American Fiction Review

I watched the movie American Fiction with my family to start the new year. As a writer, I was interested in seeing a film about an author who couldn't sell his books until he wrote what he thought publishers wanted from him. I was expecting the movie to be funny because it was promoted as a comedy-drama, but I wasn't expecting the layered conversation about wealth, mental health, and abnormal dysfunction explored by the main character's family.

I thought the movie was riveting. This is a film for thinkers. It is for the black intellect that doesn't understand how to cope with the stories that get read more than their own. It is for the ignorant white upper class that believes selling our trauma is more rewarding than acknowledging our intellect.

The movie challenged me to rethink America's core audience. I learned early on from my experience in the local newsroom that the stories I was expected to pitch were to target a white middle-aged woman with a few kids going through the public school system.

This movie claimed the audience of written black trauma porn as white people wanting to be absolved from their historically documented unequal treatment of African Americans.

There were plenty of gems throughout the film for lovers of black history. There was a reference to the doll test study after the main character confronts another black author for 'selling out' stories of the black lower class for profit. They had certain theme songs and novel cameos.

But the film shined by exploring a poor family of black doctors whose mental health ranged from suicidal to liberated. In the midst of the deep conversations lay humor and a few love stories, that weren't just relatable but very realistic.

In my opinion, the best scene was of five authors in a conference room. Three of them were white, and two were black. As they voted on a winner for a literary award, the three white authors came together to outvote the two black authors' yet in the same breath, the white authors' reasoned 'it was about time they started listening to black voices'. In the act of uplifting what they called a black voice, they were denying the two actual black voices standing in front of them. The blind ignorance was triggering!

I hope this year we continue to share the reality of the African American experience from every angle and social class. I hope we continue to have discussions and support the works of our own while still making space for others who actually desire to understand the why behind who we are.

By we, I mean African Americans of every monolith. And by desire, I mean other groups of the melting pot that don't want to know just to be knowledgeable but to be aware enough to take action when necessary.