Octavia Explains The “Magical Negro”
In the exclusive video clip here, from the upcoming movie “Paradise,” Octavia Spencer — who’s going to get an Oscar nom for “Fruitvale Station,” trust me — plays a lounge singer called Loray. The character takes issue with her role in the spiritual quest of a white girl called Lamb, played by Julianne Hough. Loray resents being the “magical Negro†— à la similar characters in “The Green Mile” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance” — even as she insists that she’s full of wisdom. Like the lead characters in “Juno” and “Young Adult,” Hough’s character in this Diablo Cody movie is a young woman going through a crisis in a very public way. Lamb faith is shaken after a plane crash burns two-thirds of her body, and she shocks her small-town congregation when she publicly renounces God — and threatens to vote Democrat!
