American Fiction movie poster courtesy of Wikipedia
American Fiction is a movie directed by Cord Jefferson, who also wrote the screenplay, which is based on the book Erasure by Percival Everett.
Per the MGM website,
"AMERICAN FICTION is Cord
Jefferson's hilarious directorial debut, which confronts our culture’s
obsession with reducing people to outrageous stereotypes. Jeffrey Wright stars
as Monk, a frustrated novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting
from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove
his point, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish “Black” book of his own,
a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to
disdain."
Let's discuss....
I enjoy watching good movies. I have many favorites including The Godfather, Star Wars, Scarface, Jaws, The Wizard of Oz, The Social Network, Get Out and many others. I am excited to now add American Fiction to my list of classic movies. In summary, American Fiction is about Monk, who is an author fed up with his publishers telling him what and how to write. As a Black author, he is expected to write only particular types of 'Black' stories. Specifically, only stories about Black life which revolves around racism, crime and depressive situations. To prove a point, Monk writes a stereotypical
Black story as a joke. To his chagrin, the story is well-received and given a prestigious book award. American Fiction also shows Monk's relationship with his family and friends. This is where the movie shows how Black life is human life. The characters are dealing with universal human challenges like love, relationships, family struggles, aging parents and health, but not
mainly how it feels or means to be Black. American Fiction tells an enlightening story without being preachy. It is an enjoyable film. You will laugh, cry and think.
Based on supply and demand economics, the movie industry is designed to sell movie tickets to consumers. As a result, their goals are to produce what consumers are willing to buy. For an example, as of this writing, American Fiction is only at 625 theatres, in opposed to The Color Purple which was initially released to 3,152 theatres. These movies are different genres, but it still illustrates the challenges of diversity. If stereotypical Black movies sell movie tickets, then whose fault is it when movie studios make those movies to meet a demand? This is the question that movies like American Fiction pose to their audience. The answer is how can we cultivate our tastes to crave culturally diverse stories about humanity, which include Black stories that are not only about what it is like to live with racism and poverty as the main story. Black people have universal human stories. Let's start telling more of them.
#2 American Fiction movie poster courtesy of MGM studios
The American Fiction movie poster above is a great visual of Monk's journey. He is an educated Black man wearing a suit, but he is wearing an overlay of clothing considered 'Black' to satisfy his publishers. The chain, jewelry and hat are not his style, but in order to sell books, he cannot be his true self. Monk has to look phony to make money which is sad because inclusivity should be for everybody.
I thoroughly enjoyed American Fiction. See it in theatres to have a great experience. Either way, I hope you take a look....
References:
American Fiction - Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Fiction_(film).
American Fiction movie posters courtesy of MGM, https://www.mgm.com/movies/american-fiction
