One of the things that impressed me about _Barbie_ was that it did not fall into the safety net of arguing that, because one group of people is different from another, that difference means that the former group has ultimate and unchallengeable epistemic authority over what they are and what is going on with them. I think this problem is a sub-species of the "magical Negro" trope you talked about, where a person is their characteristics first and a human only distantly second, if at all.
It's difficult to give up that epistemic high ground, though, because when you do, you acknowledge that there is an underlying basis of humanity shared by all people, such that their experiences, although different from yours, may actually give them some insight into yours.
One of the things that impressed me about _Barbie_ was that it did not fall into the safety net of arguing that, because one group of people is different from another, that difference means that the former group has ultimate and unchallengeable epistemic authority over what they are and what is going on with them. I think this problem is a sub-species of the "magical Negro" trope you talked about, where a person is their characteristics first and a human only distantly second, if at all.
It's difficult to give up that epistemic high ground, though, because when you do, you acknowledge that there is an underlying basis of humanity shared by all people, such that their experiences, although different from yours, may actually give them some insight into yours.