Blame Stephen King For the Rise of Barack Obama

Mythical Magic Negroes everywhere...

The Shining--Dick Hallorann
It--Mike Hanlon
The Stand--Mother Abigail Freemantle
The Green Mile--John Coffey

More?

In addition, Mother Abigail was a Republican. Imagine that.

I bet a shrink could have a field day with that.

(Thanks to Ace of Spades who has warped my mind)

MORE:

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption--Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding

UPDATE: Though "Red" was portrayed by the illustrious Morgan Freeman in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, reader Beryl informs me that King had originally written "the man who can get things" as an Irishman; Black version, no doubt.

Comments

[Knemon]

King himself was a Republican at one point - he, Grisham and Clancy all said they were Republicans until quite recently at a fundraiser for Jim Webb in Charlottesville during the 06 campaign.

[Knemon]

King & The Magical Negro

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20041025/kinga.shtml

[Tom W.]

Finally, someone else points out how condescending King is toward blacks.

Don't forget Dudley Rhinemann(!), nicknamed "Duke," from King's stupidest short story, "The Ten O'Clock People," found in the book Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

In this pathetic inanity, people who smoke about ten cigarettes a day are the only ones who can see that the world has been invaded by alien bat-creatures who masquerade as humans.

And Dudley "Duke" Rhinemann is the smooth, hip, handsome black stud who guides the dorky white hero through the whole absurd fiasco.

Duke says "my man" and speaks standard English, but every now and then slips into mild ebonics to prove his authenticity.

Stephen King is only fifteen years old. Envious of blacks, contemptuous of the military, and obsessed with bathroom functions.

Another gazillionaire loser whose great wealth brought him no pleasure at all.

Give me all your money, Steve. It'll make me the happiest guy on the planet.

[TakeFive]

And don't forget black character "Speedy" with the magic juice from The Talisman.

[Beryl]

Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding was Irish in the printed story. It was the Harmonic Convergence of King and Hollywood that gave us Morgan Freeman as "Red."

The fact that he was perfect for the part and destroyed any image of Red other that Morgan Freeman is due to the fact that Mister Freeman is, indeed, magical.

[baldilocks]

Beryl: Did not know that. Thanks. And I agree about Mr. Freeman.

[Baboy]

As a long time (but no longer; not due to this, due to other things he's said and done) King reader I can say the thing about him being a Repub. is F.O.S. He wrote once how his wife still makes fun of him for voting for Nixon "because Nixon said he'd end the war." He has always been a leftie; his non-fiction writing shows this time and again.

That his almost certain single, solitary foray into the world of voting for someone who is *not* a dick was a vote for someone who *was* a Dick is an exercise in irony that he might actually find amusing.

[luagha]

All I can say is - he hasn't been the same since his near-death experience. I think he was replaced by one of his own little soul-destroying creatures or something when he got too close to death's door.

[lrey]

Magic Negro? It still amazes me the way Obama is perceived. No one seems to remember the start of the campaign when he was thought of as the light-weight stepping into the ring against the prohibitive heavy-weight favorite, Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton who from the day she was born was more advantaged than Obama. She had all the demographic advantages. She is white. She is a woman. She is the wife of Bill. She herself claimed the advantage of experience. The Democratic machines across the nation were beholden and accomodating to Bill. All this and she is still losing, maybe has actually lost. The Clinton's haven't simply lost, they have been beaten. And the dazed and perplexed can't accept that. To describe Obama as a "Magic Negro" is to demean the process and the result. Or do you think a black man can only win by "magic". That is an insult to rationality and I think the most recent election results and polls will confirm that assessment.
I think the error here is that conservatives observing and handicapping the Democratic contest forget it is a contest between Democrats, not one between a Democrat and a Republican, or Liberal versus Conservative. Those comparisons are different intellectually and emotionally. There is nothing magical in Obama's present lead over Clinton. He simply out-politiced his oponents. If you don't give him credit for that, then for all your intellectual bluster you are truly sitting around waiting for a "Magic Negro" because you can't conceive of any other kind being successful at such an exalted level. There is something pathetic in that. The terminology "Magic Negro" is a disservice to many people for many reasons, because like it or not, the rabbit is not going back into the hat.

[Duck Bank]

"To describe Obama as a 'Magic Negro' is to demean the process and the result."

Actually, the rise of Obama demeans the process and result.

He's a fraud who would've been laughed off the political stage if it weren't for his race.

When he started out, blacks didn't like him because he wasn't "authentic," so he changed the way he spoke and started talking about taxis not stopping to pick him up, and now he's got 90-odd percent of the black vote.

Basically, blacks and guilty whites now support him because he says things like "Ah doan wawn mah daw-tuh t'be punished bah a bay-buh."

Sickening. That's what's demeaning. A man can't be himself, simply because of the color of his skin.

Blacks and guilty whites are doing the work of the Ku Klux Klan.

[Splunge]

In a way, King's most telling character in this regard is the dual personality Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker character in the 7-book Gunslinger saga. Odetta Holmes is a too-good-to-be-true saintlike character (who admits she fits the term "limousine liberal;" note well the equating of goodness with leftism). Detta Walker, her other personality, is a spiteful ghetto thief. They later merge to become Susan, who is basically a real person. It's as though King is admitting, with this character, that he has had difficulty writing black characters, and that he has heretofore solved the dilemma by presenting saintlike black characters, in opposition to his own shame about carrying an internal "bad black" stereotype. By forcing these two constructs to face each other, and merge, he forces himself to write a real black character. I don't think this is a farfetched way to look at it; King routinely works out his own personal issues in his writing (e.g. his fear of old age, in Insomnia).