I can only picture Uncle Ruckus giving this a standing ovation.

The 1st thing that came across my mind watching the trailers is "Is this a real movie or a cutaway gag in the actual movie", followed by "Who's making the black wizard serving the white people? If you have magic power how is white people oppressing you?"

This movie cringed all races equally. Good job on bringing us all together.

I think we all can agree that Key and Peele did it better

What is probably the most disgusting aspect of this movie is that it puts forth the notion that black people can only accomplish anything if they act together. This merely reinforces the notion that some how all black people have a shared destiny and must wall themselves off, whether figuratively or literally, from everyone else. It's such a bunker mentality. People can only ever be treated as members of a group, even if they don't identify with that group, and not as individuals.

You know something funny? The magical black guy is a trope Disney criticized. It's about a POC whose character development is non-existent and his/her role is only to support the white main character. But do you know who fits this criteria? Tinker Bell from "Peter Pan and Wendy". She's just there to give some pixie dust for action scenes. That's as tone-deaf as Mindy Kaling saying rich people are evil.

I think they can't even nail down the concept of "Magical Negro" that it completely stopped become a satire

Side point of the movie, but the secret women's organization really gets me in a tizzy. As if girlfriends and wives aren't supposed to be supportive of their men by default? Cuz you, know, they're in a *relationship* with them where women support the men just as the men are supposed to do for women! Or is that not supposed to be the case, as there has to be a 'society' because women on their own aren't supportive or loving by default? Boy, isn't that a crappy implication to make.

If they all lost their powers, how in fuck were they supposed to erase his memories?

In The Green Mile, the character was meant to espouse exactly how racist that era was. Especially toward prisoners; and how easily a black person would be convicted. Not could. Even on purely circumstancial evidence. In the end, he couldn't avoid the fate dealt, but he did help several inmates - and (it was either the warden or the head guard I forget, it's been a while since I read the books or saw the movie) managed to change the point of view of another major character. To make reforms happen. It was messianic, but he was supposed to be. It was also an interesting introduction to the base principles of Voodoo if I recall right. His powers didn't work without a price, and they weren't a cure all.

I almost forgot that this existed until Just Some Guy featured it.

That final twist with Lizzie was the funniest part of the entire movie, because it implies the only reason the protagonist got the girl was that his "incel rage" or whatever was reaching dangerous levels.

I got a buddy at work who will go out and love almost every movie he sees. I asked him about magic society, and it was the first time i heard him say "nah" to a movie 😂🤣

"One person screwed up and now everyone has to suffer" is the most elementary school teacher interpretation of the magic system in this world, it's frankly unbelievable, in the most literal on steroids, meaning of that word.

Magical Society is a movie so bad it made White Chicks look like Othello by comparison

Isn’t the only reason the Green Mile exists because of Coffey? Always took him as the main character and the guard as just the Narrator relaying the story a out Coffey.

Sometimes people are just jerks, though not racist.

My issue with this trope is that it's really a non issue. Sure, there's times it could be racist. But I hardly consider green mile an example of this. It's like if I were to watch the last samurai and go "Omg how dare they make a white dude nothing but a helper for the Japanese!" It's silly. Wether it's an old white European wizard, an Asian monk or master of some ancient art, a wise old black man with magic powers, or whatever else. Every race has "stereotypical old man with magic powers." And while yes, there's definitely ways to make it racist... id hardly put green mile or even the very unfairly criticized song of the south as examples of those.

Just ONCE can we have a movie where different people work together? Like a disaster movie where people of different cultures not only work together, but gain a better understanding of each other? Or literally anything other than THIS.

They spent $15 million to make the movie, but it only grossed $2,496,248 before it was pulled from theaters....It was a total flop! 😅

I still cant believe this is a movie and it was actually made. By people. I think its just a prank some aliens pulled.

The Society of Supportive Wives and Girlfriends actually sounds awful. Do the girls truly fall in love with the guy who they have to support, or do they disappear and move on to the next guy? If that's the case, they are basically rent a girlfriends.

So let me get this straight... everyone has magic except white males? Also, I'm biracial and all that taught me is each side is equally racist, so it's pointless to pick sides. I like both sides. I refuse to pick only one.

When I first saw the trailer I thought it was satirizing anti-white racism and was using a biracial guy as part of the joke to say that it extends to him as well.

The base premise of this movie (the "most dangerous animals" line) is the most sincere and overt example of racism I have seen from an entertainment property in my entire life. Everyone who worked on this movie should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

I don't get why there needs to be a whole movie deconstructing such a dead trope. Hell, the most recent one I can come up with is Radio, and that was more focused on his disability. And the idea that a white person can just attack a black person with impunity? Please, that white person would be mobbed on social media and either arrested or ostracized. It's like how the damsel saves herself trope became more cliche than damsels in distress.

I find it very strange that this movie had a biracial main character to play with the trope. Another instance of mixed people getting grouped in when it's convenient and just automatically assuming they have the same experiences as full black people.

The Society of Wives and Girlfriends was pretty much ripped from Burn, Witch, Burn. In that movie all women were practicing magic to benefit their families while fighting off rival witches spells.

While not gaining trope status there are plenty of magical white people in movies too. Fairy god mothers, wizards, oracles, gods, demigods, and more.

Probably the only person online I'll listen to about this movie. No one else I know of can so cleanly dismantle a piece of media for it's flaws and outright mistakes better than Just Some Guy. He doesn't tell you sucks, he explains WHY it sucks. With just the right amount of direction of where it could have done better.

Damn does this film really show the colors of modern racism. Most racists ive come across always have some sort of trauma they lean on to why they hate an entire group. No matter the skin tone of the person, they always have a trauma to go back to for justification. The trauma may be legitimate, but like with this film, what is a problem with a single individual gets blown into a representation of an entire group. Its so exhausting to live around people like that.

So this is a troupe I don't know about, but I try to stay out of racial issues. I try not to bring this up for this reason, but I'm a black man, who was raised by a white family in a black neighborhood. I had a black aunt growing up, but my aunts and uncles in the neighborhood were actually just close family friends. Eventually I moved to a different state, and lived in a majority white neighborhood. I have not scene racism from white people towards black people my whole life. Nothing more than as you said. A misunderstanding or genuinely something that was not about race at all. For example the only harassment I had from white people was for being gay while the harassment I had from black people was being an uncle tom or for loving school too much. I loved to learn as a kid and couldn't understand why that isn't cool. Now I'm not oblivious to "black history" to me it's just a part of history, a part of anthropology. I hate thinking about it as "black history" however, for the sake of conversation I'll call it that. Black people in America didn't have the best start in life, many were brought in as slaves sold by Africans to Americans and other countries. However, things did steadily get better. Were people racist back in those days? Sure, but I don't blame them for it. What we call racism they'd see as common sense based on experience. Everything has its extremes and so in the extremes you had the worst cases, but what I'm aiming to talk about isn't about the racism aspect. It's about what happened during and after slavery. Lots of black people weren't content with their lives. Some people simply lashed out, but many just wanted better for the next generation, better for the next generation, and better for the next generation. You know what? Things got better. Not simply by wanting it, but because the families of the earlier generations focused on working hard to prove themselves, and to make sure their children got educated. To make sure that they could make themselves the equal of any white person. Because they weren't. May not sound nice, but it's true. The original slaves came from a barbaric primitive society. There was nothing magical or beautiful about it. Just selfishness, evil, barbaric, and cannibals. The people that were sold off may as well have been going to an alien planet. Because the British were superior, in every way. You've mentioned before that there are lots of black hurt from blacks wishing they were white people. I believe that's true, and I think that wish was ingrained by genuine desire from generations. Not simply so as to not experience racism, but because we saw something better about them. Even to this day there is a disparity, but that is not at all because of racism from white people. In my opinion white people do too much to prop up black people to the point of self hatred. It has created mental illness and now the white people whom we have generationally looked up to are in a state of catastrophic regression. I don't think there is anything wrong about the generational desire we have had. I think that speaks to the better part of our nature seeking to improve. I know you're an atheist, but I'm a Christian. I believe in man's inherent evil nature. British society as a whole civilized themselves by in large part suppressing the evils of our nature. "liberalism" sought to "liberate" man from such suppression. So where do I see the difference now to then? Now I see a significant percentage of black people falling into the liberal narrative. They give into the evils of their nature. Joining gangs, hating goodness, having sex outside of marriage, killing their own children, fathers taking no responsibility. Theft, pillage, arson, destruction. I see a large number of "our people" who have regressed all the way back to the way we were before slavery. How is that supposed to make me feel? I don't hate myself for being black, and I don't feel like I'm inferior to white people. However, I will not see myself as a part of "our people" when all too many choose to act like animals. How should I feel? It hurts. Because I know we can be better, because we were better. We collectively sought to be better. Now it's just easier to call people racist. To blame racism on every ill. What does that do? Well as you have pointed out here it leads to white people being attacked over nothing. Leading to more mental illness. Leading to more self-hatred. Leading to more degeneration. Which does what in the end? It doesn't lift everyone up, it doesn't life anyone up. It only tears people down, and leads us to more of the genuinely bad kind of racism. Why do so many people act blind to this? White people aren't allowed to talk about it. Black people aren't allowed to acknowledge it. So we're left in this loop now where we're all slaves of another kind. Simple cattle for politicians and corporations to grow fat on. How should I feel about all this? How should any of us feel? I don't have a clear answer, but I can tell the feelings of whoever made this film are completely misguided.

The message pushed is illogical and inconsistent. When you try to express it in art it becomes incomprehensible.

My friend watched this film because he is a huge movie buff. He was telling a co-worker about it and his boss called him up for racist remarks.... He said the title of the film and explained the plot. he almost got fired for talking about a real film. Actually, I only heard of this film from my American friends, I don't think it came to Sweden at all, or if it did, it was never talked about. I can't say I missed much...

I saw the trailer on TV and immediately thought, hmmm, David Alan Grier, magical negroes. I think I will see it. On the Friday the movie opened I had a bad feeling and I pumped the brakes. Boy am I glad I did! I started reading reviews online that basically said what Just Some Guy just said. This premise had so much potential. David Alan Grier is usually so good, but he didn’t write the damn thing…

9:33 My grandad had to flee Florida when his SISTER happened to look at a white MAN in the wrong way. There's the old Chris Rock stand up bit (edit, changed from BUT, that autocorrect) about the racist black man. Ironically my grandad was named Willie. I'm 40 btw and my grandad died in 2012.

The oldest surviving written story in the world feature the civilized Gilgamesh and his wild friend Ekidnu. This ain't a new trope.

I wonder if they were trying to be like Mel Brooks, and make a Harry Potter version of Blazzing Saddles but they just have such racist hate in their hearts they can't be funny?

There is a fundamental problem here. Imagine the Green Mile not having a "magical negro", but a magical person of another race. Swapped out a black person in a major protagonist role for someone else. This is Schroedinger's complaint, if you do not include black culture, you are erasing - COMPLAINT. If you include it, you are pushing stereotypes - COMPLAINT. In Green Mile the magic was not race specific (Do not remember any references to Voodoo), they could have indeed chosen anyone, they went for "friendly giant" and as far as I perceived it, arrived at random at John Coffey. Maybe not, but then I would assume that they wanted to refer to racial prejudice in judicial practice in the USA to boost the friendly giant appeal. This is also not a person popping up randomly but a/the core concept of the story. So you have a black person in an exchangeable role, but still - COMPLAINT. Unfortunately I do not know the other mentioned movie. The premise by this standard is bogus, which makes satire challenging. Movies of this type make you wonder, if they are not somehow secretly launched by the extreme right as a false flag to smear Leftists.

I heard of it and I thought it was a based on the comic you already covered before.

When I heard about this, I said it would either be mediocre-bad or so bad it came out the other end and was good. Sadly, it definitely landed in mediocre-bad territory.

The problem with saturizing the magical negro 'trope' is its saturazing having supporting cast in movies play the role of supporting cast. It's not a real product of racism, exclusive to black roles, or even reflective of bad writing. It's just a quirk of history that a lot of early culturally memorable roles new black actors played in diverse films were monster/horror flicks. Probably because at least half of those films were borrowing from Haitian zombie lore and they wanted a feeling of some authority figure on the zombies to come from where the lore comes from. But none of that's bad and none of those 80s horror flicks held back black actors from securing lead roles as protagonist and presidents in 90s action films and rom coms, all which did great and became well received classic films by everyone today.

I LOVE DAG. I worked on every episode of The Chocolate News. And I watched this film. I had the exact same response to this that Just Some Guy has. It’s a hallow film.

My dad's biracial and if he told me that all his life he's felt like he's had to comfort his white wife, mother and quarter black (e.g white) kids I'd say, thanks for not being an asshole Pops. These feelings need a therapist not a trite romcom movie.

Isn’t this just the plot of that one comic JSG covered awhile back?

I sat through this movie. It was so cringe.

The only thing it looks like Aaron could steal is someone’s happiness.

I couldn't even get through this review without stopping, I can't imagine the torture session that is this movie.

I can honestly say that I've never looked at other white people and thought "my people". I've never helped a person because they were white. The complete lack of self-reflection in the leaders and tastemakers of various "communities" is absolutely stunning.

The worst part is that David Alan Grier buys into this in art and the real world now. The Trump Era broke so many peoples brains but that is one I mourn more than others.

Torture is illegal

The Boomdocks is an infinitely better and more accurate satire. 😎

Am not gonna lie I got 3minutes and 31 seconds in and had to stop. What a lot of shite. I can't believe you put yourself through watching this lol. I salute you brave soldier.

Just treat other people the way you want to be treated. That's literally all it takes to not be racist.

I can't believe that this only has 17,000 views, it has been up for over 17 hours.

That was a good synopsis and thank you for it! I'm not likely to see this movie but if it finds itself coming up in conversation I'll mention this video in any discussion I have of it.

Wow...great summary of the concept at the start!

Its a movie talking about racism, while being racist, and telling everyone their racist, its a mess.

Uncle Ruckus be like: *"Well...well...well...""

I clicked this over the latest RLM video from a couple days ago. I couldn't resist!

[UK, old white guy] Thanks for explaining the 'magical negro' trope. Not being familiar with American racism I had no idea the trope was a thing but your examples are perfectly clear. It's good to learn.

Glad to see such a nuanced review. Keep it up.

Scatman Crothers in Twilight Zone:the movie-Kick the Can!

Has anyone seen Amarica Fiction? That looks like a great satire involving black americans in the white world.

Waiting for lunch in grade school. Now that’s a miserable experience I haven’t thought about in decades 😂

How do you expect people to buy tickets for this movie when most of them won't even say the title?

I suspect that this speech by the protagonist at the end of the movie, is the makers speaking. They think their life is so full of racism because they interpret everything in their life through that lens. It is anything but healthy to be honest and probably will harm them and anyone around them.

I have a friend who joked about a movie about what'd be like if there was Harry Potter for these magical people, and he wanted to sue the movie for copyright infringement. What I wanna see is an expansion of that Key and Peele skit with an inner city wizard school.

Damn, you do a better job talking about racism in a thought provoking manner than an entire movie about black people dealing with racism.

This was definitely a key and peel sketch originally

i hope justice Smith dose not returns in detective pikachu 2

I also feel like a lot of these movies (written by fairly-very successful individuals) suffer from a lack of class analysis. Getting approached by a cop for "loitering" or some other nuisance "crime" is far, far more likely to happen to a poor or working-class black man. I mean, that was basically the function of "broken windows" policing. Stories like this that focus on the travails of, say, an upper middle-class individual focus on things like microaggressions or professional advancement can make the protagonist(s) come off as narcissistic if not well written. Like you said, if the story doesn't do enough to show us that the adversity is faced because of structural racism and not the inadequacies of the protagonist or misunderstanding, it falls flat--not just as a satire, but as a coherent story in general. At its worst, it can come off as tone-deaf or self-ingratiating. Satire requires reflection and self-critique. There were multiple opportunities for that in this film, but it doesn't seem like they took any of them.

At first, I thought it was a parody movie. The sad thing is... THIS could have been a great movie if it was about wizards from black nationalities. I would love see an African mage or a voodoo priest be on the front lines. Such a waste.

I must say you are really brave to watch this movie. I couldn't do it 🤣🤣😂😂

When I heard the name of this this movie, I thought it the feature length version of that Key & Peele sketch about the Hogwarts in the Hood. God, I wish that was the case.

I don't know what to think about this. 🤔

This plot synopsis gives me a headache good lord this is garbage

I really want to see this movie, just because the concept has so many great possibilities that I want to see how it could have gone so bad. An earnest satire is one of the most powerful methods of critique and I really want to learn how to write better. That being said, sometimes the only thing you learn from failure is that you have failed, and watching a glacier melt in real time isn't very productive.

To make things worse for the film, it didn't even make $2.5 million at the global box office, and though we still don't know what the film's budget was, it was definitely at least in the tens of millions, meaning the people who made just lost A LOT of money. For some even starker contrast, the pre-order campaign for Eric July's superhero comic Isom #1 - which is about a retired black superhero being forced back into the game - made over $3.7 million total back in 2022.

Doesn't anything falling into a black hole, accelerate at an incredible rate?

So, Smiling Friends but magic focused?

I hope we get a South Park parody of this movie

At least it is diverse…….. .

As a mixed ethnicity person, a real threat to me at the moment is this Antiwhiteism which keeps catching me in the crossfire. Antiwhiteism is just a current symptom of the Gnostic belief that reality and the God who created it are oppressive and that salvation (man becoming as gods in their minds) is to be achieved by mental gymnastics. I've never been threatened by actual White Supremacism in my entire life. I really just wish that we could all recognize that we are made in the image of God and we really need Jesus Christ!

Great intro to your video 😂😂😂😂😂

Wait... Wait... isn't this the same plot of that comic you were covering called "Excellence"? Fuck... It totally is! You missed the opportunity to make a killer comparison. 🤣

Given how much executives can screw with a film, I wonder how much of this was the writer-director's actual vision, and how much was studio demands.

but, if i do watch it, and praise it, will people understand how virtuous i am?

What is the title? Online, it says Secrey Society, and yet it's also called American Society. Either way, it was like watching a short bus stuck on the train tracks, and the train is coming.

Great rational critique, as usual. I suspect the deeper problem with the film that you point out went right over the heads of many. Does more harm than good.

I would really enjoy a rewrite from you about this movie. If you were given the script how would you change it?

I would rather have watched the recording of the pitch meeting

Oh so it’s the “nice guy” TM.

I find even the title is utterly abhorrent. I’d never recommend any movie that promotes such destructive divisions. Makes no sense to make a movie like this. Sad because there is a couple really good actors I like in this.

I thought i was going to be another fantastic beast movie/apart of the harry potter universe but it focuses on black wizards or something XD

I didn't know how to ask for a ticket for this movie.

Wait... You're saying that a secondary character has their issues be... GASP... SECONDARY to the main character? Good heavens, i have the vapors. 🙄

Thing is, how often is the Magic Negro employed these days? IDK feels like making a movie satirizing how damsels keep getting tied to train tracks.

Does anyone have a few examples of Magical negro tropes used in TV and movies unironically? I'm broadly unfamiliar with this, and it being considered common as a baseline is a surprise to me. "Begging for a satire," is an interesting statement, and one I feel could use some back up.

Making a movie like this in 2024 they sure forgot to leave out the violence with black on black lol...which is way worse in current times. But hey, gotta push that false narrative