Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
I've seen this movie. The black dude dies first.
It must be racist shark, because out of the four of them, it eats the black man.
For some reason, Fate hates the black man, putting them that much higher on the Sorting Algorithm Of Mortality. The Comedy Black Man? Despised beyond measure.
In the past this was because there were few black leads in big-budget films outside of those that focused specifically on race or used it to make a point. Historical moviemakers were generally writing to white audiences, so it was natural (at least in their opinion) for whites to get more screen time. And if the writers throw in a Token Minority to give the cast more believable racial balance, who do you think is going to die first, them or the folks who have a bigger role in the script?
This, of course, has led to increasing inversion in recent years, as there have been more black moviegoers with money to spend, leading to more and more prominent black characters and more big-name black actors, none of which are likely to get killed off quietly. Studios have also finally accepted that white audiences are not generally as racist as was once assumed, and do not need to have a white as the protagonist. In other words, if you're gonna go after the black man nowadays, you might want to check the credits to see who's playing him. If it's no one you've actually heard of, they're probably fair game. Tony Todd? Go for it. Samuel L Jackson? You can take your chances, but I don't like your odds. Denzel Washington? Bad idea. Will Smith? Run away and hide.
As black actors become more common in significant roles, this trope has found new ways to stay relevant. Often films will take a Scary Black Man, turn him into The Big Guy, and kill him off to show how strong their monster is. In horror films, the afflicted main character might have a sassy Black Best Friend that gets killed off to show that this is no laughing matter.
This became a Dead Horse Trope once black comedians began to reference it in their routines, and comedy movies began to reference, parody, subvert, and lampshade it. Like many aspects of racism that have become less overt over the years, some people refuse to believe that it ever existed, but these people probably haven't seen many movies made before 1990.
Compare Bury Your Gays.
This is a Death Trope, so you'd better turn back now or face the spoilers.
Played Straight
Anime & Manga
- Episode 22 of Code Geass R2 has the introduction of the only black Knight of the Round, Knight of Four Dorothea Ernst. However, she only gets a few seconds of screentime before Suzaku blows her Knightmare out of the sky, seconds after the battle starts.
- Gorobei is the first to die in Samurai Seven. This despite the fact that, in the original Seven Samurai film, the first to die was Heihachi. Gorobei was the only black man among the samurai.
- In Berserk, Pippen is the first named character to die during the Eclipse.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam, the first major character from the White Base crew to die is Ryu Jose when he kamakazied his core fighter to save Amuro.
- The Halo Legends short The Babysitter follows a four-man squad. The one
black Ambiguously Brown member doesn't even get a name or dialogue before he dies.
Film
Literature
- The novel Morrigan's Cross by Nora Roberts. It's pretty obvious what's going to happen because (a) he is the only black guy, and (b) there's 4 guys and 2 girls and it's a romance novel, so you have to get another girl in the mix somehow.
- Besma Grieve in the Doctor Who Television Tie In Novel The Year of Intelligent Tigers. Particularly galling because the writer seemed quite fond of her, and referred to her as "Black" rather than "black", a possibly more politically correct usage, which rather suggested said writer should have known better.
Live Action TV
- The first person to die in the pilot of Andromeda is a young black officer named Thompson. He's named after Cronan Thompson, a young black internet personality who was involved in many online arguments with the show's creator, Robert Wolfe. Cronan died of cancer at 19, and Wolfe included Thompson in his pilot as a tribute. Having him die first might seem tasteless, but it would probably have appealed to Cronan's sense of humor.
- In the New Zealand TV 3 docu-series Aftershock
 , the first person shown to die as a result of the Cook Strait earthquake is a Maori man. That's as black as you can make it in a New Zealand context without lampshading the concept.
- In BBC's Merlin, for some reason, they added black knights to Uther's court. For some bizarre reason, the Monsters Of The Week seem to love killing them, and if a knight needs to die to establish the threat, it will be the black dude. Being a Black Knight in Merlin appears to be like being a Red Shirt in Star Trek. Heaven help you if you're a black Knight and wearing a red tunic.
- The first major character to be killed in the series was Tom, who is also black.
- In Stargate Atlantis, although his death is ambiguous, the first character to leave the main cast is the black Lieutenant Ford.
- Lampshaded by Turk in the episode of Scrubs where La Verne dies. "If this was a horror movie, I'd be afraid I'd be next. They always kill off the black people first." [sic]
- Flash Forward, in a surprise twist, Al is the first character to die by jumping off a roof to prove that what happens in a Flash Forward isn't necessary the future.
Video Games
- The first named character to die in Metal Gear Solid was the black DARPA Chief, Donald Anderson. Possibly subverted when it turned out that he was a fair-skinned Hispanic man disguising himself as Anderson. And then twisted back around again, because the real Anderson was killed off-screen before Snake's arrival.
- Metal Gear Solid 2 is divided into two chapters. In both chapters, the first named person to die is a black man - Scott Dolph in the first and Peter Stillman in the second. It's a small relief, but none of the characters are at all comical.
- Apparently averted in Metal Gear Solid 3 when Sigint lived through the end of the game. However, in MGS4, it's revealed that Sigint was actually Donald Anderson, who was, of course, the first character to die in the very first Metal Gear Solid!
- Poor Anderson was also only the second of the Patriot founders to die.
- The first named character to die in Metal Gear 2 was Black Color/Black Ninja (depending on the version you are playing), a black South African as well as a likely unintentional Captain Ethnic. Said black South African was also the first ally to "die" in Metal Gear, especially egregious since the other members of the Resistance were white South African women.
- In Fallout 3 the first character to die is the scientist Jonas who was a friend of your character's father. It's his death in fact, that kicks off the main storyline.
- In Crysis, the two black and one Hispanic teammates get eaten by aliens in the first couple of levels. One of the black teammates gets better, though.
- In Siren: Blood Curse The black camera man Sol Jackson is the first to be killed. Then everyone goes back in time because Crazy Cult lady's plan got screwed over. Sol is alive again! ...Until he dies first a second time. That's right, the black guy dies first, goes back in time, then dies first again.
- A lot of people died in Dead Space before the Kellion crew (including player character Isaac Clarke) arrived, and he wasn't even the first of the Kellion's crew to die (a pair of redshirts bit it at the start), but Hammond was the first major character to bite it; torn limb from limb by a Brute.
- Captain Chahal is the first crew member to bite it in 7 Days a Skeptic. The poor captain was not only black, but also set to retire after this last mission, so yeah; he never stood a chance. And the player has to dispose of him again after his corpse becomes possessed.
- In Halo, the first major non-gameplay casualties are the black Sgt. Johnson's seven-man squad. Word of God indicates this was originally intended to stick.
Web Comics
- Webcomic example: In Erfworld, Lord Manpower the Temporary is killed on page 2, and is black at the time. (Later, he's green, like the rest of the uncroaked.) Technically, though, he was the last of Stanley's warlords to die. Just the first dead character in the story proper.
Western Animation
- Superman: The Animated Series, episode 'The Hand of Fate'. First demon to spring from the giant hole straight to hell goes straight for the black dude.
- Wolverine and the X-Men: Swat team flees from faceless terror in the middle of a blizzard. Black guy gets dragged off.
Lampshaded/Parodied
Film
Live Action TV
Comic Books
- When Ambrose Chase dies in Planetary, the Genre Savvy villain comments that "this is science fiction movie. The black guy always dies in the science fiction movie." (They were in a reality-warping field that made reality follow movie cliches, so this was , literally, the reason he died.)
Web Comics
- Sort of referenced in this Captain SNES Halloween special, despite several people having died already.
- One of many horror movie cliches parodied in the "KITTEN" arc of Sluggy Freelance.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Parodied in an episode of South Park, itself a parody of the movie The Core. In the original, a black scientist dies after engaging a switch deep while in almost direct contact with the Earth's mantle; in the parody, Cartman explicitly picks Chef as "the black man who will sacrifice himself".
Video Games
- Often invoked by the players in Left 4 Dead: no-one wants to play as Louis because, As You Know, Black Dude Dies First. His optimistic lines like "I knew we would make it" and "Stay positive, guys, I have a good feeling about this," do not help matters.
- The AI Special Infected tend to go after the closest survivor. They seem to spawn closest either to Louis, or to you.
Subverted/Averted/Inverted
Anime & Manga
- Averted in Naruto. Besides Naruto, Killer Bee is the only Jinchurriki left.
Fan Fic
- Hilariously sent up in, of all things, a House Fan Fic (The Rampant Disease) dealing with a zombie apocalypse at the setting hospital. House (who seems to be getting off on his own Genre Savvy) repeatedly comments that Foreman, being black, is doomed, and at one point Foreman himself says that he's not going to do anything stupid because he doesn't want to be the Black Dude of the picture. In the end, Foreman, House and Wilson are the only main cast characters to survive.
Film
- Despite the quote at the of the page, Harry Block does not die at any point in the film Evolution. Although he is the only main character to come reasonably close to death.
- ... and gets by far more humiliating encounters with the evolving species than other main characters.
- Inverted in Mindhunters, where the black guy is the mysterious tough newcomer, and near the end it is heavily implied (though not stated) that he is the murderer... and then he gets hit really hard in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher, and the movie seems to end. However, it is then revealed that the black guy WAS NOT the murderer, and just as the REAL murderer is about to finish off the last survivor, the black guy wakes up and saves the day, becoming one of two survivors.
- Subverted in The Core, where the black guy actually dies second to last. The white NASA commander dies first.
- Inverted in the direct-to-video monster movie Frankenfish, where none of the white characters make it to the end.
- In the horror movie Deep Blue Sea, LL Cool J's character finds himself in a difficult situation and exclaims "Ooh, I'm done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this! Not ever!". Amusingly, he lampshades the trope, is the Comedy Black Man, and survives the movie. According to The Other Wiki his character was scheduled to die, but test audiences liked him so much that they re-shot the ending and allowed him to live. However, the film also plays this one straight, to good effect, by killing off Samuel L Jackson in a surprise.
- In the interestingly titled Thir13en Ghosts remake, the maid Maggie inverts this by becoming an Indestructible Black Woman. Despite indulging in an excruciating level of stereotypical head-waggling and "Mmmm-HMMMM, girlfriend" she manages to walk out of an exploding house full of pissed off ghosts and spinning blades. And then carries on with the same shtick like nothing happened.
- Inverted in Night Of The Living Dead. The only black guy in the group survives the night, and then gets shot in the morning, after being mistaken for a zombie. Talk about a Downer Ending.
- An alternate (and quite popular) theory is that the rednecks who shot him realized he wasn't a zombie, but were just using the chaos as an opportunity to kill a black guy.
- Very similarly averted in Return Of The Living Dead, where the one black guy (who, notably, is good at boarding up windows and seems claustrophobic, both of which were traits of the above Ben in Night Of The Living Dead) survives to the end of the film, but then is killed in a nuclear blast along with everyone else.
- The original Dawn Of The Dead also inverts this trope, but takes a somewhat different tack: this time around, the only black guy is one of the two survivors, and he manages to escape with his life. This was changed at the last minute from the original plot ending, where the last two surviving humans in the mall choose to commit suicide. Meanwhile, the 2004 Dawn remake had two major black characters. One goes crazy when his pregnant wife turns into a zombie, and gets shot. The other survives to the end of the film.
- John Carpenter's remake of The Thing has two black characters, the Jive Turkey chef and Scary Black Man Keith David, both of whom make it to the final act. The chef disappears, leaving David and main character Kurt Russell as the final two survivors. In the end, it's assumed that they'll both freeze to death anyway.
- Childs is found frozen to death in the video game sequel by the player character, and is the first dead person you come across. Mc Ready turns up alive in the game's ending and is the one who rescues you.
- Averted in the House on Haunted Hill remake, not only is the black dude not the first to be killed, but he is the only male to survive.
- Not only averted, but subverted as well, as the movie intentionally makes it look like he's going to be the first to die, and apparently kills him first, only to have him turn up fine, with the one who appeared to die being an illusion by the house, rather than him possessed or something similar.
- But played straight in the sequel Return To House On Haunted Hill where Warren, a black guy is the first to die.
- Clearly intentionally inverted in Alien, where the white males are systematically eliminated, and the black guy dies at the same time as a white female. Aliens does this as well in the scene where the marines first encounter the aliens.
- Aliens also plays this trope straight, as Frost, the other black soldier, is the first Marine to die (Deitrich, who was the first victim in the encounter, was only...captured. Frost probably got the better deal).
- In the third film the black inmate managed to survive until the end until he uses himself as bait to keep the alien in the path of the molten lead...although he sacrificed himself for a white character (Ripley).
- In the fourth film, Christie was the third and last crew member of the Betty to die, and that was rather far into the film...although, he, too, sacrificed himself (for the Scrappy).
- Averted repeatedly in Predator. Of all the elite soldiers that accompany Arnie into the jungle, the first to die is the white, bespectacled nerd (at least, compared to the other guys he was...) followed by the hulking mountain of white-macho that was Jesse Ventura. The two black guys make it an appreciable way through the film, until one goes Ax Crazy and the other attempts a Redemption Equals Death mission to find him. Also note that the Mohawk guy lasts most of the way through the film, too.
- In Predator 2, the main protagonist was played by Danny Glover, who survives the film. The same cannot be said for two of his colleagues — one white, the other Hispanic — who are killed by the Predator. However, the Jamaican gang leader and some of his mooks are killed by the Predator as well, but not after it kills a bunch of Columbians at the start of the film.
- Inverted to a different cultural equivalent in the Korean monster movie The Host. There is a blonde white American guy who is killed while helping Gang-Du try to save a few people. He dies very well.
- In Pitch Black, Keith David makes it out alive (although his kids get eaten). Vin Diesel, of course, also escapes and goes on to make a series of animated films, video games, and one big-budget movie chronicling his continuing adventures. The cute blonde Final Girl captain who was actually the film's main character? She almost makes it to the escape ship only to be pulled into two pieces by bat-sharks about 5 minutes before the end of the film.
- Averted in Snakes On A Plane.The first one killed was a white man,while the first to be killed by the snakes were a guy and a gal who were making out in a restroom, and they were both white. In fact,all of the black characters, counting Neville Flynn(Samuel L. Jackson) naturally, manage to survive at the end of the film.
- In Event Horizon, the Odious Black Comic Relief is actually one of two characters to survive the ordeal. Heroic Black captain Larry Fishburne also almost makes it to the end, but dies in a Heroic Sacrifice to get rid of the Event Horizon and stop its reality-warping hijinks.
- Averted (sort of) in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. While the black guy dies, the black girl is revealed to have survived in the end, having only been knocked out and thought dead by the killer.
- In the film version of Angels And Demons, the black Preferiti is the second to die, not the first.
- Alex Cox's 1987 indie neo-western Straight to Hell features a who's-who cast of oddball actors, musicians, and punks, having been filmed due to the cancellation of a music tour. Everyone dies except the black man and the women. Knowing Alex Cox, this was far from a coincidence.
- Transformers (2007): Besides Lennox, Epps is the only named human soldier to survive the film. The first one killed is the one with glasses, much like the above Predator example. I discern a new trend.
- In Cloverfield the ambiguously brown girl may have been the only one of the main characters to actually survive but her fate in left mysterious.
- Averted in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - the sarg is actually only the first of the Deep Eyes to be wounded.
- Subverted in the 1976 King Kong; aside from Jack Prescott, black sailor Boan is the sole survivor out of the search party. All the white guys in the group get killed.
- Averted in Deep Blue Sea - Samuel L Jackson's character gets killed halfway through the movie and LL Cool J's character survives.
- Subverted in Halloween: H20 - again by LL Cool J (his character is accidentally shot, but it later turns out he gets better). Do you see a pattern here?
- Inverted in pretty much every George Romero zombie movie.
- In the original Night Of The Demons the black guy (along with his pal the fat guy) survive.
- In the Prom Night remake the Black Best Friend survives. His girlfriend isn't so lucky though.
- Averted in Anaconda, where Ice Cube's character is one of the only ones to survive.
- Hilariously played with in Kill Bill. Vernita Green dies at the beginning of Vol. 1, but is actually the second to die sequentially since the rest of Vol. 1 is a flashback.
Live Action TV
- In Stargate SG-1, Teal'c, the black guy, is the only member of the titular unit who hasn't died and come back to life yet.
- Subverted in original Star Trek episode By Any Other Name. Two Red Shirt crewmen in the landing party, a black man and an asian woman, are converted into polystyrene cubes by the Kelvan leader. One of the cubes is crushed, killing the person it was. The other cube is reconstituted, and up pops a shocked looking black man, alive and well. Captain Kirk then weeps over the dead woman's remains.
Video Games
- Avoided in Gears Of War, where the black squad member makes it to the end along with the rest of the team. The only squadmate to die is The Korean-analog squad leader, whose command role is taken up by the player character afterwards. A Red Shirt squadmember also dies early on, but apparently he's going to return for the sequel. Somehow. So Yeah.
- Well, actually it's his brother. Who is voiced by the same guy. And is exactly the same save the helmet, which is slightly different. He dies too.
- If you ignore Bravo Team's pilot (Edward Dewey or Kevin Dooley, depending whether its the PS 1 or Game Cube versions you're), then Kenneth J. Sullivan, the sole black member of STARS, is also the first one to be found dead in the Mansion in the original Resident Evil.
- Similarly, Marvin Branagh from Resident Evil 2, is the first survivor the player finds at the RPD Precinct and the first one to die. Somewhat averted since he's the only surviving police officer aside from Leon and Chief Irons.
- Averted in Resident Evil 5. Josh is the only BSAA member to survive the entire game (Excluding Chris and Sheva themselves).
- Uncertain in Rama. The first astronaut we see die is the one black dude, though Valeryi Borzov (probably neither black nor a dude) has died before the game begins. We later see the corpse of another astronaut who may or may not have died before him.
- Matt in Winback. Sniped by The Starscream in the second level.
Web Original
- Inverted in Survival Of The Fittest with Bobby Jacks, who racked up one of version three's biggest kill counts and survived until quite late on in the game. Also inverted (or possibly subverted) in that so far it's been a white person who has died first in every game so far.
Web Comic
- Ansem Retort contains the following parody:
Zexion: Relax. Everyone knows the black guy dies first. So, until he gets killed, we're safe.
Namine: Racism aside, what black guy are you talking about?
Zexion: Ooh right. Yeah, we're gonna die. Painfully, too.
- Order Of The Stick has only one black character in the titular group. Yep, he's the only one who's died, even though he's the group leader and main character of the series. He Got Better.
- Well, for what it's worth, it took him over 400 strips before that happened. And heck, being dead didn't even stop him from being involved in the plot!
Western Animation
- The Danish CGI film Journey to Saturn features the local equivalent, "Middle-Eastern Dude Dies First", but subverted: Jamil Ahmadinejad is shot and looks to be dying, but survives thanks to a Pocket Protector in the form of a huge collection of photos of his extended family.
- Averted with Jive Turkey Jazz in the original Transformers movie, where he's one of the few older characters that survive the Merchandise Driven slaughter that wipes out most of the main cast of the earlier seasons of the show.
|
|
