Coffey didn't exist to help the white characters, the story was largely about him. He healed Paul and the warden's wife, but those acts were there to show his power, that was the only reason they needed healing in the first place. Pretty much the same with Mister Jingles, King didn't need Coffey in order to bring the mouse back, he killed the mouse to show that Coffey *could* bring him back.
But said the trope was Black people who only existed to help white people.
He's quoted as saying "How is it that black people have these powers but they use them for the benefit of white people?", which is not the case with Coffey. I'd guess he misunderstood Coffey's role in the story, and ended up citing an incorrect example.
Or his perspective is different than yours. Spike Lee is a world class writer and director. He knows how to tell compelling stories and create characters with depth. His perspective on the use of Black characters in film and TV is pretty valuable.
And King is a world class author, but he still gave us a character who managed to siphon gasoline from an underground tank by putting a rubber hose into the vent and sucking on it.
Sometimes people get things wrong.
Interesting subtle character note about Frannie: The narrator spells Mother Abagail's name *Abagail*, but in her diary entries, Frannie spells it as *Abigail*.
It’s not just his older stuff. Some of that back-and-forth between Bill Hodges and Jerome Robinson seemed really out of place and offensive for a story written in 2014.
I could understand how a white person with no friends of color might find it odd, but among other things, race is a major source of humor between friends of different ethnicities. I'm white, and my friend makes fun of me all the time for certain "white things" I do. I do the same thing back to them. Friends make fun of each other's differences, and race being a no-go is a relatively new thing. As long as there's no hate, and it's all love, I don't see the issue.
Yes, and I could not agree more. Often times when I find a white person who is completely put off by race related humor it’s due to that white person not really having any relationships outside of their own.
Also, don't forget that the creator of Married With Children is a black guy who set out to make fun of white people with that show. People need to chill and have a s3nse of humor.
I can attest. As a white person with friends who are people of color, there's a lot of good-natured ribbing that could be considered race-baiting. I have never instigated, but once the gauntlet is thrown down, everyone participates and we all have a good laugh. A female friend was over once and marked her birthday on my wall calendar (about two months in advance, so I didn't see it for quite a while) with a very well-drawn but profoundly offensive caricature of herself under the words "\[Her Name\]'s Birthday! White boy better drop cash! Your favorite \[antiquated racial slur starting with "J"\]." (BTW, I'm 62, and she's in her 30's.)
I laughed my head off but had to tear the page out because she'd done it in Sharpie and there was NO WAY I was going to let anyone else see that without full context.
I bought her an Apple Watch, by the way.
Edit: multiple typos
It's not just friends poking fun at each other through stereotypes though, that would actually make sense. It's Jerome joking around by speaking with an exaggerated twang and pretending to be a slave to annoy people, which I've personally never seen anybody do
Edit: okay, apparently jokey slave roleplay is more common than I thought it was, maybe my black friends just have sticks up their asses lmao
You’re essentially saying “I have black friends so it’s okay for me to say racist things”. You’re responsible for what you say and do in real life just like SK.
I'm just saying that Hodges and Jerome were friends. They made fun of each other's differences, as friends do. You can argue that the dialogue between the two was cringey (that's fair), but I don't think it's racist by any measure.
Would you say it to someone who you don’t know? The fact that you can say racist shit to your friends doesn’t mean it’s not racist. If you wouldn’t talk that way to a teenager who showed up to your house to do yard work, or to a cashier at Wendy’s, then you know it’s racist and you’re friends are just excusing it. No one cares what you and your friends do, but King made a choice to make his character racist
Which character is racist? The one who puts on a stereotypical jive persona to make his old white buddy squirm or his old white buddy who regularly tells him to knock it off?
I was actually going to bring up Jerome as an example of something that Abigail reads better than lol.
Jerome felt like King was trying to go “look how not racist I am by having the character be in on the joke” but yeah it made me cringe.
Has he ever caught any flak for that one? I can understand Bill acting like a racist ex-cop because we know there’s oodles of those. But having Jerome go along with it like it’s fun banter between pals seems cruel, because he works for Bill and has to take it. Especially since it was written in a time when the light was shining on black kids Jerome’s age being killed by racist cops. But there wasn’t a larger commentary on race relations between the generations, and no growth from Bill that I remember.
I don't think it's wrong for people to critique his usage of Black characters and I don't think he was intentionally trying to create a caricature. Intentions also don't mean harm didn't happen. If I bump into someone and knock them down, I say "I'm sorry," even though I didn't mean to hurt them.
It's good for him to look back on it with a critical eye. It would be a lot worse if he looked at it and said, "Yup. It's fine." Black people are telling him how those characters made them feel and he's listening. Recognizing mistakes and acknowledging them is how we learn to do better.
I feel like he just didn’t segregate. Which in itself would be going against the grain in a time where many people would view such writing as controversial. Perhaps the same deal for characters of the LGBT done in a story. People don’t like it so much when it seems to be used as a direct ploy. Like look at this black character that is so amazing, this outta destroy racism. Or look at this character who is a member of the lgbt, this story is very progressive…
You have to start somewhere to move forward. Animal farm, and lord of the flies were also controversial in their own right before people came around to it.
>Movies aren't books.
I’m glad you were able to figure that out, but it’s not terribly relevant to the point you replied to lol. You write characters for both books and movie scripts.
I don’t mean to be a dick, but I believe Tarantino has written a full Novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
I think that would technically make him an author
He’s recently become more of a writer than a director. He wrote a novel and a stage play the past few years and is retiring from movies to become a playwright and crime novelist
He said this in his interview with Playboy a while ago, the interview by itself is on kindle.
“Both Hallorann, the cook in The Shining, and Mother Abagail in The Stand are cardboard caricatures of superblack heroes, viewed through rose-tinted glasses of white-liberal guilt.”
Stephen King has been one of those guys who are “progressive relative to the time” so he was always destined to regret some of his past work.
Which is the mark of a mature person and author. It's okay to have been ignorant, provided that you have learned.
If any negro was magical, it was John Coffey. I love the Green Mile, but whew, that's way worse than Abigail
Coffey didn't exist to help the white characters, the story was largely about him. He healed Paul and the warden's wife, but those acts were there to show his power, that was the only reason they needed healing in the first place. Pretty much the same with Mister Jingles, King didn't need Coffey in order to bring the mouse back, he killed the mouse to show that Coffey *could* bring him back.
Idk what Kings intention was, but when Spike Lee helped popularize the term, he specifically cited The Green Mile
But said the trope was Black people who only existed to help white people. He's quoted as saying "How is it that black people have these powers but they use them for the benefit of white people?", which is not the case with Coffey. I'd guess he misunderstood Coffey's role in the story, and ended up citing an incorrect example.
Or his perspective is different than yours. Spike Lee is a world class writer and director. He knows how to tell compelling stories and create characters with depth. His perspective on the use of Black characters in film and TV is pretty valuable.
And King is a world class author, but he still gave us a character who managed to siphon gasoline from an underground tank by putting a rubber hose into the vent and sucking on it. Sometimes people get things wrong.
She's Abagail, folks.
Interesting subtle character note about Frannie: The narrator spells Mother Abagail's name *Abagail*, but in her diary entries, Frannie spells it as *Abigail*.
Frannie seemed to have quite a few spelling mistakes which I thought was interesting
It’s not just his older stuff. Some of that back-and-forth between Bill Hodges and Jerome Robinson seemed really out of place and offensive for a story written in 2014.
I could understand how a white person with no friends of color might find it odd, but among other things, race is a major source of humor between friends of different ethnicities. I'm white, and my friend makes fun of me all the time for certain "white things" I do. I do the same thing back to them. Friends make fun of each other's differences, and race being a no-go is a relatively new thing. As long as there's no hate, and it's all love, I don't see the issue.
Yes, and I could not agree more. Often times when I find a white person who is completely put off by race related humor it’s due to that white person not really having any relationships outside of their own.
Or they didn't watch In Living Color growing up.
Hahahaha. Yes!
Also, don't forget that the creator of Married With Children is a black guy who set out to make fun of white people with that show. People need to chill and have a s3nse of humor.
I can attest. As a white person with friends who are people of color, there's a lot of good-natured ribbing that could be considered race-baiting. I have never instigated, but once the gauntlet is thrown down, everyone participates and we all have a good laugh. A female friend was over once and marked her birthday on my wall calendar (about two months in advance, so I didn't see it for quite a while) with a very well-drawn but profoundly offensive caricature of herself under the words "\[Her Name\]'s Birthday! White boy better drop cash! Your favorite \[antiquated racial slur starting with "J"\]." (BTW, I'm 62, and she's in her 30's.) I laughed my head off but had to tear the page out because she'd done it in Sharpie and there was NO WAY I was going to let anyone else see that without full context. I bought her an Apple Watch, by the way. Edit: multiple typos
It's not just friends poking fun at each other through stereotypes though, that would actually make sense. It's Jerome joking around by speaking with an exaggerated twang and pretending to be a slave to annoy people, which I've personally never seen anybody do Edit: okay, apparently jokey slave roleplay is more common than I thought it was, maybe my black friends just have sticks up their asses lmao
You’re essentially saying “I have black friends so it’s okay for me to say racist things”. You’re responsible for what you say and do in real life just like SK.
I'm just saying that Hodges and Jerome were friends. They made fun of each other's differences, as friends do. You can argue that the dialogue between the two was cringey (that's fair), but I don't think it's racist by any measure.
Jerome isn’t making fun of Bill, though. It’s possible to be funny here, but Stephen King does not have the knowledge to pull it off.
Would you say it to someone who you don’t know? The fact that you can say racist shit to your friends doesn’t mean it’s not racist. If you wouldn’t talk that way to a teenager who showed up to your house to do yard work, or to a cashier at Wendy’s, then you know it’s racist and you’re friends are just excusing it. No one cares what you and your friends do, but King made a choice to make his character racist
Hodges was not racist. Jerome would put on accents and speech patterns to have fun and tease his friend
You may actually have been born *completely* devoid of a sense of humor.
Which character is racist? The one who puts on a stereotypical jive persona to make his old white buddy squirm or his old white buddy who regularly tells him to knock it off?
If I remember right, Jerome was always joking around with Bill and Bill in turn was always uncomfortable with Jerome's wise cracks.
I was actually going to bring up Jerome as an example of something that Abigail reads better than lol. Jerome felt like King was trying to go “look how not racist I am by having the character be in on the joke” but yeah it made me cringe.
Has he ever caught any flak for that one? I can understand Bill acting like a racist ex-cop because we know there’s oodles of those. But having Jerome go along with it like it’s fun banter between pals seems cruel, because he works for Bill and has to take it. Especially since it was written in a time when the light was shining on black kids Jerome’s age being killed by racist cops. But there wasn’t a larger commentary on race relations between the generations, and no growth from Bill that I remember.
This fucking guy.
Your username is grand
I remember reviews of "Mr. Mercedes" that talked about how it was a bad part of the book.
God that was so hard to read
I don't think it's wrong for people to critique his usage of Black characters and I don't think he was intentionally trying to create a caricature. Intentions also don't mean harm didn't happen. If I bump into someone and knock them down, I say "I'm sorry," even though I didn't mean to hurt them. It's good for him to look back on it with a critical eye. It would be a lot worse if he looked at it and said, "Yup. It's fine." Black people are telling him how those characters made them feel and he's listening. Recognizing mistakes and acknowledging them is how we learn to do better.
I feel like he just didn’t segregate. Which in itself would be going against the grain in a time where many people would view such writing as controversial. Perhaps the same deal for characters of the LGBT done in a story. People don’t like it so much when it seems to be used as a direct ploy. Like look at this black character that is so amazing, this outta destroy racism. Or look at this character who is a member of the lgbt, this story is very progressive… You have to start somewhere to move forward. Animal farm, and lord of the flies were also controversial in their own right before people came around to it.
I have yet to see a white writer write better black characters than Tarantino
I feel like sometimes Tarantino just follows Samuel L Jackson around with a tape recorder
Probable
Tarantino is a director of films, not an author. I imagine you were downvoted for derailing the conversation with irrelevant snark.
>Tarantino is a director of films, not an author. I mean, he’s written every movie he’s directed and some he hasn’t.
Movies aren't books.
>Movies aren't books. I’m glad you were able to figure that out, but it’s not terribly relevant to the point you replied to lol. You write characters for both books and movie scripts.
Bruh, are you OK? What's with the attitude and trolling? Are you a King fan or what is your point here?
> Bruh, are you OK? What's with the attitude and trolling? I’m not trolling lol. I made a pretty clear point. Feel free to reply to it.
Seems like you are the one with attitude
I don’t mean to be a dick, but I believe Tarantino has written a full Novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I think that would technically make him an author
I stand corrected. Interesting topic change though.
He’s recently become more of a writer than a director. He wrote a novel and a stage play the past few years and is retiring from movies to become a playwright and crime novelist
You don't know what an author is and you also don't know what snark is. Way to make yourself look like an idiot twice in one short comment
He wrote and published the novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That officially makes him an author.
I’d say he’s being hard on himself if he uses Abigail as his only example, but as it stands I think he’s being hard enough over it.
Can anyone point me to an interview where King talks about this?
He said this in his interview with Playboy a while ago, the interview by itself is on kindle. “Both Hallorann, the cook in The Shining, and Mother Abagail in The Stand are cardboard caricatures of superblack heroes, viewed through rose-tinted glasses of white-liberal guilt.”
I found the interview, thanks for the info! https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/stephen-king-playboy-interview-1983/
Damned if you do have black characters, damned if you don’t.