"American Fiction" is a Comedy of Contradiction

The whip-smart satire tackles representational politics with acute self-awareness

Despite its airy, non-abrasive marketing campaign, American Fiction is completely damning of the entire authoritative body of the American art world. The film follows writer Thelonius “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), who struggles to prevent his authorial career from coming to a halt when his work is not considered “Black” enough. Fed up by the dominance of Black art that exploitatively depicts the Black American experience in order to profit from white audiences who control the economics of publishing, Monk adopts a pseudonym to undermine the mold that Black literature has been forced into. Much to his horror, the book becomes an instant success.

Following in the footsteps of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, American Fiction’s ever-increasing self awareness does not tire itself out, always rife with irony and contradiction though never over-upholstered with tedious metatextuality. The film illuminates the discordant existence of a Black creative in a white dominated art world — an existence which requires convincing the industry’s white gatekeepers that one is willing to surrender the control of their capabilities to this false sense of white superiority.

The presence of the film’s comedic lens is important to recognize, but perhaps it's more important to note how frequently this lens is removed. American Fiction is less of a comedy than advertised, without a single punchline for long stretches of the film; instead, the audience finds itself witnessing a complex and heart-wrenching family drama. While this bait-and-switch is subtle, it allows space for the ensemble cast to flex their dramatic muscles in roles far different from those to which Black actors are often relegated in mainstream features. 

The balancing act of comedy and drama creates a quiet level of nuance, exploring class differentials and niche challenges of representation within the universalized understanding of family dynamics and romantic strife. The family drama, at times heavy-handed, provides a ubiquitous representation hidden beneath the film’s explicit anger and woe towards the fight for this very representation. 

The prominence of a dramatic subplot speaks to the phenomenon that director Cord Jefferson addresses. Black artists are praised by white people with power and influence when they fit a mold shaped by and for white consumers, who can feel self-important in their empathy while simultaneously mitigating their white guilt. White art consumption thrives on a sentimentality for minstrelsy: a desire for exploitation and trauma that never questions a white consumer's role as the one to be entertained. Black artists may not need to sacrifice their authenticity to conform to these standards, but they often must convince white audiences that they have in order to find monetary success. 

American Fiction’s satire is so whip-smart that it makes any possible cultural or critical reaction to the film (including mine) evidence of the film’s entire satirical thesis. The film is acutely aware of its audience and the cultural place it will likely hold, and the inevitably of it being underwritten by white audiences, and so it twists itself into a narrative rife with discrepancy and discontent with its own approach. American Fiction concludes with ambiguity, recognizing that packaging the story to fit the demands of the white-defined consumer landscape both undermines and upholds the film’s potency.

American Fiction was released on December 22, 2023 and is currently in US theaters.