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"I've seen this movie. The black dude dies first." - Harry Block, Evolution
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. 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.
This is a Death Trope, so you'd better turn back now or face the spoilers.
Played Straight
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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.
- Averted in Naruto. Besides Naruto, Killer Bee is the only Jinchurriki left.
Film
- The Monster Squad - the only character with any lines to die in the movie is a black cop. How does it happen? Dracula blows him up with dynamite. So at least he'll have a good story for St. Peter.
- Enter the Dragon plays it straight. Of the three main protagonists, Williams exists only to show off his fabulous afro and be killed by the Villain first.
- In the 2007 Transformers movie, the only Autobot to die on Earth is Jazz. As a robot, he's technically not black, but his Jive Turkey dialogue and black voice actor make the trope clear.
- Vin Diesel is the first squad member to be killed in Saving Private Ryan. It's not clear what race his character is supposed to be, however, as he has an Italian last name. Diesel himself is of mixed Italian and black ancestry.
- Painfully prevalent in the Stargate movie. A group of soldiers are attacked and the black guy is the first one to die. The other guys got resurrected by a sarcophagus, which apparently does not work on black people...
- A bunch of white soldiers die in the attack and stay dead. Daniel is the only one who gets resurrected by the sarcophagus, and that's only because he's wearing the Eye of Ra pendant.
- In United 93, between the the two pilots of the aforementioned plane, one is white while the other is black. Give ya three guesses who's the first to get shanked by the hijackers.
- Paul Winfield, is notorious in his SF career for taking the bullet for white guys, including twice in the Star Trek universe (as Capt. Terrell in Wrath of Khan and as Dathon in Star Trek: the Next Generation). In Damnation Alley he gets eaten by killer cockroaches.
- In Resident Evil: Extinction, the only black guy was the first to be attacked by a zombie, resulting in an ultimately fatal wound. Of course he covers it up and endangers his fellow zombiepocalypse survivors. Not to mention his black girlfriend managed to sacrifice her own life, and on a bus no less. To top it off, the same character managed to survive all the way through the previous movie, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, despite being a minor character and the Ethnic Scrappy.
- In Virus, the black crew member appears to die halfway through the movie, but in a surprise twist, comes back at the end armed with a rocket launcher to save the hero and the heroine from the monster. Only to die in the process. This is made all the more irritating because he'd already secured his means of escape from the doomed ship, then went back for the others because of a pang of conscience.
- Happens in the film version of the The Shining. Dick looks like he's going to be a Magical Negro, then comes to save the day only to die uselessly, just to give a raving Jack Nicholson at least one person to kill. In the book, Dick lives. He gets possessed for a bit, but there's a happy ending where Danny and Wendy are crashing at the new resort Dick works at. It's sort of sweet.
- In the movie Vertical Limit, one of the first two to die on the mountain (in the same avalanche) is actually Pakistani. Then his brother goes after him. He lasts a bit longer relatively.
- Occurs twice in Apocalypse Now, where the two black members of the boat's crew are the first two to die.
- Blame the source material: In Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the two people who die are native guides. The book is set in the Congo. In Africa. Middle of the "Dark Continent." Yup.
- Apparently Robo Cop is somehow racist considering he aims for the black guy first in the final showdown of the first movie in the series.
- Robo Cop probably took him out first so he wouldn't have to hear any more of that horrible, nails-on-a-chalkboard cackling.
- In The Edge, Harold Perrineau is eaten by the bear first.
- Happens twice in the film version of The Crow. The first of T-Bird's crew who Eric encounters and kills is Tin-Tin, the black knife-wielding guy. Then, near the end of the film when Eric is trying to rescue Sarah, Grange is the first to die when Albrecht guns him down.
- In Vantage Point this trope is played with: The SPANISH dude is the only major viewpoint hero to die, and pretty much got screwed over by the plot. (Took an idiot ball thanks to his girlfriend).
- Queen of the Damned begins with Lestat waking up from his sleep and drinking a black man's blood dry.
- Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins - and ends rather unnecessarily, for Remo's one-armed black mentor. To compare, Wilford Brimley survives - and is still alive!
- The first person to die in Alien Nation is Sykes' original partner, who is shot and killed by a shotgun-wielding crook while he's wearing a Bullet Proof Vest and crouched behind a car. It turns out the shotgun slugs were armor-piercing.
- In Serenity, the Big Damn Movie for Firefly, Shepherd Book is the first to bite it. He is, of course, black. The crew's other black representative, Zoe, survives. But she's a badass action chick anyway...
- Surprisingly, the only Friday the 13th to actually have a black character die first is the ninth, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, where Jason kills Phil the coroner by possessing him. Some might not count this though, since technically Phil only really died when Jason abandoned his body, which he does after claiming quite a few victims.
- 3000 Miles to Graceland has five Elvis impersonators setting out to rob a casino. The black one dies first.
- In B Movie The Killer Shrews, as seen on MST 3 K, the white protagonist's black friend/employee/servant/Dixieland jazz musician goes outside to take care of the boat during the storm and gets eaten by the shrews first. When the hero finds out, he seems genuinely angry for a moment. Their next victim is a Mexican, who gets much less mourning.
- In Red Dawn, who is the first person the Soviets kill after parachuting onto school grounds? The black history teacher.
- In Assignment Outer Space, this is why The Captain gets the Heroic Sacrifice. (The Millstone saves the day).
- The Agony Booth recap of Hulk featured the insight "It's not so much that the black guy dies first, it's that the black guy dies first 90 minutes into the movie".
- The Dambusters manages to combine this with a Shoot The Dog moment. Clearly political correctness had not been invented in 1954.
- The oh-so-terrible MS T3k movie Future Wars shows the second to last scene chronologically at the beginning of the movie, just so the lone black guy in the movie can die first.
- In the miniseries adaptation of of Stephen King's The Langoliers, the sole black man in the group of survivors dies first. In the short story, the guy is not mentioned to be black. He wears a Red Shirt though.
- In the original Planet Of The Apes movie, the black member of the three-man group of astronauts is the only one who's killed by the human-hunting gorillas. Of course, later in the movie it turns out that the other white astronaut survived but was lobotomised...
- The Killer Shrews.
- Not a dude, but the first member of the team killed in Hollow Man is the token minority.
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.
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 bizare, 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 your a black Knight and wearing a red tunic
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 hipanic 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 characters 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.
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 must be a science fiction movie. The black guy always dies in the science fiction movie."
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.
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
Subverted/Averted/Inverted
Fan Fic
- Hilariously sent up in, of all things, a piece of House Fan Fic 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, what with Chase being shotgunned by Tritter and Cuddy and Cameron falling victim to particularly egregious examples of Die For Our Ship - both the women are dead before the story even starts, so there's no question about House and Wilson hooking up.
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.
- 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 American NASA commander dies first.
- So black people can't be Americans? : )
- Inverted in the direct-to-video monster movie Frankenfish, where none of the white characters make it to the end.
- The movie Canadian Bacon features a scene in which this theory is discussed, and various examples are given. It ends with the one black guy looking really nervous.
- He not only survives, though, he goes on to prove that black athletic superiority extends to hockey, too.
- 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, 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 by the police. Talk about a Downer Ending.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Subverted 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.
- Inverted to a different cultural equivalent in the Korean monster movie The Host. There is a blonde white American guy who shows up and tries to be a hero, then promptly gets eaten. A later news update even identifies him as a soldier. What do you mean it's not political satire?
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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