The Green Mile: A Film Analysis

Hollywood films featuring lead black characters have been in cinema for decades. In contrast, black character images that are portrayed in cinema was usually centered around traditional racial stereotypes of the past such as “Uncle Tom, “the coon”, “the brutal black buck”, and “the mammy”. In today’s contemporary films, the black protagonist is often represented as having super natural or magical powers. As a result of this portrayal, a new racial stereotype was created; the “magical negro” that which reinvents the traditional stereotypes aforementioned. One film that represents the “magical negro” trope is Frank Darabont’s 1999 film, The Green Mile. This film does not appear to be racist on the surface to most viewers and can be seen as unequivocally positive of racial harmony to some of the audience because of its renowned recognition and critical acclaim. On the contrary, this essay will examine the portrayal of the black protagonist John Coffey, whom is played by …show more content…
With that mentioned, the term “magical negro” has emerged in the contemporary films, post-civil rights era, and “has become a stock character that often appears as a lower class, uneducated black person who possesses supernatural or magical powers. These powers are used to save and transform disheveled, uncultured, lost, or broken whites (almost exclusively white men)” (Hughey, 2009, p. 544). The film The Green Mile is such a film that displays the “magic negro” stereotype. The film is about a white man, Paul Edgecomb (i.e. white protagonist), played by Tom Hanks, who is reminded of his days as a prison guard in charge of Death Row (i.e. known as The Green Mile) during the Great Depression while watching a film and the song “Heaven” comes on. Paul starts to cry and his friend Elaine asks him what is wrong and so Paul proceeds to tell her the story that took place in