Much of Huckleberry Finn is an exercise in white awakening, to some extent. Jim is unwaveringly faithful to Huck, showing unadulterated affection for and dependence on his traveling companion at one point, when they’re reunited after being briefly separated in a fog while making their way down the Mississippi River, Jim expresses relief, claiming that his heart “mos’ broke” and he “didn’t k’yer no mo’ what become er me en de raft.” Huck’s not a fan of his guardian, Widow Douglas, or his mostly absentee alcoholic father, so he fakes his own death and escapes, and Jim forms a bond with Huck that is deeply rooted in their unequal power dynamic. Jim is a runaway slave who encounters the title character while he, too, is on the run. Huckleberry Finn’s Jim is a quintessential early example of The Black Friend. (You can trace a direct line from this era right up to Donald Trump and every other modern-day white person who claims to have “Black friends” after being caught saying or doing something racist.)įrom whence did The Black Friend arise? Black sidekicks have long existed in literary fiction and travelogues, often appearing as some version of the noble savage-that innocent-to-the-point-of-infantile character upon which white writers projected their curiosities, neuroses, and, occasionally, critiques of white supremacy. The Black Friend as an abstract concept has existed in the public imagination for at least a couple hundred years, when pro-slavery advocates such as George Fitzhugh trotted out the baffling argument that the white Southerner was “the Negro’s friend, his only friend.” This disingenuous posit was an attempt to counter the imagery of slavery as an inherently brutal and inhumane practice by creating the perception of a benevolent, mutual partnership. Or-and this has frequently been the case in interracial friendship stories of the last thirty-plus years or so-race doesn’t even come up, at least not explicitly. Depending upon the era in which the story was conceived, and/or when it is set, this unevenness might be acknowledged or even serve as the central conflict. Inherent to that relationship is a more complicated power imbalance, not just in terms of character development but for the obvious reason that Black people have to move in this world differently from their white friends. But the cross-racial friendship, especially when it’s presented through a Black-white dynamic, is a very particular trope. The Best Friend shows up in some form or another across all genres and cultures because it’s a useful storytelling device-you want another character who can complement and affirm the hero’s status as the primary focus of the narrative. Many of these characters are products of white imagination. In the case of Girlfriends, for instance, it’s Joan (Tracee Ellis Ross) who’s the hub of the group. Think of most ensemble shows involving a group of BFFs ( Living Single, Girlfriends, How I Met Your Mother) or any number of bildungsroman shows ( Leave It to Beaver, Moesha, Lizzie McGuire).Įven then, there’s no questioning who is still the center of the overall narrative, the one whose perspective we’re supposed to align with most often. We learn about their families, their quirks, their dating lives, and they influence the story line’s dramatic events. Sometimes they’ve got their own B-plotlines and occupy center stage for periods of time. Sometimes-more often in TV shows, where there’s time to develop characters-The Best Friend has more to do. You know they’re there, because they show up for a scene or two to offer some cheeky but real advice and words of encouragement or jokey comedic relief, but they probably won’t show up in a scene unless our hero is in it, too. Sometimes, their presence is practically inconsequential to the driving plot except as an obligation to fulfill a narrative trope, because if you’re a protagonist in a coming-of-age story, rom-com, or a buddy comedy, you absolutely must have a BFF who can thumbs-down that hideous outfit you’re considering wearing on your first date. The Best Friend, period, is also known as the foil, the sidekick, the cheerleader, the supporting (and supportive) character.
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