We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know we will win, but I have come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house.--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first time I saw Jeffrey Wright, he portrayed the black graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, in the film Basquiat. I remember showing the film to my freshmen college students in one of my literature courses some 24 or 23 years ago. The last time I saw Wright, was a few years later when I thought him a true actor because his gay character in Angels in America, Belize, stole a particular scene from, of all people, Al Pacino, playing the dying from aids, Roy Cohn.
A lawyer and corrupter of politicians and would-be-American kings (like Trump), and certainly, no friend of Black America, Cohn, asks his attending nurse, Belize, what to expect after death.
Cohn: "'Can I ask you something, sir?'"
Belize: "'Sir?'"
Cohn: "'What's it like after"'"
Belize: "'After?'"
Cohn: "'This misery ends?'"
Belize: "'Hell or heaven?'"
Cohn: "'Hell.'"
Belize: "'Like San Francisco.'"
Cohn: "'A city! Good. I was worried it would be a garden. I hate that sh*t.'"
Belize: "'Um/ Big city. Overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds on every corner. A wrecking crew with something new and crooked growing... Windows missing in every edifice like broken teeth... A gray high sky, filled with ravens... And big dance palaces, full of music, lights, and racial impurities and gender confusion. And all the deities are creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers. Race, taste, history are finally overcome.
"'And you ain't there.'"
Cohn: "'And heaven?'"
Belize: "'That was heaven, Roy!'"
Priceless!
In American Fiction, Jeffrey Wright, a little older, plays Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, is a university professor and writer of books, which, Monk feels, shouldn't be placed in the African American Studies section of bookstores. Monk has written a book on frogs, and another, a re-writing of Aeschylus's The Persians, much like author Percival Everett, whose book Erasure services as the bases for American Fiction, adapted for the screen by Cord Jefferson. Everett re-wrote Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Twain's enslaved Jim. James is the name of that book. James, unlike Jim, reads and writes (see Maya Binyam's "Percival Everett Can't Say What His Novels Mean"). James teaches enslaved blacks to speak as if uneducated in order to disguise the fact that they know more than is expected of them. Adapt and survive. For now.
Everett has, according to Binyam, written "Westerns, thrillers, a novella in the style of a Lifetime movie, and handbook for the management of slaves." I certainly have no interest in disparaging literature. I hold three degrees in the field. But American literature hasn't been kind to black Americans. Think of Huckleberry Finn or Uncle Tom's Cabin. Think of William Byrd and his "gardens" of "gardeners", that is, plantations and enslaved blacks. Think of Thomas Jefferson and his infamous diary, in which he refers to blacks as "inferior" beings. Think of the pro-slavery letters of Edgar Allan Poe and the treaties of John C. Calhoun. I spend hours in the "stacks" in the library, reading these and plenty other anti-black works or references to the barbarity of blacks.
Like Everett, Monk is expected to write on the "black experience". And, I'll inject, the "black experience" that matters to most white liberals in the publishing industry and in the potential audience. Our experience as professors, struggling, as Monk and many of us, or as doctors, working for planned parenthood like his sister Lisa--those experiences don't sell because they don't meet the expectations even in the 21st century of most white Americans. I've told the story about students asking me about my time in prison or my former drug use! Because, after all, the lifestyle of a criminal or drug addict is expected of even those of us who pursue professional degrees.
Blacks who engage the market in this way are rewarded. Monk, isn't "black enough" if he black or any of us, as writers, consider writing on quantum theory or art or archaeology.
I was impressed with Lisa, played by Tracee Ellis Ross as Monk's sister. This may have been he first I've seen of Sterling K. Brown. He plays Clifford, the plastic surgeon and "'gay for five minutes'" brother, with a former white wife who takes half his income and three children who "hate" him. Lisa is without children and former husband.
Clifford drinks and seems to do all manner of drugs while Lisa, Monk notes, has returned to smoking. It's the stress, she tells Monk. The stress of the divorce she says, but also we know, it's the passing in and out of a family planning facility, it's the family at home, the ailing mother" It's no wonder she will suffer a heart attack before Monk and us. And die.
Lisa has been "caretaker" of their mother "by default," she tells Monk, and she' tired of caring for the old beach house and finding love letters written by the deceased father to his former women. Their father had been a philandering OB/GYN doctor--before he blew his brains out some years before. His wife, Agnes, played by Leslie Uggams, found his body.
The Alzheimer diagnoses will only assure her children that she will become more and more a stranger among them. While she notices that Monkey is depressed, even when he says he isn't, she declares that he "'bares all the hallmark of depression'" when Clifford slow dances with her, and the two, mother and son, appears all-loving, wonderful, it's interrupted by truth telling. "'I always knew you were queer,'" she tells Clifford. Simultaneously, their arms drop to their sides and the two stare at one another. Like strangers. How quickly they fall apart and resume their distance.
"' This family will break your heart,'" says Clifford; yet, within 20 minutes, I wanted to be a member of the Ellison family, regardless of how the siblings thought it "dysfunctional."
I recognize Monk in the first scene. There he is as I have been, a professor at the head of a college classroom and the subject is disguised and maybe not so disguised because, behind him, on the board, is the 1955 title of Flannery O'Connor's short story, "The Artificial n-word." Immediately, it's a scene that is almost funny, except I know how the students or, at least, one, will respond. And here it comes: One female white student objects to the word, "n-----."
Monk wants an intelligent conversation regarding the text. What about the story? But the young woman can't get past the "n" word. She has to let all know, specifically, Monk, that she is offended. The word is offensive. Must we, mainly white students be subjected to seeing and articulating this word? To which Monk suggests that she get over it. He did! Well, of course, she storms out of the classroom. Crying. Really. I can vouch for this kind of display of being offended--by anything that has any reference to black Americans.
In the next scene, there is Monk sitting before three colleagues. Presumably, a chair or a dean among them. Monk is told that he is habitable at making the students uncomfortable. How many times have I heard this word referred to white students. I made white students uncomfortable. Monk makes them uncomfortable. He asks if they are to be pampered?
The colleagues suggests he go home to Boston where his family resides. He needs a break. What they really mean is that the students need a break from the very demanding black American. But okay. Monk heads for home. Family.
A few minutes into American Fiction, it's clear to me that Monk isn't Clarence Thomas or Mark Robinson, the GOP nut running for governor of North Carolina. I wouldn't be able to go beyond those few minutes of American Fiction if this were the case. He responds or doesn't respond to a group of people who are family, very real people, with good and problematic individuals. Like himself. And yet, the work that sells in America requires him to be "black--"as in a former or current fugitive from the law. Or a druggie. Or corrupt police officer or teacher.
Monk thinks...
...And he gets angry. He's always thinking to the point that what he thinks about when it comes to the representation of black Americans in literature makes him angry. When he tries to come off as a black man of the "street," a former "criminal," it comes off like that opening scene. Almost funny. But way too telling. Later, when he uses the "mother_____" word and tries to walk like a "thug", I'm laughing less but becoming less comfortable... Monk knows that he has written a crappy novel. Like Everett knows, as he tells Binyam, he's produced a body of work that is "'sh*t", but he knows it and doesn't try to act the clown/criminal, a dual role that is acceptable by white Americans from Boston to Los Angeles where Monk lives.
After all, Everett believes, African-American fiction "is a commodity posing as a genre". As Everett states, "we are at the mercy of an economic market which seeks to affirm its beliefs about African-Americans."
The Market doesn't love black Americans no more than it loved enslaved blacks. But Monk really does love his family. Particularly, his mother. He cares.
Lisa, before she suddenly died, had been there by her mother's side, paying the bills and being the dutiful daughter, a role expected of her, as a woman, a daughter. Monk, on the other hand, has been physically estranged from the family. As he witnesses the attempt to revive Lisa fail, he realizes that too much has been expected of her. His physical estrangement from the family has been consequential.
Monk knows Monk! Ever since he became aware of Sintara Golden's We's Lives in Da Ghetto, Stagg has been intruding. Even before that book is hailed as a sensational piece of black writing, Monk hasn't been sleeping well.
But Monk's goal now is to find a way to provide care for his mother. Lorraine, who is a caretaker, technically, but has been caring for Mrs. Ellison, and who is the stable and the most open member of this unit of individuals, has decided to marry. And the family will be selling the beach house anyway. And Mrs. Ellison has been diagnosed with Alzheimer now. And he's thinking more and more about Golden, played by Issa Rae and her book. Her writing for the Market. Her resigning to the role of being a commodity with a commodity to sell.
We's Lives in Da Ghetto pleases the American public while repulsing Monk.
Regardless of his principles, Monk's books don't sell, his agent tells him. Monk must satisfy the "urges" of an American public and the publishing industry both of who don't care about his past '"good and complex"' works. That good writing isn't good enough because it's not "black enough." Monk is really angry. But then there is an immediate familial issue that must be resolved.
Monk types out My Pathology and changes it to My Pafology. And then Stagg R. Leigh becomes real. His name is typed out underneath the title.
And so, slowly, the Monk we have come to know, will disappear only to be replaced by a winking Stagg R. Leigh. But a Stagg R. Leigh, nonetheless. Two white publishers will offer Monk money, big money, for My Pafology. ' "The marketing team has all kinds of great ideas'" for selling the book. In the meantime, the head of that marketing department comes on the phone to let Monk, his "man" know that he is honored to "finally" meet him. This marketing head, what counts for creativity in the capitalist market, envisions actor Michael B. Jordan on the cover. He'll wear '"one of those scarfs tied around his head'". You mean '"a do-rag?'" asks Monk. Yes, yes, one of those!
Monk thinks his manuscript is crap. Racist. Even when he suggests, just for fun, the title be changed from My Pafology to F___K, the two interested publishers agree. Even better!
That's a "great" title, says the head of marketing. F____ing great! It's... it's...
" Black enough," asks Monk.
Absolutely!
His agent suggest to Monk and the publishers another idea. How about Stagg as fugitive? Fugitive, Stagg! Running just ahead of the law.
Like an enslaved fugitive, huh?
Monk, as the fugitive thug and guest on the show, Kenya, expresses to the American public what it's like being "black" in America! And he, as a black ex-con and fugitive from the law, his voice is disguised!
From Boston to California, the prison bars are closing in and the guards and gatekeepers crafting the door jams and locks.
The Literary Awards' panel of judges, on which both Monk and Sintara sit, select F___K as the book of the year. The whites on the panel ignore these two real blacks present on voting day. The book is "pandering." A white judge disagrees. The book is "'like gazing into an open wound''. Another declares the book expressing "the language of the gutter".
For the well-meaning, liberal, intellectuals, it's impossible to see themselves as racists!
When a female foreman reminds the others that it's "essential to listen to black voices right now", I think there will be a revelation, a break through. Maybe an injustice will be acknowledged. But no. The camera stays a few minutes on the whole room where the white judges sit together and the two blacks sit side by side.
But, in the end, the "black voice" to "listen" to is that of Stagg R. Leigh. Monk, who had so much to offer, to teach! Thelonius Ellison is erased! Along with the Black American community, again.
Hollywood is calling and Monk is to attend the Literary Award ceremony.
How should the film end, ask the film guru? Should Monk reveal the truth?
Monk comes up with one ending. "'I have a confession to make.'" He hears his name announced as the winner of the Literary Award, and he begins walking up to the stage. At the podium, he has a confession to make. And the future viewers are left staring at a black screen.
"' There's no resolution,'" shouts the film guru.
"' There's no moral to the story,'" Monk tells him.
But we can't sell this fade to black!
How about this, says Monk. His name is called out and he starts for the stage, but cut to him running. He's running toward Coraline's home. When he's standing before her, he speaks: "'I like to apologize. I haven't been myself.'" Monk wants to reconcile. Experience love.
But the film guru considers such a truth ending "too pat". It doesn't interest him, and, therefore, it wouldn't interest the American public, that is, the white American public. The American public, in turn, won't consider this ending when it comes to black people.
Monk seizes on the fugitive Stagg R. Leigh.
"' I have a confession to make.'" We hear the doors open with a bang and officers shouting. To Stagg R. Leigh. Monk tries to explain that Stagg R. Leigh is fictional. But the officers see something in Monk's hand. The award looks to the officers like a gun. Like a cell phone has in the past. Law enforcers commence firing, filling Monk, in tux with bullet holes.
But the criminal Stagg R. Leigh has been subdued. America is safe from yet another threat to its perceived racial sanctity.
Perfect , shouts the film guru. Perfect !
To the Market we go. The Market wins because the lie continues. Down river! While the American public will gaze into that open wound without feeling guilty. Like that white student we see in the first scene.
But maybe this is the point of American Fiction. There's no escaping a market that knows only to erasure black Americans.
There's the mother, there must be some other way; however, Monk stops thinking.
What might have been an act of transgression, backfires. The Monk we see in Hollywood isn't a Monk readying to protest the system that forces him to care for his mother by selling crap. A stereotype of black life. A regressive image of black life. He's a Monk who decides to no longer to fight the status quo. No longer be angry or even thinking about the problem but comply with the system. And, in so doing, Monk becomes enslaved to a capitalism deeply indebted for its survival on the selling of whiteness.
American Fiction would have been a film for the ages, if it had been brave enough.
