Most white guys in America don’t really have any Black friends. They may be cool with a couple of Black guys at the office, or have enjoyed an easy rapport with their sister’s Black boyfriend, but none of those guys are really their boys. They may live and die with LeBron James during basketball season or Lamar Jackson during football season, but contrary to the demographics represented in so many beer commercials, their gameday gatherings in their mancave looks like a 1957 Birmingham white Citizens Council meeting.
And the same pretty much holds true for most Black guys. We’re cool with most everybody at the company cook out or firm golf outing, but the only white guy we feel any strong attachment to is Tom Brady.
So just add a few black berets and black leather jackets and Sunday afternoon at Brother Mozelle’s sports bar could easily pass for an Oakland Chapter Black Panther Party meeting, circa 1969.
Just so we’re clear: this is not because the average guy harbors any particular racial animus. It is because America is still so goddamned segregated, this is just the way things tend to be in real life. I can already hear some of you gents out there clamoring and pushing back about your racially diversified crew. Only an asshole would dispute you on the facts of your own situation. I don’t roll like that. So if this isn’t you, I’m genuinely glad for you and your crew, and I congratulate you guys for breaking out of the norms that bind the rest of us. But until more of us are like you, our highest quality exposure to Black and white friendships will be found (where else?) watching movies.
Because movies are one of our best storytelling mediums and oftentimes our greatest teachers as we have seen throughout this series, we are going to look at the five greatest examples of what it looks like when a Black and white duo become legit friends and partners. Or to use the current popular political vernacular, allies. You will notice a salient theme through these cinematic bromances: these men were brought together by a common and often critical purpose. The characters’ engagement and connections are not as happenstantial as dudes who grew up or went to school together. Not that that doesn’t happen in real life, but when its presented on-screen, it tends to feel false and forced.
You’ve seen these pairings and probably loved all these guys for many years, for many reasons. Now I’m about to give you a few more. If more Black men and white men could get down like these guys, we’d be lightyears ahead of where we are right now, as a country and culture.
Note that we are not just looking at friendships here. Friends just hang out and enjoy the ride of life together. Allies have a purpose and a mission and oftentimes friendships grow from that mission. Enjoy the ride.
TRADING PLACES
Film: Trading Places
Release Date: June 8, 1983
When Louis Winthorpe (The Third) first encountered Billy Ray Valentine (Capricorn) they bumped into each other on a busy Philadelphia street by accident. Louis, played by Dan Aykroyd, was a certified pampered, prissy, privileged, rich white boy douchebag. Winthorpe collapsed to the ground and began begging for his life when Billy Ray, played by Eddie Murphy, accidentally knocked him down as he was beating a hasty path from beat cops rousting him for conman-panhandling. Because what else would a broke, Black, ignorant, profane, wise-cracking street hustler like Billy Ray be doing but fleeing the law at any given moment?
Overflowing with both racism and sharp commentary on racism, Trading Places is one of the funniest movies ever made. But underneath the comedy is a critical observation about the nature and necessity of Black and white allyship: wealthy and entrenched white men are advantaged by every division that exists downstream of their status. In other words, Randolph and Mortimer Duke, the two billionaire pricks who set the story in motion by plotting to switch the lives of Louis and Billy Ray to settle a debate they were having about the primacy of nature versus nurture in determining life outcomes, were riding high as long as the two marks were at cross purposes. But they went from sugar to shit once Billy Ray and Louis joined forces and plotted revenge against the Dukes.
Because this is a Hollywood production, those wealthy arrogant jackasses got fucked over so badly by their Black and white underlings that they went from virtually ruling over the commodities markets to living on the streets (a fate we find out in another Eddie Murphy comedy classic six years later, Coming To America). So the grand gift of this film to working Black men and white men all across America was this: The wealthy fear us when we are united, and screw us when we are divided. Just a little food for thought as America, and the world, are going up in flames while billionaire baffoons are flying into outer space.
Film: Django Unchained
Released: December 11, 2012
Only Quinten Tarantino could construct a story that centralizes an authentic, inspiring and gratifying partnership between two men that started out in a master-slave relationship. Tackling the power imbalance that so often undermines genuine connections between Black and white men was the key to making this bond feel real. Old West style bounty-hunters Django and Dr. King Schultz, played by Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, began their relationship out of necessity. Django was a slave, “purchased” by Schultz off a chain gang in the dead of night to track down three overseers he intended to collect a bounty on.
Tarantino leans into the mentor-mentee nature of the relationship in their dialogue as the narrative unfolds, but the emotional bond between two men on a mission made this an unforgettable pairing. Schultz, stating plainly and unapologetically up front that, being from Germany “I don’t believe in this slavery business, but if I must, I will use it temporarily to achieve my purpose.” And he promptly made a deal with Django that if he assisted Schultz in racking up huge bounty collections for a winter season, Django would be paid a share of the earnings and be given his freedom. Imagine that! A white ally who’s objective is, after he has made his money off the arrangement, making a Black man who had been his subordinate his equal, socially and economically. What a concept!
This duo rode all over the lower plains and upper south for months, blasting holes in white guys, many of them slavers, until they must confront, outwit and conquer their polar opposite pairing in Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson (Calvin Candy and Stephen, respectively). By contrast, Calvin, a third-generation plantation master, and Stephen, the head house slave and consigliere, absolutely love everything slave culture had to offer them, and they reveled in plantation life; especially the blood splattered cruelty and petty tyrannies.
Django and Schultz cross paths with these two cartoonishly evil characters on their mission to rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Hildy, played to sweet perfection by Kerry Washington) from DiCaprio’s notoriously cruel Mississippi plantation known as Candy Land. Over a decade removed from its original release, it’s not much of a spoiler to say that the team does not make it out of Candy Land. Django and Hildy escape, but Schultz gave his last full measure of devotion to the mission.
The character Dr. King Schultz proved to be the ally that every white guy who sees himself as an ally should emulate. He’s the greatest fictional character of his kind I have ever seen on screen or read in literature. Every Black man would love to have a guy like him in his corner — if he could ever find him. Schultz was as committed as he was courageous and he was uncompromising when facing down the slave-ocracy. Schultz was a bad MF.
The takeaway from the movie as it relates to this discussion is that even if a brother has the most perfectly calibrated white running mate possible, he might still wind up having to survive the worst storms on his own. In this case, Django was not abandoned by King in the clutch. King never betrayed Django to save his own neck. King’s only sin was he lost his cool and made a critical mistake at a crucial moment that compromised the mission. And you know what? Even the best allies are going to make mistakes. Because they are human. That does not divest them of their status as real allies or friends. At least when Schultz checked out, he took Django’s chief tormentor and adversary with him though, in true ally fashion. Told you he was a bad man.
Film; Pulp Fiction
Released; May 21, 1994
Nobody delivers compelling Black and white duos quite like Quentin Tarantino does, and it all started with Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega. Samuel L. Jackson mastered the art of saying “motherfucker” like he was reciting Shakespeare, John Travolta mastered the art of making shooting up heroine look serene.
Similar to the dynamic between Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa (more on that later), the Black man was undeniably the brains of the outfit, and the white guy was the brass knuckles. These two hit men, who Tarantino decided to dress in identical black suits with white shirts and black ties, engaged in extended comedic debate, in great detail, the nuances of issues from the politics of the foot massage, the wisdom of eating pork, to the legitimacy of our complex human social ecosystem.
We never learn where these guys came from or how they came together. We just know that they are both focused on doing the job they were hired to do; which means murdering people for money. And they do so without emotion or judgment. I honestly cannot say that these guys were more than work friends, like so many of us who saw the movie. But they were so much fun to watch and their arguments were priceless. I understand that a lot of Black guys, myself included, chaffed at the frequent use of ‘nigger’ in the dialogue throughout Pulp Fiction but I confess there was something strangely endearing in watching Jules scolding Vincent about failing to wash his hands properly after a particularly bloody murder. In seeing the blood-soaked hand towel Vincent was leaving behind in the bathroom, an exasperated Jules shouts “What, niggah? What the fuck you doing with the towel, man?!” “I’m drying my hands!” Vince countered. “You’re supposed to wash them first!” “You watched me wash’em!” “I watched you get’em wet!” It was funny as hell. Check it out for yourself.
I don’t go in for the ‘color blind’ bullshit myself, but this particular brother decided to speak to his white friend in exactly the same way he would have spoken to a Black friend in the same situation and for some reason it enhanced the scene, making the exchange markedly funnier than it might have been without it. That’s some high-level performance, across the board. If nothing else, the misadventures of Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega illuminated the simple truth that Black dudes and white dudes can work together, bicker and argue, laugh and joke, or even kill and be killed, and they never have to overtly talk about race.
Films: ROCKY through ROCKY IV
Released November 21, 1976- November 21, 1985
The very fact that the core narrative of the greatest sports movie franchise in the history of American cinema is a rich, handsome, articulate and intelligent Black man giving a broke and nearly broken, inarticulate, street scarred white man a chance to change his life, forever cements Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa as the greatest ebony and ivory movie duo of all time. Period. We all know these characters and their relationship as well as we know just about anything in popular culture. Apollo Creed literally picked Rocky’s name out of a book of prize fighters, specifically because he was white, as the nickname “Italian Stallion” indicated. That choice changed the course of Rocky’s life. It might be even more accurate to say that it gave Rocky a life, as he had been thrown away by everything and nearly everybody around him up until that point.
What a fantastic start, and a reversal of the racial dynamic that America had grown fully acclimated to in 1976. The Black man had the power. The white man needed a break. And in context, it was entirely believable. So they began as competitors in a spectacle. That competition grew into a bitter rivalry. That bitter rivalry gave way to open mutual respect. And that respect evolved into an appreciation that made them allies for the remainder of their life together. Over the course of four movies, Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed demonstrated the most important dynamic in all friendships: the better a man feels about himself, the better he can feel about others.
That dynamic is infinitely more poignant when the element of race is added to the mix. Have you ever heard somebody go off on a racist tirade without looking and sounding like they were in a deep crisis of self-loathing?
The bromance between Rocky and Apollo broke out in the third installment of the franchise after Rocky, flying high as the heavyweight champion of the world and enjoying a blissful family life, was decimated by the villainous Clubber Lang, played with magnificent menace by Mr. T in his first ever on-screen appearance. A funny aside about the political perception of Rocky III: when I was a Freshman at Michigan, an Afroamerican Studies professor wrote a scathing piece about the racist implications of the story. How Apollo resurrected himself as a good and faithful servant to Rocky, and helped to dispatch the dangerous negro, Clubber; who had, of all things, made a sexual overture toward Rocky’s sainted wife, Adrian and, in raging like an animal, had indirectly caused the death of Rocky’s beloved trainer, Micky.
That professor was full of shit because the narrative of the bond of the central characters illuminated how, under great duress, purpose transcends everything around it, including race.
Rocky’s life was a mess and he felt like everything he got in the ring had been lost in the ring. And who knew that feeling better than his old and respected rival? The fact that Clubber Lang was, and for my money still is to this day, the most sinister and intimidating sports movie villain ever, meant that Rocky needed to dig deep and even reach out for help to defeat him.
And the fact that Apollo was the mastermind of the entire comeback and redemption sequence was pretty goddamned inspiring to watch.
Little Black kids in the Fox Theater in Detroit were literally jumping up and down in their seats during that final fight sequence. I don’t know if it is possible for a movie to pull that kind of emotion out of kids in the 2020s, but if it isn’t , that is surely a shame. Because for us, and I imagine for a bunch of little white kids in a theater out in the suburbs somewhere, that experience planted in our minds the possibility of real partnership with a guy who didn’t look like you, but valued what you valued and was willing to bust his ass, and yours if need be, to uphold it. It really is a shame that Rocky IV sucked.
Film: An Officer and a Gentleman
Released: July 28, 1982
If your reflex is to push back on this selection, chill for a minute. You are not wrong. A boot camp drill instructor and a cadet are not designed to be friends or allies, for cinematic narrative purposes or any other for that matter. But taking a closer look at the story of Officer Candidate Zack Mayo and Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the cult classic film An Officer and A Gentlemen will reveal a lot more than the usual barking, chanting, grunting and screaming that is always present in military themed movies. Richard Gere and Louis Gossett Jr. were as real in these roles as you can get, with the latter winning an Oscar for being the classic kick-ass and take names military trainer who we learn at the very end has a heart.
Mainstream audiences in 1982 could readily accept a Black man wielding authority over cocky young white men in very few scenarios, and military training is one of them. What makes this particular pairing unique is as much about what didn't happen as what did. I was practically raised by my older brother who was a hard-ass Marine in all the stereotypical ways you can imagine, may he rest in peace. And as much as we both loved this movie, he would remark constantly about how many times Zack should have been kicked out of Officer Candidate School for his conduct. And having seen the movie more than a dozen times, I cannot dispute his claims. I am certainly in no position to question his expertise, since he went to Parris Island at age 19 and I went to Ann Arbor.
But why would Foley allow Zack to get chance after chance to pull himself together to finish what he started and live up to his promise? Because if you pay closer attention, Foley as a Black man, almost certainly had insights into Zack’s troubled background that the majority of white Drill Instructors may not have. Coming right out of the 70s, is easy to extrapolate that even if Foley himself came from a stable, solid and supportive nuclear family, he likely had some direct exposure to young men who, like Zack, had come from broken homes and childhood trauma who somehow managed to push themselves forward despite carrying those heavy burdens. Foley kicked the shit out of Zack in every way imaginable and cut him no slack because he knew that he needed to do more than just excel so he could fly jets: Zack needed to excel to exorcise his demons so he could live his life in peace long after training was over.
Sometimes the best friend a man can ever hope to have is that friend who is committed to getting the best out of them. And by the end, when Zack told Foley at graduation, “I never would have made this without you, sir,” he understood what had been done for him. And Foley, in the most UN-Drill instructor act imaginable, gets choked up and orders Zack to “Get the hell out of here.” I totally understand the last scene getting all the glory, but that one leaves an imprint as well. The best friend a man might ever have, might only be there for a season, but their impact lasts a lifetime.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of David Saint Vincent's work on Medium.