Badmovies.org Forum

My friend and I got into a discussion about movie clichés, he mentioned the standard "The black guy always dies first." I started to think of examples and drew a blank. I could come up with some parodies and a b-movie (The Killer Shrews). Are there really enough examples out there, or was this just something that we all heard and accepted as truth?

The second I read this I also thought-the KILLER SHREWS. I too...am drawing a blank! Ah! Waitaminite! In SPIDER BABY....Mantan Mooreland is the first to go! Looses an ear...and his life,to the twin- knife weilding girl!

It's worth pointing out that in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD the last one to go is the black guy...

the black guy dying first is a pretty crappy myth. it's much more likely that the horny teenagers will die first. people maybe just say the black guy thing because they think it sounds 'cool' or something.

Sort of like anyone in an landing party wearing a Red Shirt on Star Trek, had a short life, on average.

In Jurassic Park A black guy is the first to die.  The man opening up the cage to let the new raptor into her cage.

In Dawn of the Dead the black guy lives all the way through.

In Planet of the Apes, didn't the black guy die first, or was it the white guy? (I'm aware of the girl who died before they crashed, I'm talking about the landing party)

what's that (fairly famous) movie where there's a black guy and a white guy hancffed together and they're on the run?....I can't remember if the black guy dies first or second...

I just watched Gremlins this afternoon and the black guy died first.  He was the science teacher.

For the longest time I though tthis idea was true but after brainstorming, I'll be damned, I can hardly think of where a black guy dies first in a movie.   :question: 

I think the black guy dying first is a myth, but if there is a single black guy in the cast he usually is going to die giving his life in some heroic fashion.

Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier were chained together in "The Defiant Ones" (1958.) But I don't remember neither one being killed in that film. The film was remade for television, and as "Black Mama, White Mama" and "Fled." None of which I have seen, so maybe that is where one or both characters die.

I'm trying to think of the first place I heard that the black guy often dies first, and the first time I can recall was some of the characters arguing about it in Canadian Bacon. Of course, the myth was probably around before that. I can't recall what examples were given though.

I can think of more movies where the black guy makes it to the end, or at least comes close. When you think about real clichees, the typical token black guy in an action or horror movie is more often a jive-talking badass - the kind you want to keep around for a while, saving him for a really spectacular end. It doesn't make sense to kill him first. Too much entertainment value wasted.

thanks but no its not that. its a 70s film...in colour. ..2 guys on the run, one black one white...they're handcuffed together. really doing my head in now...lol

That was my first thought when I saw the thread title.

It is, however, a sad irony that Ben is, in fact, responsible for the death of everyone at the farmhouse...himself inlcuded.  It is very arguable that his actions, regardless of sincerity of intention(and in mindblowing opposition to the clear protag/antag dynamic he embodies with Harry Cooper!),  encourage disaster exponentially as the "night" wears on.

I had a great conversation with John Russo and Russ Streiner about this at a Chiller con some years ago. (Luckily..for me!...they are hardly A list celebs, so the crowd by their tables is usually pretty meager).  They both seemed pleased with the idea that the film unfolded fairly simply on one level only to, upon a closer look, kinda fold back on presumptions the audience might make out of sheer habit.

We did not discuss the shameful "reworkings" of NIGHT that have sullied the films legacy.   :hatred:

It was the black guy. The apes shot him. Then they operated on the brain of the white guy, not Charlton Heston, so he might as well have been dead, as the operation left him not much more than a vegetable.

I always though the idea that the Black Guy dies first came from one of the more popular episodes of the original Star Trek where this happened. I remember comedians in the 80's joking about it happening "In every episode".

All i can think of is Killer Shrews and Jurassic Park. Other than that, nuthin'. Ive noticed this film cliche to be fake. I was wondering when other people would notice.

And there it was hardly conclusive, since the black guy was wearing a red shirt.

True, but it works well as a joke focusing on the race issue. It just kinda stuck from there I think. .

I watched much of a "feel bad" movie last night (it's icky enough to be a DAVID CRONENBERG flick, but it's BRIAN DePALMA) but my point in posting here is that the black guy dies first in SISTERS...