“American Fiction” swims in Oscar nominations

From –  NABJ Black News & Views
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News

Oscar snubs, sadly, are typical when it comes to work from Black filmmakers or films about the Black experience.

But this year, the people who made “American Fiction” and its star, Jeffrey Wright, are celebrating five Oscar nominations, as BNV contributor Carla Hay writes. Wright has been grinding for years, racking up awards for a parade of solid, visible, attention-generating roles, but he has been relatively unsung until now. This awards season, he’s been front and center, particularly with his Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

“American Fiction” is a racial satire based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, “Erasure.” Wright plays a literature professor posing as a fugitive criminal who, as the criminal persona, writes a novel with negative racial stereotypes. The problem is the novel is a hit, leaving the professor with an identity dilemma. “American Fiction” is the first movie from producer Cord Jefferson, who was a screenwriter for “Watchmen.”

Jefferson left journalism to become a screenwriter but learned that even in that new role, audiences seemed to want stories about Black trauma and tragedy. He talked with Hay about this.

“It’s painful, because the implication is that Black life does not have the breadth or depth of everybody else’s life,” Jefferson said. “We are defined by these five or six stories that we tell over and over again—largely about our ability to withstand pain, violence, and suffering.”