American Society of Magical Negroes

Okay so when I first saw the trailer for this movie, and saw the title, I was concerned that the premise might not be executed correctly. But I had hope, hope that I would be properly, white person uncomfortable. And not actually, wow this is really bad uncomfortable. Now I would also like to recognize before I go into my review that my voice is not the most important one here and should a reviewer with a more personal stake in this have an opposite opinion, that is the one that you should listen to. This is simply a review from my very limited point of view.

So when I saw the trailer I thought that this film could be a really incredible satire on people of color feeling the need to minimize and temper themselves so that they don’t fall into dangerous and harmful stereotypes. A story that highlights and shows the dangers of people of color laying down so that they can make white people comfortable. Well I am only a few minutes into this movie and that does not seem to be the approach that they are taking. Oh god…the message seems to be that people of color assuaging white peoples discomfort actually HELPS black people…who wrote this?

Just to be clear, a great movie about race that people SHOULD be uncomfortable watching is something like Origin. Ava Duvernay is brilliant and Origin confronts bias and makes you question how you are interacting with the world. This film does not do that. An hour in it only reconfirms bias. I think the core of the problem is that people no longer understand what the word SATIRE means. The term has really lost all meaning. Satire is not joking. Satire is not simply an extreme. Satire is supposed to be a social or political commentary that is presented in such an extreme and over the top way that it challenges the ideology itself. Just because you say something is satire doesn’t make it satire.

I am hoping that we get character growth, this main character learns his worth and that the world will in fact not crumble if he doesn’t cater to white people. I am hoping that he gets the girl and changes this secret magic society to be something more conducive to actually helping black people. I am hoping.

Aren does in fact start to fight back. He actually delivers a really great monologue at his white “client”. He talks about how he deserves to take up space and he deserves to be alive. He tells the president of this society that it shouldn’t be their job to make white people comfortable. So I wouldn’t exactly call it a major problem solved, though he does get the girl. But the next major problem in this movie was that none of the black characters were characters. They are simply plot devices. They don’t have anything to them on their own, they really actually only exist to serve the story that does center white people, it's very upsetting.

Overall the movie is really a 2/10. The acting makes it watchable but dear lord the fact that it did the exact thing that it was trying to satirize is comically terrible. I really wish they had taken the time to actually flesh out the black characters, that would have solved its biggest issue. But the fact that the status quo doesn’t change by the end of the film and they just continue business as usual is a bit unforgivable. The theme of the movie is really, black people exist to make white people comfy and that’s never going to change.