The 'American Fiction' Trailer and the Unfathomable Depths of Publishing
From Orion Pictures, Amazon (LOL) MGM Studios, somehow! What is this world?
The other day I was scrolling through Bluesky and saw someone post this trailer. It’s a movie I had no idea even existed, nor was I prepared for how on-the-nose it would be. It’s… incredible.
You need to watch that. I also need to see this movie when it comes out.
The very clear message here is about the black experience in America, and how a majority of the white public are looking to hear the same tired beats from black people (note: your dear author here, me, is very white). They want to lament in the grit and grime, to get to what they believe is the “core” of the black experience. If you’re fortunate like me, you have a few black writers you can call a friend and have discussed some of this with them. If not, maybe you’ve at least seen this kind of discussion elsewhere.
This movie isn’t pulling any punches in that regard.
… but that’s not all it’s doing, either. The target is the publishing industry, and it’s so absolutely spot-on that, of course, it came from someone within the publishing industry. It’s based on the 2001 book Erasure by Percival Everett, and largely targets the 90s publishing industry and its treatment of black writers.
What’s staggering is that it’s difficult not to see the modern publishing industry reflected in just this trailer alone. Has so little changed since 2001? It sure feels that way.
There are always calls for diversity in publishing, which is frankly not just a “good thing” but necessary. But much like most of the arts and entertainment industries, that diversity tends to fit into neat molds. There are expectations on writers to fit a mold or fill a quota, or to say something “profound” when the profundity adheres to a narrative. Last year I picked up a book by a black author that had a cover filled with superlatives about how important it was, how unique the voice was and so forth. Nothing about the book was subpar. The writing was sharp, characters interesting, but it just… it was the quintessential “black story” that you’ve seen/read/heard before.
Just like how queer books tend to be about running away from abusive families, cathartic coming out stories or sexual assault, women’s lit errs toward female empowerment and breaking free from a domineering man, books from the Middle East are about fleeing war and finding nothing but heartbreak, neurodivergent books about the pain of being unable to fit into a neurotypical world, etc., etc., etc.. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of absolutely fantastic books that fit these molds, some of which I love dearly, but it’s difficult to see there’s very little other than those stories from said groups of people.
How many books filled with the ennui of being a well-off white New York writer have I consumed in my life now? The burden of being a writer bullshit slop that the publishing industry tends to love. If my main complaint about indie publishing is how rote genre trope adherence has to be, it’s no different in traditional publishing, it’s just different corners of an ever-present “market.”
Writers who’ve been in the query trenches of late know the pains of the current market. The vast array of fresh-faced agents who all seem to have the exact same “manuscript wishlists” filled with a mashup of the last twenty years of popular YA, commercial bestsellers, whatever’s buzzing on BookTok, and a laundry list of Walt Disney and Netflix IPs they’d love to see work just like is exhausting.
Never mind those times when you send the exact kind of book an agent says they’re looking for, only to get a reply that they’re already have a queer/black/etc. book in their portfolio. Silly writer, you didn’t realize there’s a quota at play! Even if it’s not the agent’s fault, and just the perception of publishers, the end remains the same; where diverse experiences are flattened into digestible torture porn for the curious “ally” to consume and talk about how powerful and enlightening it all was.
This robs artists of their agency, an industry of the true power to tell unique stories, and readers from deeper experiences with art and the world around them.
The world is a complex, sometimes brutal place, and art is there not just to make us feel warm and fuzzy, but to give us deeper insight, provide different perspectives and challenge us in new ways.
Here’s a list of cool books I tossed together. Check them out.
Be good to each other. Consume and create cool, meaningful art. The world needs it.