MovieChat Forums > The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) Discussion > Preposterous

Preposterous

posted 15 years ago by lexom-returns
23 replies | jump to latest

I actually wanted to like this movie. The cinematography was superb and I wanted to buy into the sentimentality and metaphor. At least there are a few posts on here that acknowledge the problematic "Magical Negro" archetype that Will Smith plays. Bagger is actually intelligent and seemingly educated, unlike say John Coffey, but he's just as content to save white characters without any motivation or backstory. He's extra magical, controlling even the weather. His blackness is all the catalyst needed. We never know anything of Bagger's demons, his cares and his loves...He's content to use his superhuman power to help a down and out golfer, instead of say, to survive in Jim Crow America.

But I guess in the case of Legend of Bagger Vance, it doesn't matter. Redford refuses to represent Jim Crow south in any form whatsoever. Bagger shakes hands cordially with a plethora of southern men, women and children. They address him as "sir" with complete eye contact and he responds in turn. He never has to walk off the sidewalk and keep his head down whenever someone white approaches. That precocious little kid even calls him sir. In truth, Bagger would be the one to suffer the indignity as a grown human man of calling a little white boy "Mister."

But hey, golf used to be all about the "sport," southerners were a bunch of golf-loving, humble folk that always make for good dialogue in a script and Jim Crow never existed. It's funny that even though Vance is developed for the sole purpose of saving Matt Damon, his presence threatens to undermine Redford's mythical world at every turn. In the end, I'd say Bagger--Mr. Vance-- definitely does.

[–] JR541 15 years ago

If he was indeed a "magical negro" then its possible that magic kept them from being racist where he was concerned.

He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

[–] lexom-returns 15 years ago

Ha! Wow. Never underestimate the zest for denial. For some reason I suspected someone might weakly argue this. There's not a single iota of evidence in the film to suggest this. Not a single scene, line, text or subtext. And it's not just Bagger who gets this fictional equality either. The black extras seem to live in a mythical south also.

But let's run with your idea anyway. Let's say that scene where Bagger disappears and then reappears was instead set within the context of lynch mob. The mob is about to catch Bagger but instead he teleports away. He transcends Jim Crow racism. Fantastic, right?!

Actually that'd be doubly insulting. If any self-respecting black person had the power to rise above the reality of the south, they would not be using that power to help some privileged white Southern golfer. Nevermind race, would any self-respecting human do that??? The problem I highlighted still remains.

But even worse, instead of Americans acknowledging their racist past and the violent, drawn out and painful struggle for equality, it shows that they would rather wash it away by imbuing the victim with magic and have that victim blot out our unfortunate history for them. Sorry, even the fate of someone as great as MLK suggests otherwise.

[–] JR541 15 years ago

He is not supposed to be human at all. He is in human form. He is supposed to be God.

He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

[–] lexom-returns 15 years ago

That's nice...but he's also a black man in the 1930s south.

[–] laurastuart 15 years ago

I think it wasn't their object to make a particularly racially aware movie. The role would have been no different if it had been a white dude, as far as I can tell. So rather than bring up the race issue, which would not help the story, they just ignored the reality. Period movies do this all the time with other stuff such as clothes, language, behaviour and even specific historical events.

[–] porsche1974-1 15 years ago

Period movies do tend to ignore historical issues. Otherwise they get off track and lose the focus of their story. Japanese in American Concentration Camps tend to get ignored a lot.

[–] lexom-returns 15 years ago

Uh huh.

Sugarcoating, I've heard of. Oversimplification, yes. Dumbing down, sure...

But not this.

[–] porsche1974-1 15 years ago

After becoming aware of the term magic negro from THE BLINDSIDE, I have started to see them everywhere. Could it be that the character Sam from Don't Look in the Basement (Big Strong Black Guy who had a lobotomy) who saves Charlotte by chopping up the hostile and murderous mental patients is a

MAGIC NEGRO?

The magical negro is typically but not always "in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint," often a janitor or prisoner. 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.

The magic negro can be broadly defined and has probably evolved from a less kind view in the past. Could it be that the character Sam is a magic negro for Grindhouse cinema? I THINK SO. HOORARY FOR THE MAGIC NEGRO! For he will save us and show us the way. Which is exactly what he did! I am sure nobody planned this consciously, but still, it certainly seems to be that way. A disabled (lobotomized) black man who actually figures out what is going on and saves the heroine. Admittedly, this magic negro uses an AXE, but it is Grindhouse Cinema.

I love Magic Negroes. They are so smart and always save the day
despite killer odds. How can you not love Magic Negroes.

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

The "magic negro" idea has been superimposed "from the outside in" from people who don't particularly know about or care about movies and literature. They are, for the most part "political wiseacres" who play from left(I can't name them, but they are there) to right(Rush Limbaugh).

Robert Redford has been pretty direct about Bagger Vance's role as an embodiment of God...indeed, it has been noted that the author of the book, Steven Pressman, saw Bagger in "Krishna" terms:

"Rannulph Junah, or R. Junah, is "Arjuna," the mythical character who refuses to fight for possession of the kingdom that is rightfully his, since he believes that war is wasteful. Lord Krishna lectures him on duty, explaining who Arjuna really is, who God really is, and how one finds peace in conflict."(From the book, "Robert Redford" The Biography", at page 368.)

Or as Bagger tells Junah "I've been with you all the time."

One of the most sad things to watch as the decades pass is the literalization of critical insight. "Bagger Vance" is a spiritual movie. Bagger Vance is a spiritual character. To impose "reality" (a black man in the Jim Crow south) on him is to miss the point and to reflect one's own lack of vision.

[–] lexom-returns 13 years ago

One of the most sad things to watch as the decades pass is the literalization of critical insight. "Bagger Vance" is a spiritual movie. Bagger Vance is a spiritual character.

How tragic!

Are you some sort of mystical being, too, like Bagger?!

What people like you don't understand is that INTENT does not always matter. Someone can discriminate, marginalize etc without actually intending to do so. In the case of the Legend of Bagger Vance, it's very possible that both the author of the book and the makers of the film intended to play upon Eastern religious archetypes. This, however, has no bearing on whether something is problematic or part of a larger trend seen in American films and literature which is only now being engaged with.

Your inane attack on modes of critique that actually consider the social and political implications of images is predictable and indicative of someone who has a stake in being propped up by the very same images that have been churned out, unchecked, for many years and now fears, to borrow your phrase, that you'll be on the outside...looking in.

[–] brupey-1 13 years ago

"Rannulph Junah, or R. Junah, is "Arjuna," the mythical character who refuses to fight for possession of the kingdom that is rightfully his, since he believes that war is wasteful. Lord Krishna lectures him on duty, explaining who Arjuna really is, who God really is, and how one finds peace in conflict."(From the book, "Robert Redford" The Biography", at page 368.)
________________________

The story of the Bhagavad Gita, hence Bagger Vance!

[–] dancintoes01 12 years ago

"If any self-respecting black person had the power to rise above the reality of the south"

Reality is not all black people were looked down upon. Did you know that the largest number of slaves in South Carolina were owned by a black plantation owner? Funny how we are never taught those things in history books, yet black people must overcome "whites" and so much oppression from whites, when in reality, a lot of their struggle came from other blacks during various times in our country's history as well. I see many a post from you on this, do you live in the South or ever visited here or know any of the "non history book", "real" information on racism or slavery? You talked in another post about lynching. Did you know a great percentage, roughly 35% from what I have read, were white men during that time and most states lynched more white men than black?

"According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slave holding states. The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves" many of these were blacks who were former slaves themselves.

Also - "The Department of Justice informs us that each year there are an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 black-on-black homicides. Using 8,500 as a mean, there are as many black-on-black homicides every five months as there were blacks killed during the 86-year lynching era."

So, why are Americans racist in the past towards blacks but no one volunteers accounts of how blacks were also "racist" (if that is what you would like to say) against other blacks during that time? Yes, many southerners were racist, but other black men were no better towards their own "skin color".

[–] too-good60 13 years ago

So what you're basically saying is that if the director wanted to make a film that avoided bringing up the issue of racial politics he should have made clear that no black actor was eligible for the role of Bagger Vance.

Maybe you can make another thread on the Captain American board about the outrage over hiring black actors to play soldiers in what was a segregated military.

[–] lexom-returns 13 years ago

So what you're basically saying is that if the director wanted to make a film that avoided bringing up the issue of racial politics he should have made clear that no black actor was eligible for the role of Bagger Vance.

I can only be as precise and specific as I've already been:

A black man in the 1930s south would not have shaken white women and children's hands while looking them in the eye.

A black man in the 1930s south would not be referred to as sir by white men, women and children.

That's not "racial politics." That's reality.

So if your question is now "if the director wanted to make a film that avoided the racial realities of the time, he should have made clear that no black actor was eligible for the role of Bagger Vance."

And I'd say, yes. He never should have cast a black man. But that's an easy answer. What isn't is why he did cast one, whose preposterous interactions and exchanges undermined the very idealistic and edenic world that Redford attempted to construct.

Maybe you can make another thread on the Captain American board about the outrage over hiring black actors to play soldiers in what was a segregated military.

Another? I haven't even made one.

Captain America as a character is problematic to begin with, and so I have no interest in seeing it. Any other omissions or inaccuracies that take place are just par for the course.

[–] culmo80 13 years ago

Redford would have been equally drawn and quartered by not having a lead role for a black person. There is no winning in racial politics. I do love how the themes get tossed around here without any context. The era of segregation was not one long constant period of repression; neither side would have had the energy for it; racist whites for maintaining it and the oppressed blacks and the sympathetic whites for enduring it. It came in waves, much like the pograms against the Jews in Europe prior to WWII. That's not sugar-coating anything, that's just how it was. People like Spike Lee would have everyone believe that every white southerner was a slave owner and every white southerner was a member of the Klan and that every single black person in the American south endured cross burnings, beatings, lynch mobs and every other evil that was out there.
I mean you want to talk about sugar coating, you'll never hear about how the first transaction to purchase a slave in America was by a black man for a black man. Or the fact that there were slave owners in the south right up to the civil war who were...black. And that's the rest of the story. Again, there is no winning in racial politics; it serves only one person and that is to DIVIDE people for political purposes.

Rather than enjoy a film about healing, we have to boil everything down to ugliness.

[–] asparks-2 13 years ago

I'm almost positive that this was a fictional film and not based on true events.

I find it entertaining that you're more upset about the role of race in the film and how that's unbelievable, but you fully accept the fact that Bagger possesses some type of "magic" ability.

[–] lexom-returns 13 years ago

I find it entertaining that in the ebb and flow of these replies, the justifications area always the same. You can only engage with what I say using absolutes, a surefire sign of an irrational argument.

Yours of course, is the documentary appeal, which I've already addressed:

Notice how, as would be expected with any irrational argument, your point of view requires hyperbole and exaggeration. As if the expectation that a movie set in an historical period would still maintain a FEW FUNDAMENTAL REALITIES of that period is so lofty.

A documentary, in theory at least, is entirely based in fact. It might have an agenda or worldview, but in theory, everything presented should be factual.

Most movies are not documentaries. In the case of Bagger Vance, though, it is a movie rooted in history,from the meticulous costume design, period dialogue and cinematography. When it comes to Bagger Vance as a character however, that care and insight is completely gone.

I wasn't expecting a "documentary" by any means, but for the umpteenth time, in the Depression era south, there are fundamental lies being spread here. Bagger wasn't treated "halfway decent," he was treated like a king, as far as any black American living in the period would be concerned. (again, if your argument were sound, you wouldn't have to rely on such an inane understatement).

The fact remains: In the 1930s south, Bagger would not have been called "sir" and been able to shake hands with white people (white women no less)...

[–] rocknrollprincess616 12 years ago

Because the general public isn't aware that racism existed well past the Civil Rights movement, and even still today. It's a movie ~

[–] SnoopyStyle 11 years ago

Or the fact that there were slave owners in the south right up to the civil war who were...black.

Plenty of black people owned black people.... almost always, they were family members and that's the only way they could be free. They bought them from their slave owners. They were slave owners on paper only.

[–] Eowyn8 12 years ago

Dear lexom-returns: You were supposed to be able to figure out that Bagger Vance was the superior being, Junah was the student, and they each knew that to be true.

[–] syncopatedrhythm 10 years ago

Wow, Lexom maybe you should take a step back from you computer and get out of your Momma's basement and smell the fresh air and interact with some normal people. Life is just way too short to over analyze a silly movie.

[–] jasonpatrickphipps 9 years ago

Another racist black, I see. The fact that you are so indoctrinated by your black theology to think that every white person in the old south hated black people is sad. By that logic, because there are black neighborhoods that, as a white person I would be stupid to walk through at night, all black people hate white people?

[–] ElKabong1940 (323) 6 years ago

I'd call him a golf Jesus!