How Cord Jefferson Made the Oscars Not So White

A number of weeks ago, an area supermarket owner informed me that he was halfway through my newest book, “Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America,” and said he had never read anything prefer it. His compliment made no mention of history, research or storytelling, but since I had received the same compliment myself, I knew exactly where he was going.

“I love stories about your family,” he explained. “You never hear stories about regular black families.”

“Yes,” I replied.

That’s all. That’s the whole story.

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On Sunday, “Black screenwriter” and director Cord Jefferson took home the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for writing “American Fiction,” a dark film about “Black novelist”, who was uninterested in writing “The Black Books”. During his victory speechJefferson graciously thanked his colleagues for “trusting a 40-year-old black guy who had never directed anything before” and implored studio executives to “recognize that there are such a lot of individuals who want the opportunity I’ve been given.” However, what caused the most emotion was Jefferson’s press conference behind the scenes.

“There are audiences who are interested in something else.” Jefferson explained. “A story with black characters that will appeal to a lot of people doesn’t have to take place on a plantation. It doesn’t have to take place in projects. There doesn’t have to be drug dealers involved. You don’t have to have gang members involved. There is an audience that presents different representations of people’s lives. There is a market for representations of Black life that is as broad and as deep as any representation of people’s lives.”

Some viewers, each black and white, interpreted the newly minted Oscar winner’s public remarks as an elitist shot at black filmmakers or movies about black people. Others saw Jefferson’s criticism as a part of an ongoing dialogue in Black America about Hollywood’s obsession with “movies about slaves”, white saviors and movies that fetishize Black trauma.

I’m not aware about Jefferson’s internal dialogue, so it’s unattainable to say which side of this argument is more correct. Regardless of his intentions, there was a subtle, fundamental point in Jefferson’s speech that everybody appeared to miss:

Why won’t Hollywood let black people make “white movies”?

While the mainstream media eagerly discusses “Black cinema” — films with majority black actors in leading roles — the converse is rarely discussed (even during the 337-day period of white history months). That’s why no one takes it into account Martin Scorsese a “white director”, although in his half-century profession he made dozens of movies and not using a single black lead role.

White movies are called “films”.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about American Fiction is its lack of extraordinary. It would take 4 hands to count the variety of movies depicting an peculiar white family coping with grief, loss and familial turmoil. Erica Alexander was pretty much as good in “American Fiction” as Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County” or Frances McDormand in “Nomadland” or any of her Oscar-winning performances as a white woman playing a white woman. While Jeffrey Wright’s performance was spot on, it didn’t live as much as his gut-wrenching performance in “All day and night” Or “OG” While Cord Jefferson undoubtedly made a great movie, what’s much more remarkable is that a black filmmaker was allowed to make a movie that did not depend on the tropes mentioned earlier. The fact is that it is a movie revenue from ticket sales greater than double budget just isn’t surprising. Studios that relegate black movies to lower budgets have experienced this studies which show that “African-American films are doing better at the box office.”

In Caucasian cinema, making a great, interesting white film is the surest strategy to gain critical acclaim. Young white actresses can strike Oscar gold by playing a spunky housewife who stares longingly into the distance (truthfully, I can not tell Cate Blanchett from Kate Winslet, which is why I call all young white actresses “Gwyneth Paltrows”). More white actors won (94) than the total variety of black actors and actresses who’ve ever been nominated (76).

But because quite a few Research shows that white audiences are less curious about and fewer prone to empathize with movies that feature “minority cast members” Black characters, Black actors and filmmakers must portray a specific brand of black pain to receive the same accolades as their white counterparts. White audiences cannot see the humanity of Black people unless it falls into one in all 4 categories:

1. Be an actual person: One-third of Black’s Oscar-nominated performances feature historical figures, including Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx), Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker), Richard Williams (Will Smith) and Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya)
2. Be helpful: You could be a slave (Hattie McDaniel in “Gone with the Wind”; Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave”; Denzel Washington in “Glory”) a servant (Octavia Spencer in “The Help”; Sidney Poitier in “Lily of the Valley”, Morgan Freeman in “Driving Miss Daisy”) or just serving the white hero. (Whoopi Goldberg in “Ghost” Morgan Freeman in “Million Dollar Baby”
3. A black one who can sing, dance, run, or do something that white people appreciate can almost change into a human being(Mahershala Ali in “Green Book”, Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls”, Cuba Gooding Jr. in “Jerry Maguire”)
4. Suffer: High-stakes, hyperbolic trauma is one in all the few lenses through which white people can see the humanity of black people. (Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers”; Mary J. Blige in “Mudbound”; Halle Berry in “Monster’s Ball”)

None of which means Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters hate Black people or think less of the movies we make. The best Black art, music, and other types of cultural meaning-making accurately represent Black lives and inform Black individuals who they’re to one another. Conversely, the job of an Oscar voter is to guage black art through the lens of how black people perceive it. And for that specific purpose, the Oscars.

In fact, the most notable achievement of “American Fiction” could also be that white people took notice.

Jefferson didn’t mean that movies about bandits, maids, and slaves were less worthy of attention and praise. It wasn’t even about the need for mid-budget movies (studios were greenlighting white mid-budget movies all the time). His ultimate premise was that everybody deserved to be told because… Or as some call it:

Diversity.

Right.

Inclusion.

That’s all. That’s the whole story.