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By Frazier Tharpe
American Fiction, director Cord Jefferson’s first feature film, drew favorable comparisons to similar older films that address how black entertainment is perceived and commodified through white guards, such as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled. But for those in the know, the quickest benchmark because Jefferson’s story about Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a clever man who only advances in the e-book industry when he indulges in writing a tacky drama, is Robert Townsend’s 1987 seminal film Hollywood Shuffle.
Townsend wrote the film, his first film, with Keenan Ivory Wayans, prior to In Living Color, as a reaction to the difficulties they faced as up-and-coming black actors. But where others would have discovered the pleasure of demoralizing, Townsend, along with Wayans, delved into the absurdity of it all and, from those indignities, gave rise to a biting, but also warm, lighthearted, and hilarious satire of the black Hollywood experience that still stands some 40 years later.
Although Jefferson’s film is more directly an adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, he has been open about the effect Townsend’s film had on him from an early age. As American fiction continues to win awards, the song of five Oscar nominations, GQ has brought together Robert Townsend and his “cinematic son,” as he refers to Cord, to compare and contrast their other, though in the end very similar, approaches to Hollywood satire, the current state of black artists in the industry, and how to move forward after a milestone in an industry he likes to flatten creativity.
GQ: Cord, what was your first experience when you discovered Hollywood Shuffle?
Cord Jefferson: I was probably nine or ten years old when I first saw it. And what struck me was that when you’re that age, it’s time to be more informed about the origins of this country, about slavery, about the civil rights movement. And the way they teach you those things in this country is you watch a lot of movies. So I don’t forget to watch this documentary called Eyes on the Prize in class, and Mississippi Burning, about the 3 civil rights activists who were murdered in Mississippi. And I love those movies, but they’re essentially horror movies. You’re looking for real shots of Freedom Riders getting hit in the head, cops attacking other people. Mississippi Burning, you see Klansmen burn down other people’s homes. You see other people being lynched. I had nightmares for weeks after watching this movie.
And then, one day, I saw this movie called Hollywood Shuffle and I realized: Oh, those guys talk about racism, but they do it in a way that’s meant to make you laugh. Every scene is meant to make you laugh. I didn’t know what the word satire meant, but there was this revelation that there’s more than one way to expand empathy and there’s more than one way to communicate about these things. And you don’t have to communicate it in a serious, super way. In a dramatic, painful, and scary way, you can communicate it and make other people laugh, and you can expand empathy that way.
And not only that, but you can also help other people who are going through this to find a little bit of joy in the struggle and to find a little bit of joy in the misery, and remind people that yes, despite the hardships, it’s important. Laugh and it’s vital to locate joy. So, for me, I think Hollywood Shuffle is probably the. . . I don’t know if it’s the first piece of satire I’ve seen, but I do know it’s the first piece of satire that had an effect on me. And I think that effect has become profound for me and I started looking for that kind of thing in my life. And honestly, I think there’s a direct line between watching Hollywood Shuffle and being drawn to the novel Erasure and doing American fiction.
Robert, as a veteran now, is this a familiar story that you hear from other Black artists in Cord positions: this concept of the Hollywood Shuffle being that touchstone or that reference point?
Robert Townsend: When you make a movie, you put it out into the world. And Keenan and I were true to ourselves. We love everyone, but we felt there was an injustice with Hollywood Shuffle and we auditioned. for those papers, and they put us in a box. But we thought it was fun. “Oh, are you going to that audition today?” Like, “Oh yeah, they were looking for you to be the slave? Yeah. ” , man. ” I don’t forget that every character had a black name, like, “Boot, come this way. ” Like, “Man, have you read about Licorice? I also read about Boot. “
“Licorice” is outrageous.
Townsend: It was the black names. “8 bullets. ” And it was funny to me, because they had the snitch, and the snitch was in a pool hall. And this guy was really smart, he said [adopts snitch voice] “The guy you’re looking for is on The Third Floor, honey. ” He has the Wall Street Journal in his hand: “Do you want some advice?” And I say, “If this guy is so smart, why is he in a pool hall?”
When I watched American Fiction, I thought, “Cord is my cinematic son. “Because you plant seeds and you hope someone will say, “Oh, those are breadcrumbs, and the long run is there. “Things are so heavy that they call it traumatic pornography, which I really believe, because after you see it, you become desensitized.
I’ve always looked at cinema, movie making, television, as planting seeds. I planted a seed with Hollywood Shuffle, and I wanted to say something with the film, and I think we did, but I never knew what people would take away. So to hear that he was this little kid that saw it and that he was able to go, “Oh, there is another way.” It doesn’t have to be the heavy-handed, [adopts dramatic voice] “Y’all can’t lynch my family,” that thing. There’s some comedy in there. So when I saw American Fiction, I laughed my butt off, I am not going to lie.
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And when I found out it was his first film, I was like, ‘Get out of here!’I watch videos all the time. So when they sent it to me, I started laughing and then I thought, “This isn’t the first time. “This guy is a seasoned professional, what is he?Cord is designed for this, so it’s no surprise. But I feel blessed that anything I created has stimulated something in his brain somewhere.
So there’s also this other element, where there’s the underlying implication that, given the amount of time that’s passed between those two films, some things have been replaced and others, unfortunately, haven’t been replaced, right?The character of Jeffrey belongs to the literary genre. But it also reflects the film industry, as well as the archetypes and boxes in which we are placed. So how about you, Robert, looking at something like American fiction and finding that it reflects the problems you faced?almost 40 years ago?
Townsfinish: Well, the game goes on. We still want more balance. There are more movies, more TV screens with other people of color, but I think there’s a void where quality, for me, is the bar. And that’s what happens. A lot of writers still live with that. A lot of other people are still wondering, “Can you bring me something with a character like this?It has to come from the neighborhood. ” Can he just get out of jail?So when I watch [American Fiction], the movie is full of love, because at the end of the day, it’s about where we are and you don’t have to be overbearing.
There are gangster exhibits and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when I look at the movies that come out, we never play on this kind of canvas. So I think there are films that break through and then there are films that are part of this same canvas. I need to see more movies painted like that, smart, funny, that say things. Jeffrey Wright’s functionality is so sophisticated and nuanced that it feels so fluid. He’s like a brother who’s lived in the literary world all his life and knows the game.
And so when he says, “Oh, this is what they’re buying,” we see it all the time in the industry, where they say, “This one got the soft green. Oh, they gave this one the soft green. ” And then it comes out and you say, “Okay, we haven’t discovered anything new here, yet it’s somebody’s appetite that went through this movie, but it’s not for me. “Every once in a while, we have videos that remind us of where we are, where are we as artists, where are we as artists of color?
Jefferson: Hollywood Shuffle came out in 1987. So, wow, it’s been 37 years this year. And Erasure, the book I adapted, came out 23 years ago this year. So we had a black woman audition for the movie. She was seventy years old and before the audition she was asked, “Do you have anything to ask Cord?” She said, “No, I just need to tell you something: I can’t, they’re letting you make this movie. ” “
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I said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “I’ve been in this industry for over a century, and those are conversations I’ve had with other people for just as long. We are talking about that. “.
The film’s themes are not new. Which is a bit heartbreaking, right?This inflexible restriction on how black lives look new, which is sad, because it’s still applicable in 2024.
But what I did need to shift a little bit, what I updated from the novel is that in the novel, the publishers and the film producer who are interested in Monk’s work are far more, I would say, predatory. They see dollar signs and that’s about it. The thing that I needed to shift a little bit is that in the film, [those characters] believe that what they’re doing is morally right, their heart is in the right place. They’re saying, “Well, I’m telling Black stories—isn’t that what you want? I’m an ally.” That’s why we hung up the Ruth Bader Ginsburg posters on the publisher’s wall. It’s like, this is a woman who clearly has this liberal bent, and believes that her heart is in the right place. And she’s blinded by the fact that there’s still some prejudice here. There’s still some bias that you are not seeing, there’s a blind spot that you have. The [white producers and publishers] in the film are, I would say, the kind of liberal who puts up the black square on Instagram and they’re like, “I did my part.”
Your two films are also successful in that meta-element, that of being successful with white audiences. . . I told Robert that my father said he had noticed Hollywood Shuffle with a giant organization of his white colleagues and they laughed at all the jokes. Basically, is it fun to thread a needle when you make a movie like this and then put it on the line in front of the audience, which is a bit satirical?
Townsend: Well, at the end of the day, it’s all about a universal theme. Yes, I’m looking at it through the lens of people of color, but Italian actors are all up for mobster [roles], Asian actors [can relate]—so everyone is put in a box. Over the years, there’s been so many different actors that come up and they go, “Man, I’ve been in a box, and your film made me want to make a movie,” or, “I saw myself even though I’m not Black.” I grew up on classic comedy, I go back to the Sid Caesar Show. One of my favorite directors is Billy Wilder. And there’s a certain humanity that was in [his films], that even though I don’t know that world, it made me laugh. When I think about Elia Kazan, who made one of my favorite films, A Face in the Crowd, he was able to say something in a very funny way and he had layers to it. And so for me, starting out as a comedian, I go, “Is this a joke just for Black people? Is this joke for white people? Is this just a joke for men?” And when Keenan and I were working on Hollywood Shuffle, we were like, “These are universal jokes that everybody can [relate to]…” If you got a brain in your head, you’re not going to go like, “I’m mad at that joke.” It’s like, “Oh my God, that is funny. He’s running away and now there’s a Black acting school,” and then the instructors are teaching these brothers how to do it. And that’s really what happened to me, because there was a cat that was telling me, [adopts British voice] “No, no, no you get out of the Cadillac and you pimp slap her.”
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Happened?
Townsend: Sucedió. De here comes [the sketch for the film] Black Acting School. Because this guy was an English director who was making a film about pimps. [reverts to English accent] “And you say to Shondaquandaniqua, ‘Get out of the Cadillac, it’s holding on. ‘You, you need your newspaper. ” And I don’t forget him when he told me how to be black, and he said, “Walk like this. You’re bad. ” And I did.
We have just discovered the universal comedy that, if you came to take a walk with us, you would enjoy. But Bobby Taylor gives us hope. We’ve added that little piece of heart.
I guess they’ve been in similar situations, where Cord, after winning the Emmy and especially now, and Robert, after you released Hollywood Shuffle and then directed Eddie Murphy: Raw, I’m sure they got offers. of things you were satirizing, right?
Jefferson: Oh man, the incoming calls after that were incredible. I’m wondering: have you seen the movie? Things have improved, I’m optimistic, in the sense that I believe incremental replacement is replacement and we deserve to recognize that. So things have improved, to be sure, but we still have a long way to go before justice is achieved. It’s only when we really understand the breadth and intensity of the stories that other people have, and I think that’s the reality. And so, yes, I’m thankful for the incoming calls. I appreciate it when other people think of me. But yes, that’s a lot, you mean the first manufacturer of black toothbrushes?
And I’m like, “That’s great, I’m satisfied with this black user. “However, the other whites don’t have to make videos about icons all the time. The other white people can just make videos about guys, about women living their lives. Lives. They don’t want to be noticed as big old figures, it’s enough that it’s just a user, and it’s cool to be just a user, and that user also has an attractive life. Other blacks murdered by the police arrive. . .
But even those who say, “Well, it’s a celebration, it’s a triumph. Don’t we need to recognize this story user? And it’s like, I’m pleased with this story user, but why not?” Do black films have to communicate about the special of the special? The cream of the crop? Why can’t he just be a man? Why is this possible? Isn’t it just a woman? Why can’t he just be someone who lives his life and the struggles they go through without being the guy from the early Black X? That is the question I ask myself and it remains a question. This is a real scourge for the industry, which still suffers from thinking: “Could we just communicate about these other people as human beings, instead of. . . “
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A question I’ve been asked by other people is, “Do you think you could have made this movie when the book came out in 2001?”And I think it’s an attractive experiment idea, but there’s another thing that I think is that I wonder if this movie could have been made if it didn’t have satirical elements, it just talked about the Black family. Could it have been created if it was just other black people living their lives?Could I have told this story? I don’t know if this film could have been financed, but unfortunately not.
Comparing the two endings: Cord, your film ends on a more ironic and unbeatable note.
Jefferson: yes, I think the ending is a little bittersweet. For me, Monk’s adventure has made him realize that this is a systemic challenge and an institutional challenge. And this concept that he had at the beginning of the movie, that artists like Sintara Oro is what happens to the world, he realizes that his anger is wrong and that he directs it against people. He directs his frustration at other individual artists and not at the entire establishment that exists, that has existed for generations even before those. Artists were born.
He acknowledges that he has to play along if he needs to direct the film, but the sweetness comes through and confirms that his brother is there and through it all, he has figured out his way back to those basic dates in his life. To me, this is the film’s genuine love story, between siblings. I like non-romantic love stories, I think they’re vital in movies, and I think it’s a movie that’s about feeling love.
Do you also know what the craziest thing is? I hadn’t noticed Hollywood Shufflle for a minute before making the movie. And then after you and I did the AFI Q&A, Robert, I went home because my nephew was in the audience. and my nephew had never noticed Hollywood Shuffle, and I was like, “Oh, let’s go home and watch Hollywood Shuffle after this. ” And he had forgotten about the end of the meta-post office, that’s how it was.
And I got goosebumps when I saw it. I thought, “This movie is so buried in my brain that I had forgotten about it. “And I wonder at some point in the making of my film, did it end at some point?My psyche? It was incredible. And what better ending to this film. Oh my God, man, it’s so wonderful.
Townsend: Thank you.
Robert, after directing this film in 1987, how does it feel to see the adjustments that the industry has gone through today?I think about some of the things they probably experienced: One thing that comes up frequently is that other people communicate about the days when networks like The WB and Fox did a lot of dark comedies, like their show Parent’ Hood, and then aired them for shows like Dawson’s Creek. So when we get here, in the 2020s, how does it feel to weigh the pros and cons of our progress within the industry?
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Townsend: Well, here’s the thing: We’ve made a lot of progress. There are more showrunners [of color], more creative [of color] than ever before. There are other people of color running the studios. Orion, which produced American Fiction, is run by a woman of color. But I still think there’s. . . Well, then I’m going to vote for the Academy, right?Then we get the list of movies, let’s say 386 movies have been made. I go through the list and look at all the videos, and among that harvest are 25 videos that everyone will be talking about. And then I look at all the color videos, like, “OK, how many black films have been made?
And then how many were painted on another canvas? Not many. And then I say, “Are there any quality issues? So I think about Hollywood Shuffle and I know we’ve planted a lot of seeds, because the movie helps keep getting across, [and] the actors say, “Man, I went to an audition and the line went straight out of Hollywood Shuffle, and the casting director didn’t even know about it.
The great thing about videos is that once they come out, other people are staring at them and new concepts emerge. And it’s funny, because I had no idea about it until you talked about the end of Hollywood Shuffle and American Fiction. because she’s dating her brother, because then it’s like, “We’re in this together. “
And let me say this about adventure as well, because Cord, right now the time has come. It’s a lovely moment. When I had my moment, you were getting all the scripts in the world. And they all said, “This one, this one, that one!”
And the real challenge is that a lot of things you don’t do, because you created anything that you were passionate about. And I said no and I still say no to things, because at the end of the day it’s greater to love. If you’re going to spend two years on a movie, you better like it, because if you take the paycheck and it’s not the right thing to do, that’s what’s a little scary. If you say, “Well, yes, I think I can make an epic movie about Buckwheat [Little Rascals]” and sell your soul. . . now, with you, Cord, the global is yours now, so it’s like, how do you move, how are you going to move?
Because you won the gift and now you’re wondering what your paintings will look like in the future. And that’s crazy, because you made the movie and you knew what you wanted to say. And yes, there are other people in your ear, but at the end of the day. . . When I saw the film, I thought, you have a workforce with the material, with the actors. Jeffrey Wright is so flexible, all flexible, in your hands, they would never have been—not even Leslie Uggams—they would never have been better. So now the only thing left for me is: can we get more?More of everything that comes to mind, authentic, true to you, in the next canvas?Because Hollywood will offer you everything and then you’ll have to say, “I don’t need to do this” and [someone will say], “So you don’t need to make this movie about Pimp Man?
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