@thearmag3ddon here with Yet Another Movie Review that You Didn’t Ask For:
Happy Black History Month, especially to those who do not celebrate.
It’s long…
Buckle your seatbelts, and trigger warning probably for anyone who wants to buy those Gold Air Trump 1’s like I know you want to, but there’s going to be a lot of discussion about race in this one. But none of us are snowflakes here right? SO we can handle it. Right? Alright let’s gooooo….
There was this one time when I was in college at a mostly white school in New England and I was in class, and some photographers for the School Calendar dropped by. And as they were taking more and more pictures, I noticed how they kept coming to my side of the room. More. And More. And more. Then started directly asking me to act for the camera. And well…it started to get awkward, and I was just in class trying to learn more about Jonathan Edward’s fiery 18th century speeches. It felt yucky. And thankfully my professor noticed it too, and eventually made them apologize. Because I was just existing and well…Hold on to that story for just a little bit. It will get back to that in the end.
For much of the history of, for lack of a better term, “Black Cinema” that eeks its way into the pop culture consciousness (I won’t discuss what that implies but I’ll let you read between the lines) the focus of said films have always tended to be centered around the notion of “Black Pain” and thus, were deemed compelling enough to warrant said attention by widespread audiences. The good is, yes, our story gets to be told. The bad. It is “A” story and not all stories, and after a while, the pattern emerges. Slavery story. Ok. Dealing with violence in the “Hood. “ Ok. And welp…it kind of stops there, except for the occasional being plucked from obscurity and rescued by Sandra Bullock because she’s just so sassy guys.
American Fiction probably isn’t the first film that explores what it means to be black in a modern context, with no one being forced to do that fake slave voice affectation to lure in Oscar nominations from an Academy that seems to only, mostly enjoy a certain type of black focused film. As a matter of fact, it definitely isn’t and that’s kind of what I want to talk about here, and even though it’s not the first, that it still is indicative of a new kind of story and experience being expressed and told.
In the last few years especially, the idea of Existing While Black in a world that definitely isn’t set up to see you succeed, yet you still do manage to do just that has been the kind of movie or tv show that has been making its way more and more into the mainstream. Instead of something like Tarentino’s 2012 epic oppression slavery porn, Django Unchained we now get affairs such as the Black*ish Universe or here, American Fiction. And to be honest and fair, Hollywood Shuffle wayyy back in the late 80’s was basically that.
I’m sure there are other films of its kind that tread over similar topics, themes, and material, but American Fiction by far is the best if not the first part of a new breed. In a lot of ways it has a similar dna to Black Panther which…I know I know. WHAT? But hear me out. It’s because both of these new films are being made by black creators that grew up comfortably middle class so the stories they are telling are inherently from that perspective. They are stories about being persons who are successful, talented, capable, supported by their well-to-do family, but with the added experiential perspective and context of…oh here we go, looping back to the early thing that I didn’t want to quite spell out, the mainstream or pop culture consciousness. American Fiction is a movie that gets to the crux of the phenomenon of race in the United States, without actually being about race. Kind of. For there are plenty of things here for people who aren’t black that can relate to, like broken family dynamics, loss, career frustrations, none of which have to do with uniquely being black.
Which leads me back to the idea of then, why does this feel so new, when in fact it isn’t really new at all? One of the actors in the movie Erika Alexander played Maxine Shaw on Fox in the 90s show Living Single. If you’ve never heard of it, shame on you, but basically Friends is the “white version” of Living Single and it’s pretty much a known fact that the concept was taken to NBC and produced for the masses when Living Single (which I think is actually far more funny) came first. But yeah, Living Single, Martin, Family Matters, The Cosby Show, Boomerang, A Different World, even Coming to America which has its own set of problematic depictions of Africans, but still, not to mention a slew of other shows from the WB and UPN Days approached the idea of existing as black without the context of pushing against overt oppression to drive the narrative. And then. At some point. It all went away. One very simple thing that distinguishes American Fiction is that it is a drama. I’m not sure if you noted above, but most of the things I listed that were depictions of Existing While Black, were comedies. Then fast forward while actually taking two steps back to movies like The Help, 12 Years a Slave, Emancipation, and even the Green Book which cast its eye to pre-Civil Rights discussions of the legal right to simply exist. And speaking of Django Unchained, it very well might have been the tipping point to start seeing more aspects and discussions of blackness without getting off on the slavery porn or overt oppression aspect. Because well, everyone struggles, so why does the Black struggle have to be about being put in chains to be accepted by the movie going masses when everyone wanted to hand Lost in Translation an Oscar simply because Scarlett Johanson’s character who is literally a person of privilege by virtue of her reason for being there was lonely in Japan. Like… And well, this is more an article and not an essay so I’ll stop there, but I think you see where I’m going.
For me, personally, I might have just liked American Fiction so much because in the middle of the movie, I said out loud, or at least very loudly in my mind, “Yes. This. THIS is what it feels like.” The expectation to fit into greater society’s idea of what you should be based on the color of your skin, and not being considered if you don’t, and rewarded for that if you do, while also thinking less of you if you are that thing. It’s maddening and it’s wild and well, this movie is a safe space to explore that idea but does it from the perspective and the experience of black creators rather than being synthesized by non black ones.
It just feels…authentic.
I have always loved Jeffery Wright, and can never quite get enough of him. Funnily enough I personally first came across him while he was wildin’ out playing Drug Kingpin Peoples Hernandez in 2000’s Shaft remake, which he nailed that, because he’s a professional, but before and since he has a long run of being the grounding element in stories that delve into and explore various aspects of the misbehaving denizens of humanity including, said with irony, Westworld. He absolutely deserves his nomination here, and not just because he’s the central character, but also because, just…the man is that good, he carries every single scene he’s in and without him in the lead role I’m not sure it would have resonated as much as it did.
I’ve already mentioned Erika Alexander, to which I almost shouted “Max!” when she showed up on screen, but she’s also a gem and lends a light touch to what sometimes is heavy material that is being dealt with in her scenes. Her existence again is her personal one, and not a societal one, and she gives those moments she’s in it a texture and perspective that is all too relatable.
We Stan us some Tracee Ellis Ross to the moon and back since Girlfriends, and she’s another one who, just by showing up always makes every scene they are in better. If you’ve already seen the movie, I’ll leave it at that.
And while I also love Sterling K Brown, I do have to say I’m not quite sure his performance convinced me he should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, for this movie anyway, and by no means is that an indictment on his talent. I guess, because as I’ve said before in other reviews, expectation can set you up for disappointment, and because he was nominated I was expecting more of him than what we got. From the way it was positioned marketing-wise I assumed he was central to the narrative, and he was not. But,..what we got was great. He still pops in the scenes he’s in. And in a way steals the show in those scenes. And I guess I wish there was a whole lot more of him.
Oh yeah! And I’m actually a soundtrack kind of person, and the score to this movie was lovely as well, and wouldn’t you know it, the composer Laura Karpman has also been nominated for an Academy Award as well. So yeah, top to bottom, I loved this movie.
So…whew….
TLDR, but at the end instead of the beginning, American Fiction is an honest, absurd, whip smart, clever, and frank look at what it means to be a human being who happens to be black in the United States, navigating personal, interpersonal, familial and societal issues all in a seamless way that might fool you by how separate the stories are while seeming to be very connected.
And back to the story that kicked this all off. The lesson here I took away was, I am here to be me. I am not here to serve your vision of me. And it’s not just the “enemies” you have to look out for here. But sometimes it’s the allies…Kind of like how I felt that one time in college in New England in class. I am not a prop. And oh yeah, by the way, there’s more to me that I am, that you seem to refuse to accept because I don’t present to you as an easily digestible trope. This is the result of the function of the dynamic of the construct of race, even if it does not appear to be the idea of oppression given to us by all of the slave narratives and pre-Civil Rights stories that we keep somehow being forced back into viewing. It can be subtle, and even unintentional, but it does exist. If you don’t believe me, then tell me why we make all Klingons Warriors, and all Ferengi Uber Capitalists, and all Vulcans emotionless, but the Humans get to be fully expressed with varying personalities. You smell me?
Go see it. I think you’ll like it.
I give American Fiction 5 Ruth Bader Ginsberg Posters or 5 Dunkin Donuts Cups out of 5
Until the next review no one asked for, @thearmag3ddon, signing off.