Final scene in ‘American Fiction’ brings home its broader message
Spoiler alert! We’re discussing important plot points and the ending of “American Fiction” (in theaters now) so beware if you haven’t seen it.
“American Fiction” is a satirical take on race, identity and family that turns extremely surreal, though its meta final scene gets real with a message about Black representation in pop culture.
In writer/director Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” Golden Globe nominee Jeffrey Wright stars as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a misanthropic academic having a hard time selling his latest novel. Making it worse: The publishing world wants a more “Black” book from him, along the lines of a stereotype-filled bestseller called “We’s Lives in the Ghetto” by writer-of-the-moment Sintara Golden (Issa Rae).
Out of spite, Monk writes a novel – under the pen name “Stagg R. Leigh” – filled with deadbeat fathers, gang members, drugs and rappers called “My Pafology” as a joke and convinces his agent (John Ortiz) to submit it to white book editors. They love how edgy it is and fast-track it for publication, leaving Monk scrambling for ways to promote a novel from an escaped convict who doesn’t exist and navigate a series of increasing lies.
“The story is about a man and a book and his frustrations with the publishing world, but that really is metaphor for dynamics that exist in terms of messaging and misrepresentation across the landscape of American society,” Wright says.
At the end of the film, a Michael Baytype director named Wiley (Adam Brody) buys the rights to Monk’s book (which is renamed a four-letter word that begins with “f”) for $4 million but needs to work through the ending with Monk while on the set of the filmmaker’s latest blockbuster “Plantation Annihilation.” That plays out in meta fashion at a literary awards dinner where Monk has to decide whether to come clean or not, and multiple scenarios unfold, including one where cops shoot Monk dead on stage thinking he’s a dangerous wanted man.
Wiley loves the bloody finale option and Monk leaves the soundstage, defeated, when he notices a young extra with AirPods (cast as an enslaved character) resting between takes on the studio lot. The actor throws Monk a peace sign, and Monk gives him a knowing nod before driving off in a convertible with his brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown).
That last scene is “incredibly important,” says Jefferson, as it shows how far Monk has come from the isolated man at the beginning of “American Fiction” who considers himself superior to Sintara and artists like this supporting actor for giving into stereotypes.
Before, “he’s on his high horse and just like, ‘You guys are doing it wrong,’ ” Jefferson says. “And in that moment, Monk is coming out of this meeting in which he’s had to sell his soul a little bit in order to get this movie made and tell his story. He finally understands that like, ‘Oh, being mad at these people on the ground with me is ridiculous.’ In fact, these people are operating within a system at an institution that has existed far before any of us.”
Two earlier scenes set the stage for the finale, including one where Monk writes the opening pages of “My Pafology” and interacts with his on-page characters (played by Keith David and “Hamilton” alum Okieriete Onaodowan). Having “a little dollop” of metaness was key “so that the ending wasn’t just a total left turn,” Jefferson says.
The other sequence is a confrontation between Sintara and Monk: She argues that “giving the market what it wants” is the easiest way to have her stories read while Monk would rather have the walls of this system broken down and people see the “unrealized potential of Black people” in America. “Potential is what people see when they think what’s in front of them isn’t good enough,” she tells him.
It’s not until later when Monk sees the actor when he finally realizes Sintara’s point and they’re both doing “what you need to do in order to live a creative life,” Jefferson says. “This is what people are offering you and it doesn’t demean you or diminish your abilities. So Monk giving him a wave and a head nod is like, ‘I see it.’ It’s finally his connection with the rest of the world.”
Monk’s reconciliation with his views makes him “less arrogant in a way,” Wright adds. “He’s learning to perhaps accept his own flaws and accept the flaws outside of it, and also allow for a greater complexity and a heterogeneity in the Black community. Maybe in some ways he was more like the thing that he criticized at the beginning than he understood, and perhaps in that moment there’s a slight realization of that.”