Kobi Libii’s debut film unintentionally adopts the methods of the system it attempts to criticise in its poor and safe style of storytelling, melding together underbaked fantasy, spark-less romance and satirical comedy to create something offensive in how inoffensive it aims to be.
★☆☆☆☆
We are currently almost four years removed from the murder of George Floyd, where the documentation of his suffering was posted across the world wide web during a moment when we could completely pay attention to it rather than scrolling past it. So, for once it felt like black people were being listened to: the chicken fast food chain Popeyes apologised, saying they’d be “nothing without black lives“, black squares of guilt covered Instagram like a power cut and infographics with bite-sized overviews of black revolutionaries such as Angela Davis and Fred Hampton spread across the internet almost as quickly as the virus we were avoiding.
From this time till now, we’ve seen black careers wax and wane as they ride the wave of white guilt, promises from corporations about standing with black people fulfilled and broken. It’s inspired a wave of pessimism from black folks, and it’s this very pessimism that has birthed The American Society of Magical Negroes.
The film begins by introducing us to the protagonist Aren (Justice Smith), a frustrated sculpture artist marred by an inability to establish himself as a biracial man in the white-dominated world. As his financial options dwindle, he is suddenly recruited by a mysterious man to join The American Society of Magical Negroes, where he is tasked with assisting the most ‘at risk’ white people in America in achieving their deepest dreams and desire to lower the danger they can cause to African-Americans all around them. With the job fitting Aren’s behaviour perfectly (constantly apologetic in the face of the microaggressions he faces), he is tasked with comforting a young (white) employee, Jason (Drew Tarver). But when his desires lead him to be smitten by Jason’s co-worker Lizzie (An-Li Bogan), Aren finds himself at a crossroads between the man he wants to become and the anxious boy he is expected to remain.
It’s obvious that The American Society is a cinematic satire not only of black film tropes (even going ahead with nods to The Green Mile (1999)) but also on how black people are asked to shrink themselves in everyday life regarding their safety or success. Unfortunately, though, it falls into many of the traps it attempts to criticise.
First off, our protagonist. Aren is frustrated and anxious about the way he edits himself for white consumption, and we follow as he is confronted with his faults and how he can change. But rather than being a point of empathy for the film, he is simply there to deliver the ideas of the story with no bearing on the audience’s emotions. We see him fumble and debase himself to the point of annoyance, with no underlying character to make him a likeable hero. In the opening scene, we see him try to present his art—which is just braided yarn hung up on the wall (?)—in an attempt to show his genius but also his inability to stand up for it as he tries to network with buyers who mistake him for a waiter. With a character this passive and empty, the film unintentionally extends the same lack of empathy to Aren as the white characters do.
The film also fails at the two genres it attempts to meld together. As a satire, there’s a clear influence from the Donald Glover/Spike Lee brand of Afro-pessimism where white absurdity is an obstacle to the characters’ goals—either in a humorous fashion or more poignantly. Where productions like Atlanta (2016-2022) and Do The Right Thing (1989) succeed is by allowing their black characters to exist authentically in their world. In The American Society, who are these black people without their relationship to white people? This society talks of its goals of pacifying white people to live a peaceful life, but where is this peaceful life? They’ll talk about it but damned if we see it ourselves. Much like their discussion of shrinking themselves to please their white clients, the film itself shrinks its characters, world and any complexity to please a wide audience of non-black people by making them feel involved. Instead, the film decides to focus on a rom-com subplot between Smith and Bogan, who have no chemistry. It’s in rather poor taste that Lizzie (the actress is Taiwanese-Irish but her character is left racially ambiguous) seems to be the driving force to Aren’s (a visibly black man although he is biracial) freedom from white acceptance rather than his own ambitions, or frustration with the stagnation of his life, or any idea that could empower his blackness.
As the era of corporate blackness wound down after the 2020 protests, many black people asked what their position was beyond being beacons of goodwill surrounding white corporations, expressing the same desire to break out of subservience that Aren does. But unfortunately, even with its noble aims, it’s hard to see what a film like this does for anyone who experiences these things daily. In fact, it offers a call of pity to those inflicting harm on them.
The Verdict
The American Society of Magical Negroes is a competent and perfectly watchable film. Still, its inability to alienate the audience it supposedly doesn’t like and its failure as a narrative on almost every front leaves a feeling of coldness and depression about what diversity means in Hollywood at this point rather than anger at any singular piece of filmmaking.
Words by Ellis Lamai
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