Perhaps because so few people care about the publishing world outside of, well, the publishing world, there aren’t nearly enough “taking the ‘literature business’ to task” movies (instead, there are plenty of “taking the movie business to task” offerings [see: Sunset Boulevard, Singin’ in the Rain, The Player, Barton Fink, Adaptation, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Babylon, among others]). Though it could be quite a robust film genre if writers had their say about it. Which, obviously, they rarely do (particularly literary authors-turned-screenwriters).
Based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, Erasure, the subject matter of American Fiction is even more resonant today than it was just over twenty years ago. Because, amazingly, people are more sensitive and quick to weaponize that sensitivity in the present. Thus, when writer-director Cord Jefferson opens the film on Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) trying to teach his college class about Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “The Artificial Nigger,” and being met with shock and awe by a white student, it really comes as no surprise. But that doesn’t make it any less absurd (thereby lending to the comedic cachet). Indeed, Monk has to point out, “If I can get over it, you can.” She says, no, she can’t (and that he shouldn’t either) and stalks out of the classroom. So it is that Monk’s tendency to ruffle feathers—particularly among white people who just want to feel “absolved”—is established. And it doesn’t take long for the “board” (or whatever the fuck a deciding “body” is called in academia) to suggest he take a “mandatory” break from teaching. Maybe that way he’ll “get his head right.” Since he’s already planning on a trip to Boston for a literary festival, in addition to an unwanted catch-up with his family, the board thinks there’s no better time to “reassess.” Monk points out that the last thing that will help “calm” him is spending time with family. But that’s irrelevant to the ones exiling him—he’s “canceled” now.
Meanwhile, at the festival, he finds out that Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), a Black writer who’s actually capable of selling books, is there. And as she promotes her new bestseller, We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, Monk stands in the back of the room watching her read an excerpt with a straight face and can scarcely believe what he’s hearing. At the same time, Sintara’s (whose name is the even more stereotypical Juanita Mae Jenkins in Erasure) work is totally on-brand with the type of schlock that can move units off shelves. That word “units” reducing so-called art to the commodity that capitalism forces all writers to bow to. For there is no writer who can honestly say they wouldn’t love to be paid (handsomely) for what they do (such is the byproduct of lifelong indoctrination). And that sets every writer up for the trap of competition, particularly as it’s no secret that there is a scarcity of “jobs,” so to speak, when it comes to being a published (and paid) author. But beyond the fact that Monk is irritated by how pandering and low-brow Sintara’s novel is, he’s also jealous that his own books aren’t as praised or revered—even though he knows, fundamentally, that he’s better. Yet this brings up another argument about literary snobs and their conviction that the only reason they’re not “thriving” in publishing is because everyone else is, to quote Enid from Ghost World, “too stupid.” However, as Monk’s girlfriend, Coraline (Erika Alexander), mentions to him during their breakup argument, not being able to relate to other people shouldn’t be worn as a “badge of honor.” But oh, how Monk (and so many other writers—yours truly included) does wear it as just that. And rightly so, for it’s hard not to become jaded about public taste after enough years spent orbiting “the business” (a running motif in another recent film about art versus commercial “art,” Official Competition). Indeed, some people will only ever orbit rather than infiltrate…for they simply can’t bring themselves to “play the game” well enough in order to achieve the latter feat.
Another case in point of that inability is Nella Rogers in Zakiya Dalila Harris’ 2021 debut novel, The Other Black Girl. A book that took far less time for Hollywood to snap up and adapt for the screen (as a TV series instead of a movie) than Everett’s Erasure. This being yet another indication of how “chic” it is among white hegemonic institutions to “amplify Black voices” in a post-George Floyd “incident” world. But, as American Fiction reminds, what aspect of “Blackness” is really being amplified? Other than the usual stereotypes and “tragedy porn”? To prove a point about this, Monk writes a “joke book” called My Pafology that embraces all the same exact cartoonish tropes as We’s Lives in the Ghetto. Cartoonish tropes that are also displayed in a book called Needles and Pins (about, what else, crack addiction) by a bestselling white author named Colin Franklin in The Other Black Girl. Like Monk, Nella is horrified by the content of such a pandering-to-Black-stereotypes-that-white-people-love-to-see kind of novel. Which leads one to ask: is it actually better or worse when a white author exploits these stereotypes rather than a Black person who should at least be able to “cash in” on their negative portrayal if it’s going to keep enduring thanks to white power structures? This matter is broached in a conversation between Monk and Sintara while they’re both serving as judges for a prestigious literary award. Monk is provoked when My Pafology, since renamed to just Fuck (this being Monk’s last-ditch effort to keep the book from actually being published), is branded by Sintara as “pandering.” He then calls out that her book does literally the same thing. She insists that 1) hers is a little more well-researched and nuanced (ha!) and 2) there’s nothing wrong with “fulfilling a marketplace desire.” Monk snaps back that this is the same reasoning drug dealers use. Sintara is unmoved by his moralizing, but the two can’t really reach a conclusion to their conversation before being interrupted by the appearance of a white lady/fellow judge who, quelle surprise, causes them to go silent. Because the only thing that could make a discussion like this more uncomfortable and irritating is a white person trying to add their “two cents.”
Similar combativeness between two Black people in the publishing world, Nella and Hazel (both assistants to editors), as well as Kendra Rae and Diana (author of a bestselling book that Kendra Rae edited), serves as a focal point driving the tension in The Other Black Girl. All of them vying, in the end, to succeed in a white publishing realm that automatically pits Black people against one another the same way capitalism in general does. Forcing them to divide into two camps: those with “integrity” and those who “work within the system.” In both American Fiction and The Other Black Girl (the novel version, not the TV version), each protagonist ultimately succumbs to sacrificing a large piece of the integrity they were so adamant about clinging to. This is poignantly elucidated in the final scene of American Fiction, wherein, on a Hollywood backlot (so maybe it is, at its core, a “taking the movie business to task” offering), Monk is forced to finally reckon with the fact that he’s sold out just as much as any of his Black brethren choosing to participate in the proverbial system controlled by white folk. After all, there’s nothing more seductive than money and Establishment acceptance.
Such is the nature (regardless of color) of “working within the system” instead of against it (something that obscure authors have been repeatedly reminded is pathetically futile). And, as history has consistently revealed, that’s the only path toward becoming a bestselling (ergo, “successful”) author as opposed to an author with integrity à la Kafka (if there is no “Black equivalent,” it’s because most Black authors never had the luxury of being posthumously “discovered”—unless their work happened to speak on the inherent horror of being Black).