How not to survive a movie: 2007 edition

According to conventional wisdom, the highest rate of movie mortality occurs among African American horror movie characters. In fact, killing off the black guy has become so universal that it has given rise to a counter-cliched. At this point, you're much safer walking into a rickety abandoned insane asylum if you're an African American character, simply because writers predictably avoid what conventional wisdom says is the predictable ending.

So, in light of this trend we must step back and find a new class of characters with the highest probability of not making it back for the sequel. After extensive research, we have a winner. Without further ado, the 2007 edition Most-likely-to-die superlative goes to:
The protagonist's gangsta friend in any dance movie.

The scenario
Enter the male protagonist and his homey break-dancing their way through life. Miles away, a rich, way-too-old-for-the-part girl sits waiting to have her white bread-world rocked by said protagonist.

The dilemma
How do we get the love interests together and simultaneously create melodramma, conflict, and sympathy for the male protagonist?

The solution
Kill off the homey friend in a gang-killing. This is the only possible way to write the guy and girl together. If there was another way, surely some dance movie screen writer would have thought of it by now. Right?


Incidentally: If you discover that you're in a movie and that your best friend and fellow gansta/rug-cutter is suprisingly clean and good-looking for the ghetto, you should probably be concerned. However, take solace in the fact that the only (if very large) threat to your life is gang violence. You may tease sharks, contract terrible diseases, and make any other traditionally fatal cinema mistake you please. These deaths do not provide enough impetus to get your good-looking friend sufficiently depressed and repentent about his errent ways. But the minute that rusty, ground-hugging Impala rolls around the corner, you might as well accept that plaintive violin eulogies and slow motion convulsing are in your immediate future.