A history of the sassy black friend

A tried-and-true staple of romantic comedies - a genre which really seems to be closer to death with every new release - is the sassy black friend. This character, who can be either male or female, is often the plain-speakin' comic relief, and veers between comically sexualized (gay men) or completely asexual (straight women). For MLK Day, I decided to go through a quick history of this interminable and extremely restricting caricature. 


The first sassy black friend recorded in romantic comedy history was Mr Hollywood Montrose in Mannequin. 

Oh honeychild.

While I would hate to call this an embarrassment, it's mostly just an embarrassment - a crude stereotype of gay black men that we see persistently echoed through the years (As Good As It Gets, Center Stage, Sweet Home Alabama...). Witness straight white Andrew McCarthy try to negotiate a conversation with this flamboyant negro who just cannot stop crying about his cellulite. To this day, almost any black man in a romantic comedy has to be neutered and trivialized by being a screaming queen. There is no subtlety, and there is definitely no third or even second dimension to him - he's a pure joke, there to reinforce the hetero appeal of the lead.


There are some exceptions, but even those instances require some form of neutering. Dave Chappelle in You've Got Mail, for instance, has absolutely no existence beyond hanging out with Tom Hanks. They work together, walk on treadmills together, and scope out Tom Hanks's date together, but somewhere around the middle of the movie Dave just disappears and is never heard from again. In Two Weeks Notice, Hugh Grant has a sassy black friend with "sage" advice about women that involves something about how chess have rules but women don't; this guy isn't a friend, though, so much as he is a chauffeur who is obligated to talk to Hugh Grant. And Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Dwayne the bartender is obsessed with watching sea creatures fuck, making him bizarre and sexually non-threatening. 

Even Jason Segel is a credible romantic option, compared to this guy.

Then there's the barely-there sassy black friend, as seen in While You Were Sleeping and Never Been Kissed. These are characters who hardly even qualify as supporting, since the protagonist (and movie in general) would do just fine without them. You probably don't even remember the women I'm referring to in the two movies I just mentioned. Exactly. Slightly higher up the ladder is the sassy black friend who's there to keep her white lady friend honest. You'll find this character in movies like The Devil Wears Prada, Eat Pray Love, and Center Stage (I know Eva Rodriguez is Latina, but she fulfills all of the requirements I'm about to list). This woman has no sex life, usually being paired up with the gay supporting character. She seems completely devoted to helping her friend through her troubles - "I'm letting my success go to my head!" "I have too many boyfriends!" "I'm not a good enough dancer to even be in this academy!" - and rarely has any troubles of her own, except maybe an excess of sass. Her white lady friend rarely reciprocates the attention, instead choosing to make out with her romantic lead. 

I curate art museums. But no, you're right. Your assistant job is WAY more interesting.

The breakout sassy black friend award, in my opinion, just has to go to Gabrielle Union in 10 Things I Hate About You. Chastity (which, awesome name, girl) refuses to settle for being the supporting character in her own storyline. Instead of listening to Alex Mack talk about her painful choice between the popular jock and the dreamy adorable nerd Joseph Gordon-Levitt, she moves in on the popular jock all by herself. Maybe she is a bitch, like Alex Mack frequently calls her. But she's her own bitch, damnit, and she's got her own story. This almost makes up for Union's total non-character in She's All That, which came out in the same year. 


Movies notable for their complete lack of black characters, from 1990 to the present:


Pretty Woman
Sleepless In Seattle
Four Weddings and a Funeral
My Best Friend's Wedding
Runaway Bride
Bridget Jones's Diary
Legally Blonde
How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Wedding Crashers
The Break-Up
It's Complicated
Life As We Know It


Conclusion: Julia Roberts doesn't care about black people.