"American Fiction" | December 2023 | starring Jeffrey Wright, Issa Rae & Sterling K. Brown

[Ziggiy]

‘American Fiction’ Director Cord Jefferson Boards Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Just Cause’ Amazon Series, John Wells to Co-Write (EXCLUSIVE)

Cord Jefferson and John Wells have joined Scarlett Johansson's upcoming "Just Cause" Amazon series.

variety.com

 

[Rev]

Such a cool movie. Hope it does well at the Oscars.

I’d love to see Sterling win Best Supporting, but they’re likely giving it to Downey Jr for Oppenheimer.

Two of favorites ever, Issa and Tracee…I’d probably freeze from the shock if I met those stunning ass women.

 

[Lootpack]

 

[Ahadi]

JUST got back from my second screening.

Still holds up as my movie of the year

I think my only flaw with the movie is that they should have taken a little bit of time to show why either Issa Rae’s book was different than Monk’s or why she THOUGHT it was different. That was my only gripe

I really thought they were going to take the approach of Issa knowing it was stereotypical bullsh*t too. And that she came to the same conclusion as Monk. She somewhat alluded to it by saying she was giving the market what it wanted but, then she got defensive when he started criticizing her book, talking about all the research she put into it which implies that she thinks it's good. I would have liked to see her shed her mask and say she was playing the same game.

It's a great film though.

Also, don't medicare pay for that sh*t

THIS

 

[Morethan1]

That ending was wild expected.

Decent movie

 

[Morethan1]

To be honest, I was just talking about this movie with someone and as I was explaining the polt and this was a great movie.

 

[darealvelle]

Just finished watching this. Amazing film this is.

 

[NobodyReally]

I really thought they were going to take the approach of Issa knowing it was stereotypical bullsh*t too. And that she came to the same conclusion as Monk. She somewhat alluded to it by saying she was giving the market what it wanted but, then she got defensive when he started criticizing her book, talking about all the research she put into it which implies that she thinks it's good. I would have liked to see her shed her mask and say she was playing the same game.

It's a great film though.

Also, don't medicare pay for that sh*t

Totally disagree. That whole Issa read of Monk was one of the best things about the movie. He had a really narrow view of what should count as literature and who should be allowed to write and who deserves to be depicted in a good book. The fact that Issa’s book characters were based on real Black people was a powerful message that even stereotypical things are drawn from real people, and they shouldn't be shunned or not written about just because of our respectability politics. I get that Monk was on a righteous crusade that deserves a lot of reflection because we do have a problem with feeding stereotypes for profit, but Issa's monologue in that scene is a reminder that you can't over-correct either and sanitize everything to the point where you erase real people just because they may embarass you.

 

[Ziggiy]

Totally disagree. That whole Issa read of Monk was one of the best things about the movie. He had a really narrow view of what should count as literature and who should be allowed to write and who deserves to be depicted in a good book. The fact that Issa’s book characters were based on real Black people was a powerful message that even stereotypical things are drawn from real people, and they shouldn't be shunned or not written about just because of our respectability politics. I get that Monk was on a righteous crusade that deserves a lot of reflection because we do have a problem with feeding stereotypes for profit, but Issa's monologue in that scene is a reminder that you can't over-correct either and sanitize everything to the point where you erase real people just because they may embarass you.

The problem was she came off like a hypocrite. She wrote the EXACT type of book that Monk did under the Stagg R Leigh pseudonym but had the gall to call Monk’s book trash whilst she defended hers simply because she did “research”. Also Monk’s crusade wasn’t due to a desire for over correction, it was due to the fact that the ENTIRE literary world was only promoting one type of storytelling and slapping “black” on it to promote the notion that that was the entirety of the black experience, to the point where Monk couldn’t even get his own work published because he was in effect being herded into the box of black people being a monolith, which Coraline served as proof to the contrary with her reading and being a fan of both of Monk’s books.

 

[NobodyReally]

The problem was she came off like a hypocrite. She wrote the EXACT type of book that Monk did under the Stagg R Leigh pseudonym but had the gall to call Monk’s book trash whilst she defended hers simply because she did “research”. Also Monk’s crusade wasn’t due to a desire for over correction, it was due to the fact that the ENTIRE literary world was only promoting one type of storytelling and slapping “black” on it to promote the notion that that was the entirety of the black experience, to the point where Monk couldn’t even get his own work published because he was in effect being herded into the box of black people being a monolith, which Coraline served as proof to the contrary with her reading and being a fan of both of Monk’s books.

Good points. I still think there was a good message in Issa's speech about the validity of depicting the unsavory instead of acting like they don't exist and never writing about them.

 

[re'up]

Some of that is simply the upper classes pretending the lower ones don't exist, because it is embarrassing in a sense for them, and incriminating.

When you add race, it adds that much weight to an already painful issue. The idea that "they" make "us" look bad.

I once heard a recounting of a story of a black celebrity behaving somewhat "offensively" at a private dinner party, like a celebrity kind of thing, and then someone who is black, like visibly dark skinned, gorgeous also said something like

"That's why black people have such a hard time in the business"

but that's not really why, it's because often white people are looking for any excuse to exercise deeply held/sometimes unconscious racial baises.

 

[Bickin Back Being Bool]

Dope movie

 

[VertigoKnight]

Happy to see people catching up with this movie. I loved when I saw it last year.

 

[VertigoKnight]

Some of that is simply the upper classes pretending the lower ones don't exist, because it is embarrassing in a sense for them, and incriminating.

When you add race, it adds that much weight to an already painful issue. The idea that "they" make "us" look bad.

I once heard a recounting of a story of a black celebrity behaving somewhat "offensively" at a private dinner party, like a celebrity kind of thing, and then someone who is black, like visibly dark skinned, gorgeous also said something like

"That's why black people have such a hard time in the business"

but that's not really why, it's because often white people are looking for any excuse to exercise deeply held/sometimes unconscious racial baises.

There is also that undercurrent that our parents taught us that we for better or worse represent ourselves as black people when we are in non black spaces

It can be suffocating and limiting but its a reality we deal with.

 

[Jefe Blanco]

Genuinely funny with some nice touches of family drama and romance. Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown made a great duo and had some of the strongest scenes together.