‘Society’ is too timid to land any satirical blows
Writer-director Kobi Libii disappoints with mildly provocative film targeting racism.
As provocatively titled as it is, “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” actor turned writer-director Kobi Libii’s first feature, is neither the regressive atrocity that early online commentators feared nor the hard-hitting satire of systemic racism it may have intended to be. Libii’s debut lacks the potency of Boots Riley’s off-the-rails “Sorry to Bother You,” Jordan Peele’s chilling “Get Out” or Spike Lee’s underappreciated “Bamboozled,” which observed the Black experience with a blistering — and often blisteringly funny — perspective.
The central trope refers to Black movie characters whose sole purpose in a narrative is to aid the white protagonist in his pursuits. These “magical” individuals are presented here as collectivized into a secret organization whose members gain supernatural abilities. Their mission? Appeasing the white majority — not because they endorse such backward thinking but as a survival mechanism, to prevent impending violence.
Aren (Justice Smith), a young artist in L.A., exhibits an apologetic deference to white people, never taking up space — exactly what attracts Roger (David Alan Grier), an older, Nick Furylike associate of the Society, to recruit him. Libii spends what feels like considerable time going over the mechanics of the underground operation. Sequences inside the headquarters (accessed via a barbershop) visually call to mind the halls of Hogwarts in the “Harry Potter” franchise: walls covered with photos of early members and antique decor to drive home its status as a longstanding institution.
A clever invention is the “white tears meter,” a floating dial that those in the Society see when a white person is in distress. In infantilizing white people as entities oblivious to their own privilege and the trauma they inflict on others, Libii makes one of his most successful
statements, evincing the power dynamics at play in every aspect of quotidian life and, by way of absurdism, putting the responsibility back on white America.
Aren’s assigned white person is Jason (Drew Tarver), an average guy at a clichéd tech company. Their “friendship” moves along smoothly until Aren’s romantic ambitions with their co-worker Lizzie (An-Li Bogan), in whom Jason is also interested, threaten not only his mission but the entire Society (if one goes offscript, all lose their powers).
Smith has a knack for playing characters ridden with anxiety (he does so in a far better film, “I Saw the TV Glow”). That meek, boilingunder-the-surface persona works in a handful of chuckle-worthy instances as Aren struggles with the rules of his new high-stakes job.
Unfortunately, Libii leans too much on dialogueheavy exchanges to illustrate his concepts. These spelled-out articulations ring like segments from a lecture crammed into an overstuffed plot. Like a comedy sketch that overstays its welcome, “Society” undermines both its caustic intent and its romantic-comedy subplot. It’s not that the two are inherently incompatible; one can see that Libii introduced the latter to allow Aren to experience being seen beyond stereotypes. But there’s not enough time for the amorous liaison to develop into more than a schematic add-on.
The predictably speechified resolution, with Aren literally taking the stage to speak his truth, renders the sociopolitical critique mild and inconsequential, a disappointing outcome for a premise that had the potential to be truly incendiary.