JUST RANKIN’ SH!T

The 5 Most Shameless White Savior Roles in Film, Ranked

Oh, the audacity of trope

LEVEL Editors
LEVEL
Published in
2 min readMay 11, 2020

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Photo illustration. Source: Hollywood Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer Films

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5. Neo in ‘The Matrix’

A computer nerd pops a pill and enters an alternate reality in which he learns martial arts and how to stop bullets mid-flight, becoming the messiah who saves Laurence Fishburne and his people (of color) from annihilation. Sounds about White!

4. Dr. King Schultz in ‘Django Unchained’

Virtually every modern slavery film has a redeemable White character — but most don’t include a bounty hunter who helps a Black man find freedom and become some trigger-happy mash-up of Nat Turner and Rambo. Don’t even get us started on the name.

3. Phyllis Saroka in ‘Sunset Park’

A gym teacher who doesn’t know a pick and roll from a finger roll learns the game of basketball and leads a troubled inner-city high school squad to the championship? Technical foul on the play.

2. Al Harrison in ‘Hidden Figures’

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