A social media backlash was not the response that writer and director Kobi Libii and his cast expected when the trailer to his debut feature, “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” dropped back in December. Perhaps false assumptions best sum up some of the response, as in the case of one viewer who said they expected a Black “Harry Potter” adaptation and felt blindsided.
Libii’s film is instead a satire examining the “magical negro” trope, a term Spike Lee is credited with coining decades ago to call out Hollywood’s tendency to spotlight Black characters in supporting roles that cater to white main characters.
Until recently, Black satirical films were a relative rarity on Hollywood’s biggest screen. With writer and director Cord Jefferson grabbing an Oscar win for best screenplay adaptation for “American Fiction,” that may change. In that regard, “The American Society of Magical Negroes” should be right on time.
Actor Justice Smith (“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” “Jurassic World Dominion”) stars as Aren, a young visual artist who shrinks in the presence of white people and is recruited into the American Society of Magical Negroes by Roger, played by David Alan Grier, to hone his ability to make white people comfortable in order to keep Black people from being harmed.
“The happier they are, the safer we are,” Roger reasons to Aren.
Aren’s assignment to play buddy to Jason, a young, white, male tech professional, goes awry, however, when he starts to come into his own sense of self-worth and falls for Lizzie, whom Jason also likes.
“This conversation around the expectation that Black people are prioritizing white comfort over our own history and our own sense of self is an incredibly contemporary problem,” Libii told NBC News. “That’s happening politically in America right now. You see these laws being passed in places like Florida around what Black history is taught that are literally saying that elements of Black history, things that really happened in America, cannot be said out loud in the classroom if it makes white kids uncomfortable.”
Smith’s personal connection to the film made him eager to play Aren. “I grew up in a very white community. And I’m a people pleaser, and that is a terrible recipe,” he said. “I had to go on an empowerment journey myself, similar to Aren, and knew that I could lend myself to the story.”
“In Living Color” legend Grier says Libii’s blend of fantasy and comedy with plenty of heart drew him to play Roger. Grier, who is both a master of satire and an accomplished dramatic actor, sees Roger’s and Aren’s views through a generational lens.
For him, Roger very much represents “how we used to do it.” When Grier was a young man, he too experienced the growing pains of well-intentioned older men attempting to guide him with the playbook they used when they were younger.
“As a kid,” he said, “all these old dudes were telling me about 1920 and ’30, and I was like, ‘Man, it’s 1963, bro, we’re modern.’ So it’s very generational,” Grier said.
While Grier said he sees the initial social media backlash as a sign of the times, those who have seen the film have had a different takeaway.
“The reaction at Sundance was amazing,” he said. “I remember mostly women, Black women, coming over and telling me their story of enduring microaggressions and why they chose not to stand up and the guilt that they held.”
Addressing every incident is impossible, Grier says. “You have to pick your battles,” he said. “If we react to every little microaggression, you ain’t gone make it to 12 noon.”
Nicole Byer, who plays DeDe, the head of the American Society of Magical Negroes, has encountered the magical negro trope in her career. “I’ve gone on auditions where it’s a magical negro part where it’s just a friend. You don’t have any backstory. It’s just like she’s 32 and loves her best friend.”
The title is what initially drew Byer in. “I love the title of the movie. I think it was so polarizing, and then I read the script, and I thought the script was so incredible. I love a big premise and I love that it wrapped a rom-com in it.”
Byer also gets to have fun in the film. “I do fly in the movie,” she beamed over Zoom.
If it’s given a chance, Libii is confident people will find value in his film. But he also understands the concern. “It’s so deeply understandable for Black people to be skeptical of what comes out of Hollywood,” he said. “My hope,” he continued, “is that people will see the whole film, which is a much more nuanced and thorough treatment of some of these issues, and then pick up those conversations.”
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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
