Red’s Redemption- Shawshank Redemption

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The Shawshank Redemption follows the lives of Ellis “Red” Redding and Andy Dufresne and their twenty-year stint at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. Red (a guilty man) is serving a life sentence for murder, Andy (an innocent man) is serving consecutive life sentences for the murder of his wife and her lover. Throughout the film, Red and Andy form an unlikely friendship that transcends age, race, and class boundaries that ultimately leads to Red’s spiritual redemption and freedom.
The film is set up for a classic white and black pairing with a “magical negro” narrative, however, The Shawshank Redemption subverts expectations. Red defies the cinema stereotype of the mystical black man or the “Magical Negro” because he is portrayed with dignity, because he is the main character and everyman, because he is not extraordinarily wise or supernatural (though he does give advice, it is not his only or main role in the text), and he survives the film having learned a lesson from a white character. This denunciation is significant because it is a rejection of common black/white race relation stereotypes, and because it is a landmark replacement of negative stereotypes with positive realisms in cinema.
Celebrated director Spike Lee coined the term at a Yale conference during which he addressed race relations in modern film (Gonzales). This stereotype focuses on a character who the audience identifies as black. This (often supporting) character seems sensible and habitually
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