'The American Society of Magical Negroes' Director Kobi Libii and cast Justice Smith and David Alan Grier stop by The Hollywood Reporter's studio during the Sundance Film Festival to discuss their own experiences with racism. Plus, Libii talks about making a subject matter that's difficult to talk about, possible to discuss and Smith shares what in the script stood out to him the most.
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00:00 Because I've been in that situation so many times where a friend of mine, a white friend of mine,
00:05 is having big feelings about something racist that they did and I have to somehow alleviate
00:15 their guilt rather than focus on the ways that I'm hurt, you know? I've been in that position
00:21 like specifically through my adolescence, you know?
00:24 Racial confession.
00:25 Racial confession?
00:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28 Oh, like you're the priest?
00:29 Yeah, the priest.
00:29 Oh my god, yes.
00:31 The movie's called The American Society of Magical Negroes and it starts with a magical
00:37 negro trope which is a black supporting character who doesn't have his own internal life,
00:41 is just there to support the white protagonist. And our movie is a satire of that trope,
00:46 but it's also not just to sort of take down of this racist trope, it's also a way for
00:51 me as a writer/director to explore some particular defense mechanisms I was taught
00:56 in response to racism and it's also I think a very full-hearted love story about being
01:01 seen by someone who loves you and how nourishing that is in a culture that would rather
01:06 reduce you and see you as a stereotype.
01:08 Did you have any particularly egregious examples of that in pop culture that you were thinking
01:15 about when you made this?
01:17 Yeah, I mean there's certainly some stuff we reference in the film, you know, but you know
01:22 them, you all know them, you know, and it's an old trope as long as there have been white
01:28 people writing there has been this trope, you know, in America anyway. And one of the
01:32 things I say about it is that it's a happy slave trope is what it is, right? So it's
01:36 a trope that imagines that where a white person likes to imagine that black people just love
01:42 putting them first and just love fitting ourselves into existing white systems of power and
01:49 that's not true.
01:51 But funny.
01:52 Yeah, all the like very rich political stuff I said but funny, you know, but imagine David
01:59 Allen Greer saying it instead of a writer.
02:04 Part of the whole exercise is making this subject matter that's really difficult to
02:11 talk about possible to talk about. So part of that is humor but also it's fun. It's
02:17 the fun of a magical world and beyond that it's a bit of a metaphor because the things
02:24 black people have to do to survive in America are utterly fantastical and there's no better
02:29 way to express that than by creating a literally fantastical world that is a reflection of
02:35 again the wild and unbelievable lengths we have to go to to navigate this place.
02:39 David and Justice, when you guys read the script for the first time, was there one particular,
02:45 because you write a lot of examples of like seem like they could be exaggerated but they're
02:51 not. Did anything from the script like one particular scene or moment or interaction
02:55 pop for you right away? Your post strongest?
03:00 I'm bone dry.
03:01 I mean, I was just in awe that like my personal racial experience was captured so
03:14 accurately and beautifully and with humor and light but with just as much weight.
03:21 And that's obviously because, you know, me and Kobe have a very similar mode of moving
03:29 through the world. But I remember specifically the scene at the bar between Aaron,
03:38 Say it.
03:38 Say it.
03:39 Between Aaron, Liz,
03:41 And?
03:42 And Jason.
03:43 Good.
03:43 Because I've been in that situation so many times where a friend of mine, a white friend of mine,
03:51 is having big feelings about something racist that they did and I have to somehow alleviate
04:01 their guilt rather than focus on the ways that I'm hurt. You know, I've been in that position
04:07 like specifically through my adolescence, you know.
04:10 Racial confession.
04:12 Racial confession.
04:13 Yeah.
04:14 Oh, like you're the priest and they're going, "Oh my God, yes."
04:17 Have you ever had a friend who's gone to AA and they're going through their steps
04:21 and they call you up and, "Oh, I want to apologize about three years." Like, "We're good, man."
04:25 "Oh, but three years ago, I puked and I ate it. I just want to..." You're like, "Let's move on."
04:35 Yeah, fully.
04:36 The film is so much about who's the main character, right? Who gets to be central and who gets to be
04:41 in the background and obviously it's David, as he's made very clear.
04:45 Thank you. Finally, a film centering on the travails of an older, very naturally sexy,
04:52 black man.
04:54 But what David and Justice are both speaking to in terms of that confessional quality,
04:59 I think one way that white people can center themselves in conversations about race is
05:03 they make it, they ask us as black people to make them feel okay and take away their guilt
05:10 and absolve them of different things as opposed to, again, just listening to us in our experience.
05:14 I have a serious question. Have you ever been in that conversation and inside you know that
05:19 this person, they have fucked up, but you choose to go, "No, we're good." Because if you say
05:27 anything else, you're going to be there for two...
05:29 Pick and choose your battles.
05:30 I'm going to give you an example. I was on a plane sitting first class. It was not full.
05:37 So there was an older white man sitting next to me, total stranger. And right after we took off,
05:44 the stewardess says, "You can move around if you want to." So he left and went and sat somewhere
05:49 else. About an hour into the flight, he came back, obviously inebriated, to apologize for moving
05:56 away. I do not know this man. He came back a second time, even drunker. I know what you think.
06:04 You think you're calling me racist. And I just was like, "Whoa." This went on for the whole flight.
06:10 Oh my God.
06:11 Like it wasn't even about me. I'm a stranger. It was all about him confessing his racial...
06:20 And this is one of the things I want to tell you guys. See, I'm stuck right now.
06:23 And I'm going to make up a word. He kept... It's like he wanted to regurgitate his ineptiosity
06:34 to see.
06:35 Mm, yeah. Mm.
06:38 No, but for real. No, he came and it got more animated and more... He was arguing with himself.
06:44 Yes.
06:44 Like, "I know what you mean. I know what you're thinking. You're all silent,
06:49 sitting, 'I'm a racist.' That's what you..." I don't know why. It didn't get combative. It was
06:57 mildly combative until finally I acted like I was asleep. I mean, I'm telling you, this really
07:03 happened. I'm like, "This was all him." We never... I think we said hello. And so that was probably,
07:12 for me, the worst where you just, "Oh my God."
07:15 It's so funny because as black audiences, as any marginalized person can attest to,
07:21 we've had to find ourselves in white stories. We've had to find white characters that we
07:27 identify with for so long. And then now that we are centering ourselves in these stories,
07:33 white audiences for the first time ever are being like, "Oh, now I have to find myself,
07:39 even though no one in this looks like me. I really identify with this protagonist."
07:45 But that's where empathy comes from. That's where actual movement comes from.
07:51 And it's, with this piece, I think it's actually a terrifically universal piece because it's really
07:55 just... It's the story of a guy who has trouble speaking up for himself who learns how to speak
08:00 up for himself. And I think that independent of the racialized generation of that for myself and
08:07 for the character that Justice plays, I think that's something a lot of people from a lot of
08:10 different backgrounds can connect with. But yeah, but I think sometimes people look at a piece that's
08:15 labeled with race or has race associated with it. And white people, I mean, have... And worry
08:21 whether or not they'll be able to connect to it. But I think all stories are universal. The more
08:24 specific they are, the more universal they are.
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