The Bigger Picture: How two films explore Black narratives

Still of Jeffrey Wright from American Fiction — Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in American Fiction.

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In American Fiction, a successful Black author is frustrated by his inability to publish a book that doesn’t center on very specific issues that audiences and publishers have come to expect from Black writers.

In The American Society of Magical Negroes, a secret society of Black people with magical abilities covertly uses those powers to assuage the discomfort of white people.

Both of these films are explorations of how the stories of Black individuals and communities get told, whether pigeon-holed by narratives of poverty and violence, or used as tools to service a white main character’s journey.

In this month's edition of The Bigger Picture, where Houston Matters explores social and cultural topics in film, we consider what these two films have to say about Black voices and the expectations placed on them, particularly in primarily white spaces.

In the audio above, producer Joshua Zinn talks with Cary Darling, arts and entertainment editor for the Houston Chronicle, and Dr. Toniesha L. Taylor, associate professor of communication at Texas Southern University.