“American Fiction,” “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” and the Endless Debate About Good Black Movies – Andscape

Oscar winner Cord Jefferson was behind the scenes answering questions about his film when asked about the types of black movies receiving awards.

“A story with black characters that will appeal to a lot of people doesn’t have to take place on a plantation,” Jefferson, who won best adapted screenplay, told reporters. The statement reignited the debate about whose stories must be told and whose must be ignored. The comments also complicate Jefferson and one other film, which reminds us that movies that are not set on plantations, projects, and trappings aren’t inherently more Black-loving either.

At first glance, placing , a couple of author navigating the white publishing world, in the same space as . The latter centers on a secret group of Black individuals who develop magical powers to assist white people not get so indignant – and it’s making the rounds online 30% on Rotten Tomatoes AND he was struggling to make one million dollars first weekend in cinemas. After all, it has something it doesn’t, namely a reliable plot, compelling characters, a real desire to say something vital, and a story that kept my interest throughout. it was mostly enjoyable. In contrast – with its unoriginality, trite attempts at comedy, and incomprehensible ending – it was simply one of the worst movies I actually have ever tortured myself to complete. However, each movies had a typical flaw: that they had to spend more time on the beauty of black people and less on the horror and prevalence of white supremacy.

In this respect, each movies usually are not much different from the works they try and ridicule.

each stem from a desire to critique art that presents a reductive view of blackness. The first is aimed toward books and movies like , which featured an limitless barrage of trauma for each black character, while six Oscar nominations, winning two (Mo’Nique for Best Supporting Actress and Geoffrey Fletcher for Best Adapted Screenplay). she focused on criticism a trope originally coined in 2001 by film director Spike Lee, wherein “magical” black characters appear in movies only to make the lives of the white essential characters easier or more satisfying. Think and.

Because each movies focus their ire on these criticisms, their goal is to present a distinct side of blackness. But after I watched each and , I could not shake the familiar feeling I had when watching movies crammed with trauma porn. For example, after I saw 2016 , a supposedly triumphant film that was promoted as a real story of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave insurrection, I believed that a lot was shown about the brutality of slavery and so little about the actual ingenuity and courage of the insurrection that by the time every enslaved person had been freed , I wanted to go away the theater. While it’s miles from trauma porn, it spends a lot time perfecting the ridiculousness of microaggressions and white supremacy that some of the beautiful blackness in the story is lost.

For example, I never quite got the impression that the characters Monk (Jeffrey Wright) or Sinatra Golden (Issa Rae), two black women writers attempting to make it in the white publishing world, were even that great at their craft in . The audience never sees the beauty of Monk’s words or the genius Sinatra had to beat to succeed. By the time there may be a moment of true love between Monk and his brother Clifford (Sterling K. Brown), they’ve been through so many arguments and disappointments that it doesn’t feel satisfying. As for , there may be nothing celebratory about blackness in any of the film’s crevices. Yes, black people have magical powers like teleportation and mystical PowerPoint presentations, but they wield them in the service of white people. The atmospheric rant is about how miserable it’s to be black in white spaces.

Both movies made me indignant and frustrated with scenes of white passive aggressiveness. None of them made me feel proud of the blackness of the characters.

And that is the problem with many critically acclaimed movies. and the like do nothing to make me be ok with being black. Their appeal is aimed squarely at an audience that desires this sort of black subservience and subordination. But they don’t seem to be bad because they happen in Jim Crow projects. They are indignant because they do not love us.

You cannot watch a show or read a book like Robert Jones Jr. set during the times of slavery and not feel love in every scene and on every page. You cannot watch a movie without watching a movie about love. Meanwhile, movies like and appear to have been made with the express purpose of making black people imagine that they were doomed to the influence of whiteness.

In the early twenty first century, a brand new measure was introduced to judge movies based on their treatment of women has come into fashion. The test asked a straightforward query: Are there any scenes in the movie where women talk over with one another about anything apart from men? Since then, critics have proposed similar race tests. The “The DuVernay Test” proposed by critic Manohla Dargis asked for movies wherein “African Americans and other minorities have fully realized life, rather than serving as settings in white stories.” Both are beneficial, but they mostly deal with white people’s movies. It doesn’t hurt to have a movie like this for movies for Black people and by Black people who ask whether the amount of screen time spent exploring the beauty of blackness outweighs the amount of time showing the oppressiveness of white America.

Despite Jefferson’s comments, the black film setting shouldn’t be the problem. Period shouldn’t be an issue. The problem is the way these movies treat Black people and show us on screen. The film will be as anti-black and violent as the mansion will be, and as gracious and kind as the plantation desires to be. The Black experience is just that complicated.