‘American Fiction’ Takes Blistering Aim at Black American Stereotypes With Cutting Satire

Alci Rengifo

Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” stars Jeffrey Wright as one of those unsung heroes trying to live through common sense in a hilariously odd world. He plays a Black American writer who doesn’t comprehend why the only Black stories that gain traction deal with trauma and stereotypes. On that premise alone, Jefferson’s impressive directorial debut is one of the year’s best cinematic social commentaries. Full of stinging satire and moving personal touches, it’s a film that asks us to truly see each other as individuals. Fighting for equality goes nowhere if Black Americans, Latinos, Asians, Middle Easterners and anyone else are only seen through broad brushstrokes. The movie is based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, which was published in 2001. Two decades later and its themes are beyond relevant.

Wright is Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a frustrated Black American writer who has just written a novel inspired by Aeschylus’ Greek tragedy “The Persians.” Publishers don’t know what to make of it because they expect something “Blacker” from Monk. Life isn’t being too nice right now. Feeling rejected, Monk has to sit back while someone like Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) gets praise for the “authenticity” of her book, “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.” At home he deals with the stinging commentary of an ailing mother, Agnes (Leslie Uggams) and the antics of his rehab-inclined, recently out of the closet brother Clifford (Sterling K. Brown) and sister, Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross). Monk has had enough and sits down to write his own stereotype-packed epic, “My Pafology.” Instantly publishers eat it up. His literary agent, Arthur (John Ortiz) pushes Monk to invent an alter ego with a record to give the publicity spice. But how long can Monk keep the façade going?

“American Fiction” shines with the spirit of a director who feels this material in their bones. “This is a conversation I’ve been having with colleagues, friends and family members since before I started working in entertainment,” Jefferson tells Entertainment Voice. “I was a journalist for about eight years before I started working in film and television. The journalism stories people were always sending me were about Black trauma, violence in the Black community, police killing young Black people who were unarmed.” This experience channels Monk’s anger at books like Sintara Golden’s bestseller. Jefferson’s screenplay takes no prisoners in jabbing at the oddities of “woke culture.” When Monk cites a passage containing the n-word in his literature class, a white student protests that they feel offended. In the publishing world, Monk can’t get anyone to take him seriously until he gets drunk one night and conjures a whole fiction involving drug dealers and shootouts. A great scene has Arthur pushing Monk to use thug lingo during a call with a publisher, and only then does the person on the other line believe this must be the author of “My Pafology.”

With diversity and inclusion being such major recent topics in media, a film like this challenges how both are being applied. By only emphasizing the suffering, media ignores the rich intellectual and cultured history of all communities. Monk wonders if it’s just a way for white society to feel good about itself while authors like Sintara (played so well by Issa Rae we know she’s met someone like this before) cynically cash in under the guise of “having our voices heard.” Recently in the wake of BLM there has been a broader range of Black stories, even if every other show, including fantasy dramas, tend to emphasize over and over the horrors of racism. Of course such history should always be explored, but Monk would argue there’s so much more. One can imagine him frustrated back when the only hit Black biopics were movies like “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” When are we going to get a James Baldwin movie? Jefferson has worked as a writer on shows like HBO’s “Watchmen,” where you sense the drive to look at Black history with new angles. 

Like all good satires, there are richer layers involved. Monk isn’t a complete saint. His anger at being boxed in also blinds him to his own, condescending attitude towards those he sees as intellectually inferior. Relatives and Sintara have a point when they counter him by arguing that his fault is that, as a middle class professor, he never gets near working class Black Americans. A love interest brings out his uglier side when he’s shocked to discover she genuinely likes “My Pafology.” Monk scoffs at how Clifford is a plastic surgeon that surely makes good money, so what’s he complaining about? Clifford accepted his gay identity after marrying a woman he divorced, but Monk is too embroiled in himself to comprehend his brother’s emotional traumas. Everyone in this family has lingering scars from their late father, a serial philanderer Agnes remained loyal to. Monk despairs at how Black suffering sells books and he makes good points, but he has to learn there’s also a reason why those stories strike a chord. It’s the wider publishing that should then balance that with the value of a Black American author updating the Greek classics.

“American Fiction” proceeds to boldly slice through so many of the high-nosed institutions that make stereotypes prevalent. Monk is selected to join the voting committee of a prestigious literary prize he covets. Unsurprisingly, all the white members demand “My Pafology” win, not knowing the author is in their midst. Hollywood naturally comes knocking in the form of white film producer Wiley (Adam Brody), who is making a movie titled “Plantation Annihilation” about the vengeful, rampaging ghosts of slaves. It’s both cringe and believable enough. “I’ve had executives tell me that the script I wrote ‘needs to be Blacker,’ that a character I wrote needs ‘to be Blacker,’” recalls Jefferson, “I would ask ‘what’s Blacker?’ No one would be able to answer that question because they know they would probably commit some civil rights violation (laughs).” 

For Jeffrey Wright this is a triumphal role and one of his best in a long line of notable performances going back to “Angels in America.” He gives Monk the sharp wit of the wordsmith and the deep vulnerabilities of a man reacting against stereotypes out of sincere anger and his own, hidden scars. He does the role so well one expects him to be offered a teaching post tomorrow. Everyone in this cast feels like they have something sincere invested in the project. Jefferson has made an excellent American satire about how we see each other and how we shouldn’t. Real equality happens when we see the individual for who they are apart from the cultural baggage, because every person is their own story. “American Fiction” stings hard and is also a lot of fun, leaving us with questions vital for eventual, real unity as a society.

“American Fiction” releases Dec. 15 in select theaters and expands Dec. 22 in theaters nationwide.