American Non Fiction

This is Thelonious Ellison, aka Monk. It's also Stagg R. Leigh, aka Thelonious Ellison, aka actor Jeffrey Wright. 

If you've seen the movie American Fiction, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't seen the movie, you should. It's a minor masterpiece. I haven't viewed all the contenders for this year's grand Oscar but American Fiction leapt over previous favorites, Poor Things and The Holdovers. 

I still have 57 minutes of Oppenheimer left to watch. I might be done by March.

I'm still laughing over many of the scenes in American Fiction. And I'm still mulling over the premise which turns on itself. Not just once, but many times over. 

Again, IFYKYK.

Suffice it to say that it deals with the very tricky issue of race in America. And does so in such a delicious, clever way that I found myself smiling from ear to ear with what the first time writer/director Cord Jefferson pulled off.

Writing about movies is a trepidatious endeavor. It's almost impossible to unintentionally spill some details. Or inadvertently reveals some spoilers.

Writing about movies about race (as a decidedly white man or even as a Mud Person as the folks in Klan like call me) raises the difficulty level.  Exponentially.

And so I will wisely demure. 

But I can address the larger issue at play -- media narratives and media consumption. Both of which have an undue impact on our daily lives.

Last week it rained here in Los Angeles. It only rains here about 13 or 14 days a year. If we're lucky. And when it does, it's often nothing more than a light drizzle. When I lived on the East Coast it would rain every 4-5 days, or so. And NEVER merited any news coverage.

But because it's so rare and seemingly reduces the driving skills of millions of daily freeway drivers to that of ritalin-deprived 5 year olds at a bumper car amusement ride. It gets the full DEFCON 1 treatment. As a result I will often field calls or texts or email inquiries from friends Back East to the effect of...

"Are you guys OK? Has the crawl space under your house turned into a lake? Are you getting FEMA funds?"

Same kind of thing happens when there's a minor earthquake. 

Or a smash and grab robbery at the Puente Hills Mall.

It's all media conflation. And it's all done for ratings. And the precious few ad dollars that are being spent on news programs. Let's be totally frank here, Sean Hannity and Anderson Cooper are simply two sides of the same oily coin.

I suspect the same thing is going on with our former president's meteoric poll numbers. There is no way in the world Americans could possibly be that delusional. I hope I'm right. 

And if I'm not, I would hope a hero like Stagg R Leigh, would step up to the fore and preemptively smoke his sorry ass.