Watch the full TWO HOUR debate here: www.patreon.com/posts/99729939?pr=true

It’s a problem of scarcity that _every Black movie or show_ has to be all things to all people. This should be able to soar on the strength of its specific story, but since so many stories haven’t be told yet we pressure every story to tell them, an impossible expectation that if I’m being honest is holding us back.

@TheBlackRickGrimes

4 ай бұрын

Same thing now with that silly ass titled movies called “Book of Magical Negroes”…why??? Idk what’s up with these studios!

@nitrologly

4 ай бұрын

Tbf it's not really a black problem. The Hollywood bubble is from a well to do liberal perspective.

@df3575

4 ай бұрын

I think this is the truthful subtext of this debate. However, it also appears that this clip ends where the expressed criticism was going to be articulated most clearly: the turning Keith Sweat out of a 2LiveCrew record, instead of finding a Commadores album with which to do it, if adaptation was your aim. (Probably overstated, but, understood)

@OvSpP

4 ай бұрын

@@nitrologly you got that half right. Hollywood needs to perpetuate a certain look and feel for every demographic to keep everyone buying tickets/subscriptions the things they know worked in the past. And to further feed their liberal agenda that minorities are downtrodden and we need your help (money) to save them. It becomes a Black problem when Black creators keep giving it to them instead of looking in the mirror, admitting they’re selling out/perpetuating stereotypes, and changing for the better. It would be like (I presume you’re conservative so this analogy will hit home) if a gun shop kept selling pistols that jammed. But the company who made them sells to stores for cheap and the store keeps making a profit even though they’re faulty. Both parties are at fault and the customers are the ones to suffer.

@nitrologly

4 ай бұрын

@@OvSpP I'm a marxist that doesnt indentify with libs or conservatives. Post DEI Hollywood only genuflects to uppity libs now. It's a huge part of the current battlefield of the culture wars. A lot of corporations are focusing on the DEI and ESG stuff even over profits.

Brianna you got it right again! Why is it that black movies always have to be breaking down something? Seriously

@deepfriedokra

4 ай бұрын

This is a movie that by the director’s own claim is supposed to be breaking down something. What are you talking about. This isn’t Big Momma’s house, this movie is created according to the director to be satire. The very definition of satire is to be breaking down something

Black conversations are great

Now wait a minute, the movie is predicated on a money problem. Monk would be poor if the didn’t write it.

@oleeb

4 ай бұрын

He wouldn't be poor. He would just not be wealthy and commercially successful.

@MRLONG758

4 ай бұрын

@@oleeb The cost to care for his mother would definitely hurt him to the point of being poor.

- whatever Jeffrey Wright chooses to be in is something i want to watch.

Love this conversation. I would learn more if Bri stopped interrupting and let her poor, talked over guests finish their thoughts.

@user-wh4lx9by2o

20 күн бұрын

Amen! So many unfinished thoughts. Guess that's why the channel is called Bad Faith.

In a nutshell, it's the "Good Times vs. Cosby Show" dynamic.

His statements about the adaptation not being updated to reflect the current publishing industry are completely incorrect. While black authors writing non-fiction are lauded over for their books analyzing race and politics, black authors writing speculative fiction and genre fiction are certainly still being infantilized in a way that is reflected in this work. As a black author of fantasy I certainly identified greatly with the messaging and thought it was very current to the conversation. Actually, ironically, it's the explosion in progression of black authors in the non-fiction and literature space that have caused the recent infantilization of black authors in genre fiction...

I agree with Bri. I think people are tasking this movie to do too much. Great movie. And i love the conversation it is sparking.

I can see comrade Mtume Jant, this will be a great episode 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I still think Bamboozled was the best movie to tackle an issue presented in this book and film

@inblackamericaradio5409

4 ай бұрын

I’m glad I found your comment. People talk about this movie like it’s ground breaking and I’m like……..did we forget Spike Lees Bamboozled!???

@justsehlim

4 ай бұрын

mtume gant said hollywood shuffle is a better attempt at this as well

The problem with so much Black art and Black folks in general is the preoccupation on White folks, what they think, how they view Black folks, assumed racism, slavery, etc. Make something good that doesn't touch on the same played out *ss topics. Films are entertainment. Books are too. So much Black art can't just be entertaining. Sitting around discussing class politics isn't something one does with truly entertaining works.

@TheObsidianLogic

4 ай бұрын

Exactly!

This is the most bizarre conversation I have seen from four seemingly intelligent persons...ever. I made it halfway through.

Love your take on the film Bri! I’m with you on most things …my wife read the book and then we saw the film. We loved the movie and the acting is excellent. Keep fighting the good fight Bri…

Happy to have stumbled upon this clip. Have been enjoying political stances of Brie and her varied guests on this podcast after becoming enchanted with her fantastic mainstream work. To see this assemblage is reminiscent of similar discussions from a palette of people I used to watch on PBS decades ago. As in most of those broadcasts, it was awesome to soak in this discussion and kinda rub my brain up against speakers expressing myriad interesting ideas from seeds I rarely cultivate. Brie, thank you for this sharpening.

Love Percival Everett. So happy to hear his work get discussed

Did you see the MF Doom mask in the background RIP Doom. The Christmas album is the best. Doom Black message is be a super villain not a hero. See you got to be a freeman to be a true villain🎉🎉.

Great thoughts . . . reminds me of talks on Good Times vs. Cosby Show. We need our own thing to get to all the nuances we deserve!!!

Percival Everett provokes and challenges readers to ask questions about identity. The film does bring up a class in the scene between Monk and Juanita. The wedding scene may not be in the movie, but the conversation between the two Black writers where you see race, class, and gender intersect. The satirical book My Pafology is about class and race. I have to ask: who determines Blackness? Is Blackness flatten? Can a personal identity exist?

...as simply marginalized because he writes obscure literature...it is fascinating how people interpret Erasure so differently. How does putting Monk's books in the Af Am Lit section reflect marginalization for that stated reason? Bertrand at 14 minutes gets more at the core of the novel...what he calls the "little tiny derivate" of the so-called black experience. Spot on. I dubbed it "eracesure." I keep turning over in my mind why Cord changed how Lisa dies and the ending as he did.

21:03 Brother England on the top left was spittin the entire time. The specific parts are cut from movies so you dont ask too many quiestions as to why things are the way that they are. "Dont think, consume"

The mf doom art and mask is fire!!!!

I loved that movie. I haven't laughed til I cried in a long time. My whole family loved it.

I agree with the host. The portrait of the family in itself is subversive by not pretending to be subversive. The guests have their heads up their bum bums. Brecht? Really? Brecht never changed a thing by being “Brechtian” in his baroque theatre in East Germany. It’s an ego trip dressed up as activism. I laughed and cried during this movie. The idea that this movie doesn’t represent reality is ridiculous. No movie does that. Truth and realism are not the same thing.

OK. I guess I must read the book. It's been out since 2011 and I didn't even know about it

I haven’t read the book but I saw the film twice. I loved the movie. I am not an intellectual so I don’t get all the nuances that the guests complain about here. All I know is that this was a funny, insightful movie that I loved so much that now I want to read the book.

It's all about the fact they cant be allowed to do it without corps inserting themselves in.

BTW about Stalker a lot of that has to do with Tarkovsky shooting like 2/3ds of the movie and having the footage damaged so he had to shoot it from the beginning with much less budget cuz he spent most of it already, one of my fav movies ever tho.

I think you guys are overthinking this. OWG I went. I loved the movie. I am happy to see you guys talking about it. The movie, has accomplished its main goal, to generate conversation.... In that aspect, it was beautifully done.

I missed named but top left is COOOOOKING 12:48

I just watched the movie. It was a good dramedy, however there is nothing amazing about it. It explored the plight of the black misleadership class. A class that so many blacks find comfort in. A class that is often celebrated during black history month. A class that exploits the plight of poor blacks, for their own advancement.

I bought the film, in eager anticipation! Next, I'll read the book and comment AGAIN. As a film, it has GLOBAL appeal. It's fantastic satire. I'm not even focusing on the satyrical take on the "elite" publishing cabal; from editors to critics all down the line. Each issue is examined in EXTREMES, which makes it so funny. It's a reality check, in the "post George Floyd" era. It brings home the need to STOP the practice of division of real art from "Black art". He's making an appeal to the world, that we have to stop living in this hyper-racialized hell we're living in. It was a great movie, and he's extremely courageous to expose the "Racism Beat", and the need to get past it. Being overly solicitous to Black artists and elevating mediocre work to the status it's not worthy of, is cowardice.

9:30 Bri i think you just described Ms Karen Hunter and her clique to a T

@redthunderbird8117

4 ай бұрын

Whoa!! What is that about?

@redthunderbird8117

4 ай бұрын

Have you blogged about your disagreements, plural with KH? I want to read it. Lol. Peace.

@TCt83067695

4 ай бұрын

​@@redthunderbird8117it was back in 2020 when she interviewed Bri on her radio show. Interview or an attempted ambush...

BTW, there's a movie called "Ballast", written and directed by a white person. Check it out. It's one of the best films I've seen about a family, and their response to family tragedy, experienced by a Black family, but is UNIVERSAL.

I LOVE when he recalls the suggestions for stories he got when working in journalism, started "looking like a revolving door of misery"! He's got a wry sense of humor. The binary nature of the "Black experience" in film has been either extremely idealized, overly cosmetic, and aspirational OR a marathon of pathology, injustice and suffering... Tyler Perry world view vs. Precious. d

I need to watch this 2 more times. Often, when the topic is not this Black, the comments are littered with both critique and love for the show and host. Most boring... Not surprised the comments are small in quantity as of 3:35 pm. No one who is not of color, would dare weigh in without some real experience and rigor demonstrated in contemplation. This is in my top 5 all time best episodes... Outside of Dr. West, she softens her interviews even microscopically so rarely... This time 3 astute brothas were giving it to one of the best socio- political KZread influencers with fierce retorts... This is Black love and she was here for it. To see, this conversational informal debate-- Sapio- esque! It is why in part Ms. Joy is so delightful, charismatic(Leo), and y I come back even after hiatus. No one really is wrong; I feel I side with the 3 men, but this is Black intelligentsia on a level of exposure that is never celebrated... This is better than the film. This!!! Stop missing Black excellence in the form of Hillman college or caring about what Lebron does on the court... White people who do not have Black thought in their lives like these 4... You are still sheep... Let 4 Black intellectuals like these not West, not a Black Physicist who goes on Rogan challenge you... Sir, Ms They, you, in a room, and speak about reality and see if u remain in your comfortable non fiction duality... Whew! This was so good!

My favorite part of the movie was the familial relationship dynamics honestly

This movie reminds me of spike, Lee’s bamboozled

Its really interesting. The language of Fences or Spike Lee film seems to free up something in all of us. I watched this film, will watch Wright read yellow pages, the scenes with sister were searing and original, then it dropped into the cliches that “middle class” people are given to speak in movies everywhere, whoever they are. I wonder that maybe Hollywood does this reflexively. We have to say “reaching out to her” or “I’ll take a rain check” because it is a comfort, a normalcy. The contradiction is that a movie is a movie, where perhaps people can dig deeper than cliche. Which, again ironically, people do all the time in real life.

who is the guy who talks about Brecht? I like him

This was one of the best movies I've seen in a while good acting ,funny and it did touch on issues of race,class and homophobia. I didn't read the book but from the movie previews I wasn't expecting a tour de force on those issues. I think it is just as Oscar Worthy as most of the stuff they nominate.

Oh and Bri..you vame into full contact this morning on Rising..the entire film in a nutshell...RFK JR. MAKING A RAP SONG AND USING BIDNESS FOR BUSINESS..I APPLAUDED YOU WHEN YOU INTRODUCED THAT SEGMENT FOR NOT PRONOUNCING IT IN THAT PANDERING WAY..AMERICAN FICTIONS THEM RIGHT THERE‼️‼️‼️‼️

I have not read the book, but the movie was a good satire. Without doubt, it could have been even more cutting, widening the scope of how many people -- white, black, or otherwise -- create and/or exploit the market for "authentic black" stories.

Am I the only one who couldn't stop thinking about Spike Lee's Bamboozled while watching American Fiction? American Fiction gave me the impression of being a bourgeois spin off of Bamboozled, almost as if Bamboozled had been told entirely through the eyes of Pierre Delacroix rather than the Brechtian range of characters acting out differing class ideologies.

Ok, so I was watching this flick w/out having really looked at the director’s name, and I kept thinking “that dept looks like the dept I graduated from.” Like, specifically, my mouth was literally agape by the time I stopped it to see wtf was going on, and sure enough, the director graduated from my alma mater a cpl years before me, and even the book he based it on is based on that school! Blew my mind before I knew that-I kept wondering how so much minutiae was universal to the English major experience lmao

New perspectives, thank you so much. Usually my head just fills in things left unsaid or ambiguous, which leaves me with a bit of the blind spot because the gaps I fill correspond to a lot of your opinion-critiques. As someone a lot like Cord, Monk, and Everett (esoteric+higher class) my defense of them can be reflexive. However, I will say I think some critiques fall away when we look at the movie as a satirization of pity, white pity, and internalized resentment. The commodification of our trauma isn't even about uplifting us ultimately, rather they're fodder for a feast for white liberals. Reluctance to market stories about the more subtle yet still pervasive, systemic violence black people encounter at all class levels, mediated through institutional practices and individual prejudices, show us that our stories were never even hours or for us. The entire publishing storyline was about consumption not for the subjects of the book who wish to read stories about lives like theirs but as feel good indulgences that ignite the fire of neoliberalism. Watched like this, the omission of class politics makes sense to me at least because what are stories about the constant state of enduring blackness imposes on a subject supposed to do if not alert society to the massive injustices at work? If we keep pumping out stories about trauma and still see no change, we should take pause and consider a way for our pain to not be made a zoo exhibit, but a point of enfranchisement. It reminds me of Bell Hooks writing on Love as an ethic. To the contrary, I like to be cynical, so I'll likely adopt everyone's opinion!

Agreed mostly with the critic in the top-left. The not-so-clever plot twist would have been more powerful and entertainig as a 10 min youtube video. I would have loved to see more of the family scenes which seemed too short and rushed. His girlfriend from across the street was by far the best and most interesting performance. Frankly, the book the main character wrote that wasn't selling seemed like it would have been a much much more interesting film.

Yes

🖖

Love Bree but I've never agreed with her taste in films. This is one of those rare cases where she is the least critical voice in the panel.

of course it didn't! All americans, all americans, per John Steinbeck that they are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Full quote: "socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” the movie was good on the writing biz, it really is that bad, and strangely, mostly as bad for poetry, where there is no money "bald men fighting over combs" and the movie made some stupid choices, but some dialogue was good, but yeah, this seems like a 10 year old thing, way behind the curve.

Get RBN on!

@TCt83067695

4 ай бұрын

So they can yell, throw tantrums and embarass themselves?

@willmcquitter8985

4 ай бұрын

@@TCt83067695 name me one lie they have told? Just one and I’ll concede. They are passionate bc this stuff matters people are dying from the lack of basic necessities while the pmc are doing respectability politics and telling half truths.

Damn the guy in the flannel was itching to say something for 5 mins let his speak! Lol

😁✌🏾✨️

Ask someone who has literally spilled a lot of blood fighting against white supremacy. And started doing so as a kid and punk rock scene I find the critique of this movie in this video vapid. It reminds me of all the people who didn’t understand Robyn D’Angelo‘s book that was written for a white audience, by a white woman on what she observes in the absence of Black people.

good movie.

Bamboozled 2.0...

aayyy... what the f**k's wrong with Keith Sweat, man...?? Don't Stop Your Love...Make It Last Forever....all CLASSICS. what's the matter witcha...?? 😂

The white characters are solid caricatures of white power people that look at black people in that way..a much needed lampooning of a particular mild kind..a great movie of social satire but gentle..in let's say the Italian social satires of post war Italy..France or Spain it would have been SAVAGE..AMERICAN Fiction..like Tar..both criticizes and pays close attention and tries to avoid simplistic tropes

it's interesting that the one guy who seems to just DISLIKE the movie got all those movie memorabilia, is that Magneto helmet..? the other one's definitely Maximus's fighting mask helmet, in Gladiator.

@ShaolinPrince718

4 ай бұрын

it's a MF Doom Mask... it's a hip hop artist

It was a bad remake of Spike Lee's 'Bamboozled', which was a weak remake of ' A Face in the Crowd' starring Andy Griffith.

@roccocupido5082

4 ай бұрын

Ridiculous analogy

@hdlc4635

4 ай бұрын

@@roccocupido5082 There are countless articles online comparing American Fiction to Bamboozled (as the "analogy" is obvious to all who've seen both), and Spike Lee himself has talked of the influence of A Face in the Crowd on Bamboozled. Therefore, no one is more ridiculous than you.

@geekylove3603

4 ай бұрын

​@hdlc4635 I don't want to be rude however you are making me quite annoyed. Do you not know anything about this film? It is an adaptation of a book. And its not the most original concept.

Brie deserves to talk fluff and take a well deserved breather from this hellscrape of a newscycle.

"Sir, this is a Wendy's."

Please try to interrupt your panel less. You left so many unfinished thoughts on the table.

Sure, and Rocky left out kick boxing and Parasite didn't have black people in it. This is stupid. The film was about race and art. And class was a backdrop anyways.

@deepfriedokra

4 ай бұрын

To call someone else stupid after making a ridiculous comparison like that is a bold choice.

I think these dudes are snobs

Yes, the book is different from the movie. Is this all these crabby contrarians want to hear?

@oleeb

4 ай бұрын

Apparently it is.

Three grown men, triggered, over a Hollywood production. And 'the problem' only exists externally, right.

It’s painful to watch grown men gripe and complain about this movie for so long when all their criticism boils down to is “the book was better and both more important and substantive”. In most cases of a screenplay adapted from a book this is the case. The drama and the anger directed at the movie is kind of immature because they go on and on making one criticism in a hundred ways. Yes! The movie departs from the book and leaves many aspects of the book out! Get over it and enjoy the movie as the movie it is.

@deepfriedokra

4 ай бұрын

I agree that it would be painful to watch grown men do this. Thankfully that didn’t happen in this video and you’re just constructing a strawman.

@TCt83067695

4 ай бұрын

Lol but they DIDN'T enjoy the movie tho. I think that's the issue. Or are they not allowed to express that?

@oleeb

4 ай бұрын

They aren't saying they didn't enjoy it. They are airing their grievances about how offended they are that the movie deviated from the book which they found more important and substantive. One can agree with them entirely on that point and still accept the fact that it's a movie not a piece scholarship or important social critique. It is shallow in comparison to the book. All well and good. Is that in any way unusual? No. The movie didn't service their social and political beliefs and that of the book and they are angry about that. They seem not to understand that movies are not made to focus public attention on the most important political and social issues confronting society. They demonstrate the all too common leftist weakness for the desire to lecture the audience and browbeat them with moral rectitude and hectoring instead of accepting the fact that movies rarely rise to the quality of the books they are so often adapted from because they are in it to turn a buck! If art is ever made in Hollywood it is an unintended consequence not a deliberate choice. Even more so that the art would present the public with genuinely difficult moral and political problems. There are zero commercially successful movies of this kind in this day and age. Their emotional response to the movie repeatedly returns to one and only essential criticism: they liked the book better and they don't like the choices made by the directors and producers which is their right, but it is a tedious and insufferable criticism. It's as though they have never read a book and found the movie adaptation wanting or even unrecognizable despite it being very common.@@TCt83067695

@TCt83067695

4 ай бұрын

@@oleeb haha that's fair enough. Personally, I didn't see them as being offended. I just thought it was a vehicle for all 4 participants to have a deep conversation about black art in Hollywood and class politics. Also, I personally didn't see them lecturing audience. This is a very niche podcast for audience members of very niche leftist political leanings. If anything, I would say they were preaching to the choir with some of their critiques. Did you enjoy the back and forth tho? Because that's how I felt as a neutral person who hasn't seen the movie nor read the book, (so perhaps my assessment isn't as informed as you are), I found there were points where I agreed and disagreed with all of them. And that's why I liked the discussion. Let me know if you did too despite your criticism. ☺

@billyconnelly3568

4 ай бұрын

@@oleeb Jesus man, take a fucking breath and look at yourself. Who's hectoring and repeating themselves here more than you?

Why is this white man in the white shirt always speaking on black topics

@chaosandcreation4118

4 ай бұрын

He's Black.

@patrickvalencia3991

4 ай бұрын

Isn't he a light skin Black man? Or am I just trippin?

@bilaljones3635

4 ай бұрын

He's light skin

@jackohearts66

4 ай бұрын

Uh yeah I can tell without any squinting on my tiny phone screen that he's a light skinned black man. PS: Do you have the same pearl-clutching concern when a black guy is opining on a "white" movie?

@TCt83067695

4 ай бұрын

​@@patrickvalencia3991I think they're just being shady lol Pay them no mind

"middle class family" Bri? They lived in a beach house with a pool! You have a lot of things in common with Monk now that I think about.

Spoiler alert. Its about a self-centered upper class black author who exploits (somewhat resentfully) the upper class woke white liberal book market which promotes (and also exploits) the over-the-top and over-done stereotypical "poor n-word blues" stories that he despises being associated with. There's also some family issues that arises which he must deal with too, but none of it is connected to the main story, or portrays "black" issues specifically, or has a significant effect on the main character's personal development. The movie ends with him just accepting being a sell out (by his own definition) in his career and giving a head-nod to some black actor on a movie set playing a slave who looks his way and throws him a peace hand-sign. I think the movie was ulimately pointless and the story went nowhere. The only value it might possibly serve is a commentary on the business of "woke" hollywood and publishing world.

The gay son got offended after his mother with Dementia told him "I always knew you weren't a queer." Homophobia is not when parents prefer their children to be straight. She didn't call him the f word or hate him.