^{Magical Negro montage © 2010 D.M. Schwartz}

We know them well, our African-American movie heroes: Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Samuel Jackson, Will Smith, and many more. As Spike Lee said, they are our Magical Negroes, always ready to solve the white man’s problem of the day. Need racial harmony? Is an asteroid headed for the Earth? Could be aliens invading, a Matrix to crack, or maybe somebody needs a kick in the butt to build an ark. And just like that, a black man appears who has the solution or at least one hell of an inspirational message.

The really cool thing about Magical Negroes is, they generally get the job done lickety split. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Obama the Magical Negro hasn’t lived up to our Hollywood prototypes. Nobody will come out and say it, but it’s true. Secretly, we all knew in our hearts that if we elected that smart, handsome, smooth talking guy for president, all our national woes would be history in 90 minutes, 120, tops.

What we didn’t consider was the vast quantity of technical support that enables magic in Hollywood productions. Need to show a wooden ark built by a guy and a handful of animal helpers by hand in a month? No problem. In between scenes we’ll have 100 carpenters and set dressers cobble the thing together using power tools and cranes. Need a working UFO for your Magical Negro to fly? No problem. The art department will build full-size mockups and scale models while the computer graphics staff makes it go. Somehow, we neglected to allow for the time it takes to actually do amazing things in the real world.

The other big advantages Magical Negroes have are screenwriters and actors. Screenwriters can be counted on to create a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. All Obama got was a beginning. He’s had to improvise from there. This is improv in which not only does the audience keep shouting out demands, but the venue changes without warning, the props are random, and the rest of the ensemble has ADD.  Let’s not forget he doesn’t have professional actors to work with, either. Politicians try, but even when there’s a script they have trouble reading it, let alone sticking with it.

We imagined a Magical Negro in the White House and we’ve got a man a lot closer to one than we could reasonably have expected. We’re lucky. Now, it’s time to un-imagine all the gadgets, special effects, and compressed time lines we saw on the silver screen. Our real problems are complex and messy. The solutions won’t have anything to do with Hollywood’s magical thinking.