honey and sting

Whorf - Star Trek, Next Gen -- big Black dude, "fierce warrior", doesn't talk much (words are few but potent)

Teal'c - SG1 -- big Black dude, "fierce warrior", doesn't talk much, meditates. (words are few but potent)

Tir Anasazi -- Andromeda -- big Black dude, "fierce warrior", talks plenty, very intellectual, but did you see that chain mail singlet on that bare chest of his?

Ronon - SGA -- big Black dude, "fierce warrior", doesn't talk much. (words are few but potent)

I'm sensing a pattern here....

Also Teyla -- honey-colored Black woman, "wise", I'd say canny rather than "fierce" warrior, but that's arguable. (words are ... modulated, and potent)

and not sci fi, but fits the same picture, Hawk, from Spenser for Hire, big Black dude, fierce in a fight, words definitely few but potent.


Okay, flist, what do we make of this? Can a dark-skinned character, human or alien (and why are so many of them aliens, anyway? I'm looking at you, Tuvok)be something other than a fierce, taciturn warrior? Is the "few but potent words" part of a "magic Negro" archetype?

Wassup with this? Examples, counterexamples, where does Tuvok fit (o4r does he?) Discuss, plz.

ETA: This makes me think, too, about how persons of Gayness have often been portrayed... as suffering. Also the suffering Jew in film... victims. It occurs to me -- that we get a transitional stereotype as a way of "rehabilitating" negative stereotypes and making the category of person (gay, Jewish, etc) more palatable to the person who is actually prejudiced... but the transitional stereotype, while ostensibly positive, still contains within it the original bias. So, "gays are distasteful but look how much they suffer so we should be charitable towards them" or "Blacks are inarticulate but look! noble warriors!" Or, "women can too be warriors and superheroes!" It's a very coarse, crude way to shift away from a negative stereotype. The question is, is it a necessary phase in the transition to a much more desirable state in which people (of color, gayness, fluid gender, etc) get to be complete, individual human beings? Or are we capable of going right to the good stuff?

Can anyone point me to some thinking about transitional/rehabilitative stereotypes?