Brother White (2012) and the White Saviour Trope

One of the most common lessons that any writer can learn is that they should write what they know. Their voice will come through better in whatever they write when they bring their own experiences into the story. It makes things more personal and adds a touch of realism to whatever they are writing about. It could be something that happened in their life, or a tale that they’ve been told by a friend. A character could be based on someone they know. Or the things that they know could be the foundations of how the story is written.

Every writer will be influenced by what has come before them. No writer goes into a writing project without the knowledge of some other writing. People who write scripts have seen movies and television shows. Those shows and movies will inevitably find their way into the scripts that the person works on. When these elements find their way into many movies, they become apparent to everyone. They become the tropes that people recognize.

A few weeks ago, there was a Sunday “Bad” Movies post that covered four different tropes. The cheating spouse trope played a large role in Las Vegas Bloodbath, which then inspired the post. Other tropes that were covered included random musical moments in 80s movies, the orange and blue colour scheme, and the use of toxic waste to mutate people. That was only scratching the surface of tropes.

This week’s movie brought up another major movie trope. The trope deals with race. It should be noted here that I’m a straight, white male. Things that I write in this post are coming from that perspective. I’m not going to claim to completely understand people from other races, genders, or sexual preferences. Those have not been my experience in life. But I also think I can discuss this trope and some of the problems within it.

Brother White was a 2012 release from Pure Flix. James White (David A.R. White) was an associate pastor in a megachurch run by Pastor Johnny Kingman (Ray Wise). His family was sent to Atlanta so that James could be the pastor in a church that was about to be foreclosed by the bank. While helping the community, James White would learn the importance of family and connecting with the people around him.

The trope should be apparent from that description. Brother White was a movie that fit into the “white saviour” story trope. This trope has a white person or group of white people placed into a non-white community or culture in order to help the other people out. The white people become the main characters, with a few exceptions. It is their story as they help the people who aren’t the powerful white people out of any problems.

The church in Brother White wasn’t getting enough donations to pay for the property the building was on. Jacob Martin (Rif Hutton) had informed Hill (Reginald VelJohnson) that the bank was going to foreclose on the property if the money didn’t come in on the Monday following James White’s arrival. James White became the last hope for the church. His desire to pastor a church, any church, pushed him to do whatever he could to keep the church open. James worked with Hill, Veena (Jackée), and Delsey (NRaca) to put together a concert. They hoped that the concert would raise the money needed to save the church.

The community that frequented the church was a poor community that mostly consisted of black people. James White and his family were the white people placed in the community in order to help it overcome any troubles. This could further be seen through the character of Ezee-8 (Grifon Aldren), a known gang leader in the neighbourhood. James met him at a restaurant and soon invited him home for dinner. He thought that connecting with Ezee would help with the concert. Ezee was hired as the head of security and his work with the church turned him back to the faith he abandoned years prior. James White hadn’t just saved the community. He saved Ezee, who was now going by the name Kenny.

The problem with the white savior type of storyline is that it purports that the problems wouldn’t have been solved without the intervention of a white man. The poor black community would not have been saved without the church. The church would not have been saved without James White. Ezee would not have been saved from a life of crime without James White. The community would not have been bettered without the small deeds of James, such as stopping a drunken child abuser or helping another child with a broken bicycle. Delsey wouldn’t have come out of her shell without James’s wife Lily (Andrea Logan White) giving her a makeover and James telling her to speak louder. The White family coming into the Atlanta community improved everything about it.

Brother White wasn’t the first movie to use the white savior trope, and it would not be the last. Many movies have inserted this idea of a white person going to a community or culture where they would typically be an outsider and improving things. The white savior is considered a trope for a reason. It has happened in enough movies to be a noticeable story trait.

Avatar was one of the highest grossing films of all time. It came out in 2009 and instantly lit up the box office. It showed that even after a decade of not releasing any theatrical movies, James Cameron could dominate Hollywood. He could create a world on the screen that people wanted to immerse themselves in. It was so popular that it spawned its own area within Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World. But that didn’t stop it from having a white savior storyline at the centre of it.

In Avatar, the Resources Development Administration had travelled to Pandora to mine for Unobtanium. The atmosphere was poisonous to humans, but the Na’vi race that lived there was perfectly fine. Jake Sully took control of an avatar, a human-Na’vi hybrid, to explore the planet. He became part of the Na’vi community and led a resistance against the Resources Development Administration when the human company threatened the environment of Pandora.

The white saviour of Avatar was Jake Sully. He was the human character, specifically a Caucasian human character, that joined up with the indigenous species of Pandora to fight back against the other humans. The Na’vi would not have been successful without his help. He had inside information on what the Resources Development Administration was planning. He brought the Na’vi together with the creatures of Pandora to fight back.

One thing that these two movies had in common as a part of the white saviour trope was that the protagonist chose to stay within that culture or community beyond the events of the film. He was going to stay on and help the other, less fortunate people stay out of their trouble. James White was offered a pastor position back in his home of Los Angeles but decided to stay in Atlanta because he had helped the people there and wanted to help them more. Jake Sully transferred his conscience into his avatar so that he could live the rest of his life as a Na’vi. The work of the white saviours was not done, and they would continue their work after the film finished.

This trope is a smaller part of a bigger problem within film, particularly American film. Studios tend to believe that a movie will sell better with a white star in one of the leading roles. This is why so few movies are released where minorities fill up the majority of the cast. For every Crazy Rich Asians that gets made with an all East Asian cast, there is a movie like Ghost in the Shell where Scarlett Johansson fills in for a role that was originally an East Asian character. For every film like Black Panther that celebrates black culture, there’s an Aloha where Emma Stone plays a character who is a quarter Chinese and a quarter Hawaiian. Things have been getting better in film but they’re still not where they should be in terms of equality between races.

The white saviour has become a trope through the many times it has been utilized, particularly in Hollywood films. Brother White and Avatar haven’t been the only times when it was used. Hardball had Keanu Reeves coaching a baseball team of black children who lived in a poor, crime-ridden part of town. The Blind Side saw Sandra Bullock taking in Michael Oher, a foster kid with a bad life, and helping him excel at football. On that football side of things, the final two seasons of Friday Night Lights had the white Coach Taylor building a football team on the “bad” side of town and helping to clean up a crime-riddled community through the family of a football team. For an example that doesn’t involve sports, 12 Years a Slave had the white Brad Pitt being the person who helped Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Solomon Northup get out of slavery. Historically accurate, but still a white saviour moment.

There are certain tropes throughout film that will never go away. There are others that should be put to rest. The white saviour trope is one that should no longer be used. There is more diversity in Hollywood than ever before. That’s not saying that studio films are anywhere near as diverse as they should be, but it’s a step in the right direction. The person that swoops in to help a community or a foreign culture need not be foreign anymore. The white saviour trope would simply become a fish out of water scenario where race doesn’t play a factor. It would be another step in the right direction.

When people say that a person should write what they know, they tend to mean real life experiences. But sometimes the movie knowledge that a person has will seep into their story. They’ll pay tribute to the movies they grew up on by recreating moments in their own stories. Or they use the tropes that they’ve seen being used time and time again. Movies beget movies beget movies. Hopefully the bad tropes will influence future filmmakers on what not to do so this form of storytelling can grow.

Now let’s get a few notes out of the way:

• Las Vegas Bloodbath (week 374) was mentioned in this post.
• Brother White starred David A.R. White who was in God’s Not Dead (week 230), God’s Not Dead 2 (week 230), and God’s NotDead: A Light in Darkness (week 319).
• Terry F. Smith appeared in Brother White. He was previously in The Human Centipede III (week 180), Sandy Wexler (week 231), Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark (week 300), and Attila (week 321). Welcome to the 5-timers’ club.
• Brother White featured Ray Wise, who has been featured two other times in the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Big Ass Spider! (week 61) and God’s Not Dead 2 (week 230).
• Tiny Ron returned from Road House (week 200) to be in Brother White.
• Russell Wolfe was in both God’s Not Dead (week 230) and Brother White.
• God’s Not Dead 2 (week 230) actor Brad Heller returned this week for Brother White.
• Finally, Brother White featured an actor named Bobby Bromley from Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (week 302).
• Have you seen Brother White? What did you think of it? What do you think of the white saviour trope? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
• Twitter and the comments are good places to seek me out if you want to let me know what movies I should check out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. Any suggestions are welcome. They help bring a little more variety to the blog.
• If you go to Instagram, you can check out the Sunday “Bad”Movies account where I’m frequently posting things related to the blog and the movies within.
• Let’s talk about next week. This post was for week 379, which means that next week will be a franchise week. There are a bunch of double or triple features that could be done for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. I went above and beyond, though. On the schedule for next week are five Scorpion King movies. I’ll be checking out that whole franchise and getting back to you with some thoughts next Sunday. See you then.