Talk:White savior narrative in film

What about the Inverted Trope - the "White Wrecker" ?
You could argue there's a case for an inverted trope that shows the White man as a nihilistic wrecker or well-meaning, but ignorant disruptor and destroyer who thinks he's helping the natives, but is only making things worse, driven by his misguided, arrogant sense of mission and belief in his superiority: The Searchers | Apocalypse Now | The Ugly American | Dark of the Sun | The Mission | The Wild Bunch | The Dogs of War | Last of the Mohicans | Thunderheart. Some of these films Thunderheart and The Mission have elements of both tropes.

Possible deviations and variations and subgenres like the Black (white) saviour?
You could argue there's a subgenre where the black man or native is in effect an honorary white man because he's adopted White norms and behaviours that White audiences can identify with him as one of them. A good example would be In the Heat of the Night or Hotel Rwanda or Swing Kids (2018 South Korean film, not the Christian Bale movie) and Thunderheart. Perhaps an article that examines deviations, perversions or inversion of the White Saviour narrative would be a start you could expand into separate articles and look at similar narratives in other film cultures. Another popular variation is also the white journalist or observer, but also voyeur and sensationalist who uses the backdrop of horror and suffering of post-colonial and other regional, ethnic conflicts to explore and discover his own humanity or lack of it, before returning to his life in the real world to tell his story to an indifferent society preoccupied with its own problems: Salvador | The Killing Fields | Under Fire | Deadline | The Year of Living Dangerously | Last King of Scotland | A Taxi Driver. Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider also has many narrative devices of the White Saviour genre although he's rescuing a group of white miners from a local landowner. I would also include Witness starring Harrison Ford as well, substituting the Amish for PoC or indigenous community. Dead Man Walking too has elements of the white savior narrative even though the person that Sister Helen Prejean is trying to save is white. Hell, even the great basketball movie Hoosiers feels like a white savior film with Gene Hackman's well-educated, "city slicker" character uplifting a bunch of "small town hicks" (if you replace the hicks with Blacks, it would EASILY fall under the white savior trope).

Removal of films based on real life
I have restored this list to how it was before started removing films based on real-life events with these edits:, ,. There are a number of problems with Ninhursag3's approach here. The main one is that he believes it is editorial prerogative to disagree with sources and edit accordingly: none of us have that prerogative.

I also think Ninhursag3 has taken an unnecessarily narrow, very literal view of what a white savior narrative is. A "white savior narrative" is precisely that: a narrative. Many are allegorical, with alien cultures taking the place of colonial or ethnic minority cultures. The savior may not be literally "white" per se, but the savior may be emblematic of someone from a white culture "saving" someone from an ethnic minority culture. Films such as Avatar and The Matrix fall into this group. The other problem is that being based on real events does not necessarily many the film does not conform to white savior tropes. All films are made from a perspective. To take Hidden Figures for example, which was one of the film Ninhursag3 removed. The film is controversial in some respects, and was called out for a scene in which the Kevin Costner character ends restroom segregation for the women. In real-life this appearently didn't happen; the black women achieved this themselves by insisting that they should be allowed to use the same facilities as their white counterparts. The "toilet dash" was an important part of the film's dramatic impetus, and this is why it was branded as being a "white savior" film.

In article such as these—with all Wikipedia articles really—it is better to assume we do not know better than the sources. Betty Logan (talk) 18:26, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * "The savior may not be literally "white" per se, but the savior may be emblematic of someone from a white culture "saving" someone from an ethnic minority culture." Yeah, Wolf Warrior II is a perfect example of this.  The hero in that movie is Chinese, but it's nationalistic tone (Chinese people saving Africans from oppressive whites) is reminiscent of 80s action movies with the virtuous white hero saving an ethnic minority culture.  Even the television show Room 222 has white savior tropes even though the main teacher is actually Black! 173.71.122.33 (talk) 03:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Coach Carter and Lean On Me too have white savior tropes despite the main character not being white. 173.71.122.33 (talk) 03:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)