In recent decades, the American culture industry has been fixated on the need to lift up “POC voices”—so long as these voices tell a particular type of story focused on marginality, deprivation, and oppression. The Oscar-nominated, critically acclaimed film American Fiction is the most successful send-up of this tendency so far. Its protagonist, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), is an overlooked author of highbrow novels who, initially as a joke, gives his publisher what it wants from a black writer: an over-the-top tale of poverty and violence in the ’hood. The book promptly becomes a bestseller, and hilarity ensues as Monk has to figure out what to do with the monster he has created.
Read Full Article »
