character who only exist

_MG_0210.JPG, a photo by zimbablade on Flickr.

There’s a lot written about the “magical negro”—the sagely black character in films who exists only to enlighten the white main character, and then go away. But its inverse is the scourge of the “magical cracker”—the white protagonist who becomes a vessel for a film’s disempowered characters, and therefore becomes the hero of the story, trivializing their actual struggle. The Help is a classic example of “magical cracker”—Skeeter is the only way in which poor disempowered maid Aiblieen can tell her story, to recognize that she is worthy of a voice.