‘American Fiction,’ the Black comedy that mocks white condescension

Unfortunately, they don’t make too many adult comedies like American Fiction anymore, an intelligent and very well acted foray into the contemporary debate on racism. The film is based on the book Erasure, by postmodern novelist Percival Everett, one of the most unique authors in American literature today. Erasure is also one of the most prophetic tales of the early 21st century. Published in 2001, what it narrates sounds, 23 years later, rabidly current: a story that puts hits a raw nerve of stereotypes and fallacies of racial diversity within the American cultural industry, specifically in the publishing market. While some gags may err on the side of national humor, Cord Jefferson’s feature debut transcends its borders thanks to its acidic look at white opportunism and condescension.

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, played by a brilliant Jeffrey Wright, is a Black professor and writer who grew up in a family of Boston doctors and is fed up with the label “African-American author” and of his books not being considered “Black enough.” In one of the film’s best jokes, he is furious to discover that one of his titles, a revision of a Greek myth, ends up in the African-American Studies section of the bookstore, with no justification other than the color of its author’s skin.

In view of his lack of success in a market that pigeonholes (and sells) writers for extra-literary reasons, Ellison (so named in a nod to the novelist Ralph Ellison) decides to write a novel that pokes fun at the commonplaces about his own community: crack, rap, crime, slang... The surprise comes when this string of clichés seduces white reviewers and editors (undoubtedly the worst offenders in the film). As such, Monk (the nickname is another nod, this time to jazz pianist Thelonious Monk) — like Dustin Hoffman in Sydney Pollack’s classic romantic movie Tootsie (1982) — becomes trapped in his new, this time successful, identity.

Although it is a rather flat film visually, American Fiction holds its own thanks to its biting script and a good cast, with Wright in the lead but with great supporting players such as Sterling K. Brown as the protagonist’s gay brother and Tracee Ellis Ross as his sister. Although, it is Wright who carries all the weight of a film that slips too quickly into family drama and his character’s midlife crisis.

Its five Oscar nominations — for best picture, best actor and supporting actor, best adapted screenplay, and best original score — were one of the surprises of the Hollywood awards ceremony. It is the last of the Oscar-nominated movies to be released in Spain, although it went straight to a streaming platform and without the hype it deserves for its ability to make people laugh about serious issues; issues such as the management of white guilt, the works that, despite being bad, are considered “important and necessary,” or about how Black culture profits in literature, film, and fashion perpetuating those same stereotypes.

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