The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption

2. White Savior Films: The Content of Their Character

2 White Savior Films The Content of Their Character The messianic white self is the redeemer of the weak, the great leader who saves blacks from slavery or oppression, rescues people of color from poverty and disease, or leads Indians in battle for their dignity and survival. This is a narcissistic fantasy found in many Hollywood movies. —Hernán Vera and Andrew Gordon, Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness F or centuries, magicians, messiahs, and martyrs have played the role of helpful guides and aides to embattled protagonists in an array of mythological tales. Athena’s assistance to Odysseus, Merlin’s shepherding of King Arthur, Mephistopheles’s supervision of Faust, and Dante’s use of Virgil and Beatrice all share a common denominator. Through their enchanted calculus , they help the disheveled and struggling hero solve problems that, over time, represent formulaic redemption stories and morality tales. That such stories and characters are widely shared across time and space is no coincidence. These narratives carry resonance because they provide scripts that instruct audiences on the means of receiving redemption, either in a secular or theological sense, during times of social upheaval and change. In modern times, these characters are a staple of the culture industry. They litter the media landscape. Especially in film, a border-crossing, white, messianic figure is an oft-used device. These characters provide both uncertainty and dénouement for narrative structure. In the former, they represent unknown forces; their origins , intentions, and powers afford a sense of austerity and allure. In the latter, they bring their charmed or uncanny vision to bear on the central problem of the film: saving people of color who lack the fortitude, wisdom, resources, or plain old willpower to rescue themselves. To many, the white savior film does not seem to address issues of race at all. I argue the opposite. These films commit a great deal of labor in constructing and fortifying both the category of white racial identity and a normative (and even moral or progressive) pattern of interracial interaction. That is, in a quarter century (1987–2011) of marked racial tension, unease, progress, and White Savior Films 19 conflict, these films work to repair the myth of a great white father figure whose benevolent paternalism over people of color is the way things not only have been but should be. To unpack this story, I analyze fifty films (produced between 1987 and 2011) deemed white savior films by independent sociologists and media studies scholars (see Bernardi 2007; Chennault 1996; Giroux 1997; Moore and Pierce 2007; Rodríguez 1997; Stoddard and Marcus 2006; Vera and Gordon 2003). I move systematically through these films to consider their content and development (see Table 2.1 for a listing of these films and Appendix A for an account of the methodology employed). By providing an overview of fifty white savior films produced over the past twenty-five years, this chapter stands as the first systematic and critical examination (via a blend of sociological and media studies perspectives) of the genre. The Production of White Savior Films: A Primer Table 2.1 shows that many different companies between 1987 and 2011 produced these films. Yet a trend of vast media conglomeration also marks this period. When Cry Freedom was released in 1987, approximately fifty corporations controlled most of American media, including magazines, books, music, newspapers, radio and television, and certainly movies. By 1992 that number had dropped to twenty-five. By 2000 (remaining the same in 2012) five corporations controlled most U.S. media: Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Bertelsmann, and Viacom. Media scholar Ben Bagdikian (2004) calls such consolidation a “cartel.” And with the cartel’s expansion into global markets (Bertelsmann is a German company), these companies are increasingly responsible for the content and character of information the world over (“Who Owns the Media?” 2006). In specific terms of film production, only six parent units controlled the market share by 2012. Those six are Comcast (owner of Universal Pictures and Focus Features), News Corporation (owner of Fox Searchlight and Twentieth Century Fox), Disney (owner of Pixar, Miramax, and Marvel Studios), Viacom (owner of Paramount Pictures), Time Warner (owner of Warner Bros), and Sony (owner of Columbia Pictures). In terms of U.S. and Canadian market share of film in 2011, Viacom took in 19 percent, Time Warner 18 percent, Sony 13 percent, Disney 12 percent, Comcast 11 percent, and News Corporation 11 percent (“Market Share,” n.d.). The Big Six thus controlled 85...