Does ‘American Fiction’ signal the end of Hollywood’s woke era?

Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut, “American Fiction,” spoke to me like few movies have in the past two decades.

As an educated, heterosexual, Christian black man, I’ve learned to expect that Hollywood prefers to depict a black experience that never reflects my reality.

I enjoyed “Boyz n the Hood,” “Menace II Society,” “Baby Boy,” “New Jack City,” “Sugar Hill,” “American Gangster,” “Training Day”and all the other drug-dealing gang dramas the Hollywood assembly line churned out. But those movies in no way reflected my childhood or day-to-day as an adult.

Occasionally, Hollywood would accidentally spit out a movie featuring a black lead character who represented my values and life experience. Perhaps the last one that I remember most vividly was Denzel Washington in “Remember the Titans,” a movie about a football coach in Virginia leading a newly integrated high school in the 1970s. It reminded me of my high school football reality at Warren Central High on the east side of Indianapolis in the 1980s.

Tuesday night, I watched “American Fiction.” Actor Jeffrey Wright played the lead character, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a frustrated college professor and writer. Monk writes great books, but no one buys them. The public has been trained to prefer salacious tales of criminal and immoral behavior by black people. The rejection angers Monk. It puts him at war with family, friends, and his profession.

“American Fiction” points out the dangers of women and feminist allies controlling the perception of men.

Under a pen name, Monk mocks the book writing and movie industry by crafting a preposterous novel about a criminal black man. He originally calls the book “My Pafology” and then insists the publisher change it to “F***.” Even so, the publisher buys the manuscript for $750,000, and then a producer pays $4 million to make the book into a movie.

A group of white liberals give it a major literary award.

The movie is hilarious. It appears the Overton window is finally resetting, and it’s perfectly legal to ridicule the insanity and fraudulence of wokeness.

On Tuesday, the Motion Picture Academy announced the nominees for the 2024 Academy Awards. “American Fiction” was nominated in five categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.

I’m shocked. I’m overjoyed. The success of Cord Jefferson’s movie might inspire other young writers and directors to challenge Hollywood’s stereotypical depiction of the black experience.

At its core, “American Fiction”spotlightsthe patriarchy versus matriarchy battle waging across the internet “manosphere.” Monk is “passport bro,” a wise black man frustrated with the concessions black women have surrendered to white liberals. The top concession is eliminating heterosexual black men from having any real control over how we’re depicted in art and literature.

Cord Jefferson, I’m sure, isn’t looking to fight with Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay, Lena Waithe, Tyler Perry, and all the other black matriarchs Hollywood has installed as gatekeepers. But Jefferson’s movie points out the dangers of women and feminist allies controlling the perception of men.

Monk’s nemesis in the movie is Sintara Golden, a black woman who rises to fame with the book “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.” Golden won’t apologize for writing a string of books that pander to the sensibilities of white liberal publishers and their bigoted view of black people.

“American Fiction” is a sophisticated version of Spike Lee’s 2000 movie “Bamboozled.” And the filmsubversively trolls white liberals the way Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” lampooned white liberals.

It’s interesting that Peele and Jefferson are mixed race, half black and half white. Maybe their heritage gives them the freedom and leverage to address issues that black directors can’t.

“American Fiction” is not perfect. It does pander to the LGBTQ for no particular reason. The storyline involving Monk and his gay brother seems forced into the script. The overweight family housekeeper, Lorraine, is supposed to be the movie’s moral compass. She’s the hero when she welcomes Monk’s cocaine-snorting, promiscuous brother into her home for her weekend wedding.

The rest of the movie was so good that I just closed my eyes and ignored the gay mafia pandering.