Comments

1. Madame Zenobia wrote:

   

   Okay, don’t know if I can comment accordingly to your chat as I’m still giggling my arse off here.

   

   ~~~~~~~~~~~

   My predictions? Hmmm…nothing really. My hopes? A return of Micah, Monica, D.L., Isaac, Simone, Charles……I know they’re all either dead or missing, but hey, I can hope, right? LOL.

   I hope also that Claire gets a new wig, that Peter is trained in the way of the Jedi as well as universal soldierdom. I hope that Nathan tries out a new brand of pomade for his hair and loosens up on his use of vaseline for shiny skin. I hope also that HRG gets new glasses because his current pair has seen it all. I hope Mr. Muggles gets a shave; let’s start over! New and Fresh! I hope Mohinder gets laid again; if anyone can do it, it would be Tracy. I hope Angela loosens up with the botox and I hope the cameraman ceases with the extreme close-ups—I’m tired of looking at the Petrellis’ nostrils.

   I hope the President DOES end up playing a more pivotal part, be it evil or no….though evil would be preferable. May this ‘negro’ live on for more than a season.

   ***spoilers***

   I read from an interview done with Fuller that Janice returns with super-baby in tow; and that Pete gets a job as a paramedic, Claire goes back to school and Sylar’s REAL father comes into the picture.

   I will try and find the link for the article…but it was something with Fuller and writing and Kring, etc.

   Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 3:50 pm ¶

2. Arturo wrote:

   Madame Z,

   I’ve read similar things. And this morning, I read another tidbit — Monica will return in the next volume

   Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 5:28 pm ¶

3. Erica wrote:

   You left out the best joke about President Worf — Yes We Q’apla!

   It’s funny (and sad) just how ambivalent my spouse and I are about Heroes by now. I think we watch it because we have a DVR and it’s simply too much work to remove the show from the recording list.

   I have a million times more fun with the Roundtable than with the actual show, but the show is a prerequisite for participating. Hmmm

   Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 6:25 pm ¶

4. Ishtar wrote:

   I would give up watching Heroes if not for the hilarious Racialicious reviews. I couldn’t bear not being a part of this. You guys are better than the show!

   Do you review other series too?

   Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 3:13 am ¶

5. hexy wrote:

   Shame I had to miss this one, looks like there would have been as many giggles as the last one!

   February is too far away

   Posted 30 Dec 2008 at 9:22 pm ¶

6. Jeremy Pierce wrote:

   I’m sure any president would meet with any senator urging a meeting about “a top secret national security risk that will blow your mind”. It’s not hard for Nathan to have come up with something intriguing enough to get the president’s ear for a few minutes, even if he doesn’t mention superpowers, and maybe he did.

   Predictions: Nathan will be the main bad guy, and the president isn’t going to die or be replaced all that soon, but Nathan might make VP pretty quickly.

   Peter has to start from scratch absorbing powers again, but he’ll probably get a bunch pretty quickly. It’s possible that he’ll be able to remember empathically what he felt like around them and get all of them back that way, but I suspect they did this to make him less powerful for a while and to remove time travel as a mainstay for the moment, even though they can do it if they have Ando and Daphne together. (My understanding is that once the main fugitive storyline is underway, they won’t be in the same place.)

   Hiro and Ando will spend most of Fugitives exploring a role reversal with Hiro being the normal sidekick. I know this takes the wind out of those complaining about how Ando’s power makes him a perpetual sidekick, but the wind deserves to be taken out of such a view. Ando’s power is way cool.

   Sylar is going to pale in comparison to his dad, and even he will be scared by his dad.

   New black characters will be treated here as Magical Negroes whenever they’re interesting like the Hatian and Usutu but heaped with praise if they’re completely boring like Knox.

   We won’t see Barbara yet, but we will see Molly, Monica, and Micah.

   Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:54 am ¶

7. Arturo wrote:

   Jeremy,

   You found Usutu interesting? What was the big allure — his ability to say nothing at all?

   And if you go back and read the recaps, I think you’ll find Knox was not “heaped with praise” — just frustration at his getting utterly forgotten for most of the season.

   Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 6:14 pm ¶

8. Jeremy Pierce wrote:

   I liked the idea that someone had been having visions his whole life of someone else who knew they were important but hadn’t ever met the guy, and then when he actually shows up the guy doesn’t seem to have much of a clue. He always seemed to be more intelligent and wise than the people who were interacting with him, who were mostly main characters, and that’s contrary to the more common stereotype of black characters as knuckle-dragging grunts. (This is the main reason I have trouble accepting the magical Negro comparison. They introduce an intelligent black character, and people make fun of him as a Magical Negro.)

   They gave him a creative use of precognitive power, something they didn’t manage to do well with Isaac. They had him predicting Hiro’s attack and thus able to anticipate both the original attack and Hiro’s second attack that took place earlier in Usutu’s timeframe. I didn’t like everything they did with him, but I thought it was a much more interesting use of precognition than anything else the series had done with it to that point.

   It’s also intriguing that artwork much like his is all over New York City, and I’m curious what aspect of his power, Matt’s, or some combination of the two is explaining why he’s still appearing to Matt.

   It’s true that they didn’t give him much backstory, left out his name, and couldn’t assign him any location more specific than “somewhere in Africa”. But specifying those exact things aren’t the only ways to make a character interesting. I don’t watch science fiction for character development. I watch it for interesting use of science fiction, and I think they’ve done some of that with Usutu and do hope that they’ll do more with whatever these appearances to Matt are supposed to be.

   Considering that the only reason they introduced him was because they needed to give Matt something to do while the actor dealt with a genuine family crisis, I think what we’ve seen was better than some things they could have done. They introduced an intelligent non-Western black character who had some interesting scifi twists, and they’ve managed to keep him around for little snippets even after killing him for reasons that may not pay off but may well. That doesn’t strike me as negative.

   Posted 03 Jan 2009 at 4:36 pm ¶

9. Mahsino wrote:

   @ Jeremy
   I think part of the disagreement with the general roundtable and you in regards to Usutu being a “magical negro” stems from what you perceive the term to mean.

   You seem to think that because he was ” an intelligent non-Western black character who had some interesting scifi twists” that admonishes him from being a magcial negro- to me, that’s part of what made him fit the bill- he was the wise, black man who had no discernible motivation in the story to help the other characters. At least Knox seemed to do things based on his own desires (revenge, money, jealousy), Usutu only existed to serve other characters.

   And yes, Usutu was intelligent- otherwise I probably would’ve just referred to him as a minstrel.

   Though probably not the best source, I would like to refer you to the Wikipedia entry for the term and check it against Usutu’s character.

   The magical negro (sometimes called the mystical negro or magic negro) is a supporting, often mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble.

   The magical negro is typically but not always “in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint,” [...] he has some sort of magical power, “rather vaguely defined but not the sort of thing one typically encounters.”[5] He is patient and wise, often dispensing various words of wisdom, and is “closer to the earth.”[2]

   The magical negro serves as a plot device to help the protagonist get out of trouble, typically through helping the white character recognize his own faults and overcome them.[2] Although he has magical powers, his “magic is ostensibly directed toward helping and enlightening a white male character.”

   So no, at least Usutu wasn’t a “knuckle-dragging grunt”, but that’s why I have, and will continue to take offense to his one dimensional character and will commence referring to him as a “Magical Negro”

   Posted 03 Jan 2009 at 11:26 pm ¶

10. Jeremy Pierce wrote:

    I wonder if part of the disagreement is over basic ethical responsibilities. I think our primary ethical task is to serve others. It doesn’t have to come from the idea that all black people ought to serve all white people without the reciprocal being true. I think it’s true both ways, but for that reason I have no problem when a black character happens to be in a story only in ways that a desire to help someone else.

    One thing I liked about him is that he chose to do the right thing even though, presumably, he saw his fate that would result. I see that as part of his character and something I approve on in a series that rarely has characters who are simply good. Usutu stands out, therefore. That’s one thing that attracts me to him very strongly.

    I certainly see no sign that Usutu’s motivation stems from thinking black people have no interests of their own worth pursuing, and it’s not as if there aren’t white characters with this same feature. One of the interesting things with Niki, in contrast to Jessica, is that everything she did was for Micah and D.L., which is a white character sacrificing her own self-interest for the sake of two characters of color. Peter regularly displays the same attitude, especially toward Nathan, who never returns it. The difference isn’t that they pursue their own ends while Usutu doesn’t. It’s that they’re central characters, and he’s peripheral. But there are plenty of white peripheral characters too.

    At most I see a legitimate complaint that several peripheral characters of color are self-sacrificing without the evil streaks we see in the white peripheral and central characters and few white peripheral characters are like that, but several peripheral characters of color are like the central characters in having mixed or evil motives too (e.g. Knox). I seem to remember people liking Canfield, too, who is a character of color whose only interest (and final act) was to serve others’ interests. So there doesn’t seem to be universal opposition to this.

    Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 11:22 am ¶

11. Clara wrote:

    Jeremy– I don’t see how your examples of Niki sacrificing for Micah and DL and Peter for Nathan feature characters thinking about their family members is comparable to Usutu’s lack of motivation. Niki and Peter are sacrificing for their family members. Isn’t family a motivation in itself? In terms of ethical responsibilities, I don’t think their motivations to help their family are comparable to Usutu’s motivation to help Matt, a complete stranger.

    If you take out race, then yes, it’s great to see a kind-hearted character helping out a complete stranger in need of aid. But this is Racialicious, where we are not going to disregard the role race plays. The problem is that POC characters are usually expected to help out white characters out of obligation, more so than white characters are expected to help POC characters.

    Yes, there are white characters that help out POC, but it is often framed in a manner that portrays the POC as weak, naive, backwards, and helpless. This is problematic and it’s like a slap in the face for a lot of people because this scenario smacks of colonialism and paternalism, the idea that it is the white man’s right to control POC and to be ahead of them. On the flip side, the POC helping out the white man is also part of this colonialism because according to that, it is the POC’s obligation to help the white man advance. The Magical Negro also fits into this. So in real life, yeah great, white people helping out black people and vice versa is awesome. But the popular media doesn’t reflect real life accurately. In the history of cinema and tv shows, it means something different to have a black character utterly devoted to a white character than the other way around.

    Bringing it back to Usutu, to me, he fits the Magical Negro trope because of reasons that have already been said: he’s one-dimensional, he exists solely to help out the other characters (yes, I know he also helps non-white Hiro. that doesn’t make him less of a Magical Negro even though helping out East Asians doesn’t necessarily fit in with colonialism), he dies needlessly, he doesn’t seem to have any motivation of his own. I liked his snarky sense of humor, but that’s not enough to give him dimension.

    If I misunderstand you, my apologies. But it seems like you have a very frigid and stagnant view of the Magical Negro stereotype, and you don’t seem to realize that this stereotype shows itself in more subtle, less direct ways than one might think. Kind of like racism.

    Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 3:17 am ¶

12. Jeremy Pierce wrote:

    Right, so in some ways Usutu’s sacrifice is more noble, since there’s less of a natural reason to expect it. (I think we have stronger obligations to family, so it’s more wrong if we don’t meet them, but I think it’s more expected to seek the good of our family, so it’s more praiseworthy to seek the good of those who are unrelated.)

    I simply don’t see anything in Heroes to suggest that it’s the obligation of POC to help whites merely because of race. I find it utterly strange to see people reading that into it. I can see that he has similar elements to how Wikipedia defines this character-type, but what seems wrong about the Magical Negro type is that assumption, and I just don’t see it here.

    I don’t think he dies needlessly, by the way. Arthur was eliminating threats from those who could see the future or time travel there. It’s also not clear that he’s dead in the fullest sense of the term. It’s possible Matt’s power is just giving him images of Usutu, but it’s also possible that he’s still around in some other form.

    Posted 07 Jan 2009 at 10:15 pm ¶