
There are moments when I just wish that I could completely forget “The American Society of Magical Negros,” but alas, there isn’t enough pixie dust in this galaxy to facilitate such miracles. The feature debut from writer/director Kobi Libii is a riotous black comedy concerning a cabal within the black community that exists solely to reassure white people. It lacks structure, sharpness, politics, internal logic, and the big picture needed for extensive world-building. Rather, it is the story that begins on unstable grounds only to descend each time down a shaky mountain and arrive at a point so anti-emotional that the sound created is far more powerful than the weak chuckles the film creates throughout its agonizing long duration.
Even its targeted magic fails accurately out of the gate: Aren (Justice Smith), a white artist recently in a commercial selling manner, has cameras all over his multicolor yarn sculpture as every white lady constantly surpasses him looking for another like a “help”. The experience takes the wind out of every sail from Aren. Again, the stress itself is due to the fact that Aren is a young Black American man polite, gentle, and even apologetic on more occasions than a Canadian apologizes. His sacrifice to the enemy even puts him on the verge of going below six feet under when a drunken cup holder rings him up begging for assistance with an atm and finally accusing him of theft when he didn’t make a move. Fortunately, Roger (David Alan Grier) does in fact save Aren.
Roger sees the artist as a valuable asset so he welcomes him into the intriguing community (which can be accessed from a very signature barber shop). Once we go into the chapters, here are the first principles of the game: To obliterate white rage, Blackness must always give way to white fragility; these niggers should also be encouraged to forgo their earnest voluntary blackness in the presence of the white person they are serving. At first, Libii appears to be fully cognizant of the organization’s backward respectability politics the film is dunked on ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ and ‘The Green Mile’ in its hilarious fashion but after a while, it makes its audience doubt if the picture is actually humorous.
A feeling of annoyance bubbles because of the limited world-building Other than the fact that there are 100 Black people who belong to this group which originated from Monticello, American history does not tell us much. What about other continents, do they have these as well that are part of the diaspora? Members of this society draw their power from other members, they have the ability to sense white people’s anger and sadness and remedy them within a second, but what was the true power structure of the society apart from the fact that there was a Black woman president? And Is also terribly and frustratingly thin.
Is there anyone in his blood relations or friends in his circle? We know very little about his mother who is white. What about the rest of Aren’s family? It’s stunning how, in a film whose premise is the preservation of a community, there is nothing community-centric.
In one of these missions, Aren’s allegiance to the organization is evaluated. Roger orders him to babysit an actress called Jason (Drew Tarvet), a ‘self-important’ white designer who is disgruntled about the lack of promotion in a social media company. This does not go well. First off, Jason is a bigot who uses POC as servants instead of as comrades. Furthermore, he is attracted to Lizzie (the winsome An-Li Bogan), a better designer for whom Aren has feelings. Thus the stand-off where Aren needs to please his white client at the cost of his heart. Quite an uncommon turn of events, one that makes a mess out of the romance and politics of the film. For every other moment we receive with Lizzie and Aren as they try to understand what heterosexual love is together, and what it is to be POC in a racist company the company’s technology literally has trouble seeing their faces we trade in to watch The American Society of Magical Negros deliver some poignant commentary on racism.
This is a movie set in a universe where there is no radical Black politics or it is woefully ineffective.
In fact, Roger even tells Aren that their group accomplishes more than a hundred protests could ever achieve. To his credit, the filmmaker does state that we should take such claims with a pinch of salt. However, there are so many ‘historical’ magical negroes, the film never mentions their equally significant historical Black revolutionists.
Sadly, nobody even informed Libii that a film needs something else other than its simple premise. Neither Smith nor Bogan, no matter how sweet they may be, can stitch the movie in such a way that it is coherent. Even Grier is in turmoil with a poorly written character who isn’t really explained why he is still a member of the group. There is always a sharp contrast between the sweet honey-colored lighting and the cartoonish production design.
As is the aim of this film. It ends with a rather hasty climax where Aren literally screams out that it is his identity that he is claiming, a performance that I am sure will resonate with many people, but is far too late in the day, and too much is expected of it to be able to alter the film’s politics, which are practically nonexistent.
If you compare it to the traditional final grace note, you’d wonder if “The American Society of Magical Negroes” intends to challenge the anti-Black society it occupies, or if it is just comfortable grinning at the status quo.
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