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It’s a very smart and funny movie with a winning cast. Deserves all the acclaim and Oscar nominations it’s gotten. Probably won’t be a popular success though. Movies about race that are outside the box, like this one is, rarely are. I suspect a lot of white folks just won’t get it. Too bad. It really is a wonderful movie.
It’s a very smart and funny movie with a winning cast. Deserves all the acclaim and Oscar nominations it’s gotten. Probably won’t be a popular success though. Movies about race that are outside the box, like this one is, rarely are. I suspect a lot of white folks just won’t get it. Too bad. It really is a wonderful movie.
The satire of the movie (I haven't seen it yet) appears to be "stories about race that are outside the box don't become popular successes." It might be a self-fulfilling prophesy. A lot of white folks just won't get it...and a lot of black folks who are into "struggle porn" won't get it, either.
From the trailer, it appears to be a satire aimed at mocking how modern politics poisons literature and the writing process. The author has to hide who he really is and subordinate just writing an entertaining book to becoming someone espousing virtue signaling to be allowed to succeed.
I think the point is that long ago, he would have been allowed to just write entertaining books, but today you have to cater to every special interest groups and show your specific victimhood in order to be allowed by the publishing establishment to write entertaining stories. You are pigeon holed by your tribalism going into the literary process, because America no longer looks in terms of merit, but in terms of tribe and victim status, etc.
It looks like a successful satire to me, mocking a very real distortion of the literary process. Instead of rewarding merit for simply being an excellent and entertaining author, you now have to bow down to political correctness and appeal specifically to one of the "in" tribes, or you will not even get the opportunity to be an author, regardless of your talent, proficiency, and skill at telling exceptional stories.
And of course, while the movie focuses on writing books, you can extend this satire immediately to anything from Hollywood to music as it all applies today.
So what is "not to get"? I would watch this movie. It looks biting, timely, and spot on as well as very well done.
I suspect a lot of white folks just won’t get it. Too bad. It really is a wonderful movie.
The white people in the audience at the showing I was at definitely got it, and everyone in the audience (regardless of their color) seemed to enjoy the film. It really does deserve its Oscar nominations!
From the trailer, it appears to be a satire aimed at mocking how modern politics poisons literature and the writing process. The author has to hide who he really is and subordinate just writing an entertaining book to becoming someone espousing virtue signaling to be allowed to succeed.
That's not exactly right. The director is clearly taking shots at the (liberal) media establishment but also says this in an interview.
Quote:
"Even in the world of fiction where we can write anything, there's a limited understanding of what Black life can look like,” he tells Esquire. American Fiction, adapted from Percival Everett’s Erasure, takes aim at the systems that flatten Black life and treat Black thought as monolithic.
That's not some issue that started in 2008. This has long been an issue in American life, and in Hollywood more specifically, and it transcends partisanship. Spike Lee's BAMBOOZLED played on a very similar if not identical theme.
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