American Fiction, Black Trauma Porn, and White Audiences: What Gives?
Bayard Ruskin Was the Real Deal
I will never forget when my friend told me to watch the TV show “The Wire.” He told me it was gritty and well-written.
It was gritty, alright. Well written? I suppose if you like watching “entertainment” showing white cops trying to deal with the black underclass, whom they portray as drug addicts, violent, and need to be protected by the police — the white cops.
Sorry. I don’t care a lick how well researched and “realistic” a program may be unless it is historical (i.e. “Roots”), then it’s not my idea of entertainment.
I would much prefer a film like Ruskin, which is up for an Oscar for its leading actor Coleman Domingo, who portrays the influencer and organizer of the 1963 March on Washington in which Dr. King made his “I Have a Dream” speech.
That’s empowerment.
So when I watched the film American Fiction, which stars Jeffery Wright as an author — yes, a black author, who writes books that connects ancient history to modern events, I was as flabbergasted as the fictional author Wright plays named Thelonius “Monk” Ellison when he discovers what really sells to the white publishers and the audience if mostly white readers — black trauma porn.
