When hip-hop first emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was a do-it-yourself art culture: music that didn’t require singers or instruments, dance halls made from sheets of cardboard and boombox radios. Some of the music that emerged out of the early days of rap varied from radical protest to comedic slice-of-life narratives to visionary spiritual messaging that verged on psychedelia. But when the corporate music establishment realized that hip-hop was a viable new form of music making and not just a novelty trend, the music, in a broad sense, was packaged and marketed as gangsta rap, which had an overall effect of the industry only showing a tiny portion of the whole genre.
The gangsta genre can be traced back to pioneers like Philadelphia rap artist Schoolly D who released a 1989 album entitled Am I Black Enough For You. The narrow stereotyping of blackness as street gang culture is the theme of Cord Jefferson’s smart new dramatic comedy, American Fiction. The movie won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, opened to rave reviews over the Christmas holiday, and is poised to stream on Amazon Prime any day now. It’s a surprise hit of the fall movie roster and it’s generating plenty of buzz just in time for awards season. The movie features great ensemble acting, a touching family drama, and some of the biggest laughs at the movies this year. It’s also a sharp, incisive satire about race and creative culture that even mocks the pandering and signaling that passes for socially-conscious movie making in present day Hollywood.
American Fiction is based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure. It’s the directorial debut of Cord Jefferson who also adapted Everett’s book for his screenplay. The film is anchored by an Oscar-worthy performance from Jeffrey Wright who plays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a college professor and novelist who’s struggling to publish meaningful, challenging books in a market that expects black authors to trade in stereotypes and gang-culture tropes. This disparity is hilariously embodied by Sinatra Golden (Issa Rae) a wealthy, Oberlin-educated celebrity book author whose latest novel is entitled We’s Lives in Da Ghetto. In a fit of frustration Ellison pens My Pafology under the pseudonym Stag R. Leigh, setting-off a chain of events when the book becomes a runaway success.
American Fiction is a wordy film with no false notes in its almost-two-hour runtime. It features one of the best ensembles of the year with great turns from Leslie Uggams as Ellison’s mom, John Ortiz as his literary agent, Sterling K. Brown as his brother, Cliff, and a luminous Erika Alexander as Ellison’s love interest, Coraline. True to its theme, American Fiction is full of complex characters in dynamic relationships. Jefferson interrupts his talking scenes with experimental scenes, casting the great David Keith in dramatized moments from Ellison’s book, and giving audiences a thoroughly meta closing sequence to deliver a perfect ending to his film.
Jefferson’s biggest coup is his ability to balance his story about Ellison’s family along with his cultural satire. He manages to tell a moving tale about aging families and adult romance while also delivering a lacerating satire of progressive hypocrisies and the actual racism inherent in the anti-racism of America’s contemporary culture-making industries. He manages both of these while also delivering one of the year’s funniest films and announcing himself as one of Hollywood’s most important new filmmakers.
American Fiction is screening at the Belcourt Theatre. Go to www.belcourt.org for times and tickets
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.