The Disposable Black Girlfriend & Love Interest Trope
I've thought about this for a very long time and didn't realize there was a term for this. But this isn't just a media trope, if you see where I'm going. I have my own words on this but check out the links below because wonderful women of color have talked about it with extreme eloquence.
The tiny thing I will add to this is that media shapes the way we see blackness and is a reflection of it. For a lot of these shows, the inclusion of this disposable black love interest serves to further tokenize black love interests, making it clear that these relationships are not as valuable or worth investment as those with white protaganists. They are experimental in such that they allow the main characters to achieve some growth that allows the black love interest to serve as a stepping stone the white main love interest. In a lot of ways, this reflects a real-life attitude and romantic microagressions towards black people. Often, black women in particular are seen as mammies or used for sex (Jezebel) /emotional support(mammy) , seen as less valuable than our fairer skinned counterparts or treated as other (See my piece Experimenting with Black Girls). We're not typically love interests in film or media. And in major romances, we are often sidelined to serve as magical negresses helping white characters by instilling them wisdom in order to meet their goals. And so as you watch these shows, be mindful of how these tropes appear and how they even play into people's real lives. But enjoy this interesting and thought-provoking video that somewhat makes me want to implode.
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