Tag: Black writers
‘American Fiction’ and the ‘Just Literature’ Problem
“Why are these books here?” asks Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the writer protagonist of the film American Fiction, as he points to four novels stacked neatly on the shelf of a chain bookstore. The name Ellison sticks out from their spines.
Monk wants to know why his Greek-tragedy-inspired novels are housed not in “Mythology” but in the “African American Studies” section. A bookstore employee offers the obvious explanation: “I would imagine that this author, Ellison, is … Black.” He has
Ta-Nehisi Coates: A Remembrance of Tony Judt
I always find it hard to list the books that have influenced me the most. Memory is tricky, and a work can assert its influences over my thinking long after I’ve forgotten its particular details, or even its title. Moreover, people who set as their job the task of judging what others do, and why, are not always reliable when turning the lens upon themselves. And then there’s the fact that any list of books that I feel made me,
Most of Hollywood’s Writers’ Rooms Look Nothing Like America
I. “You Can Hear a Pin Drop”
Carl Winslow, the protagonist of the ’90s sitcom Family Matters, wore his badge with honor. On the show, about a middle-class Black household in Chicago, Winslow (played by Reginald VelJohnson) loved being a police officer almost as much as he hated seeing the family’s pesky neighbor, Steve Urkel (Jaleel White), popping up in his home. Carl was a quintessential TV-sitcom cop, doughnut clichés and all. In one scene, he announces that he’s