Heroic blunder

Have you ever been reading or watching something on TV and then you see or hear something that breaks your flow and makes you feel as if you've slammed head first into a brick wall? Well, that was me two minutes ago while reading a review of last night's Heroes episode.

Now, I'm a big fan of NBC's Heroes. And every Tuesday I meet the graphic artists here at the newspaper and we have our "Briefing" where we discuss the latest episode and hash out conspiracy theories, what we liked and disliked and where we think the show is going to go. I also read the reviews on Entertainment Weekly and IGN. I generally disagree with the EW reviewer but I'm OK with differing opinions, they offer insight. So imagine my shock this week that I'm actually agreeing with what the reviewer, Mark Bernardine, has written and then BLAM, I run into this:

All in all, a pretty solid episode, because it stuck to the core characters and pretended that the Oilies and New Orleans' Magical Negro don't exist. And even if we didn't get any real storytelling resolution, we got some emotional closure. (Click here to read the whole review.)

WTF? OK, I don't know about anyone else, but that offended me and I'm not even African American. I also read the comments other readers make about the review and many other readers were quite ticked off about that line. So I went to post my own comment then caught site of the Report Inappropriate Language, clicked that instead and posted this:

I think that Mark Bernardin's language this week was completely inappropriate when he referred to one of Heroes' African American characters as a "New Orleans' Magical Negro." I agree with his view that not seeing the character in this episode was a welcome relief but that comment was completley out of line. I even noticed that the word "negro" is blocked in EW's comments so how is it right that Bernardin is free to use it in his review? It's also grow negligence on the part of his editor letting that slip past, and I would certainly hope that it did in fact slip past and was not consciously allowed. I have no problem if a reviewer's opinion of an episode differs from mine but I think it's complete inappropriate when a reviewer's dislike of a character results in racial name calling. Very shameful.

Then, of course, I had to come here and blog about it. Now I'm going to find some way on that Web site to send that message to someone else.

Addendum:
Maybe it's my PMS why I'm being so irrational, but I know that I don't think that particular character serves any purpose this season but I sure don't think that kind of language is appropriate for the show. I spoke to my boss (the joys of working at a newspaper where everything is fodder for discussion) and we looked up the "magical negro" concept on Wiki. I can see where Bernardin was trying to go, but then when you look at Heroes as a show with its multi-ethnic cast, it still doesn't seem appropriate. I guess we'll see, my messages will probably just get trashed anyway.