American Fiction, Part Deux

With lines such as “the dumber I behave the richer I get,” Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction does sound like cinematic dynamite. What this film does for the literary world, Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle, from 1987, has already performed for the movie industry.

Townsend plays aspiring actor Bobby Taylor, who finds that Hollywood prefers to cast blacks in gang movies. Script in hand, the eloquent Bobby must rehearse lines such as, “I ain’t be got no weppin,” and “you be got your gang.” In auditions, formally trained actors must say, “What it is, bro?” and such with authentic inflection.

[I’m glad someone else has connected the upcoming ‘American Fiction’ to ‘Hollywood Shuffle,’ which I mentioned in last night’s Headline. Townsend rightly skewered this not just over its obvious stupidity, but also for the way in which it stripped black actors of their dignity. Looks like the cultural elite haven’t learned much in the last 36 years. Watch ‘Hollywood Shuffle,’ if you haven’t seen it; Townsend made it on a shoestring budget, reportedly by floating an enormous load of credit-card debt. — Ed]