra Bullock) get to live?” While I knew exactly why he was so mad, I didn’t share his sense of surprise.
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