Scene 2 Seen Podcast: Cord Jefferson And Jermaine Johnson Address The Underlying Message Of ‘American Fiction’
deadline.comHello, and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen Podcast. I am Valerie Complex, an associate editor and film writer at Deadline. Today, for the final episode of 2023 (!), we’re talking to director-writer Cord Jefferson and producer Jermaine Johnson about their latest project American Fiction, which won theTIFF Audience Award.
The film stars Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, Erika Alexander and John Ortiz. American Fiction followsThelonious “Monk” Ellison (Wright), a respected author and professor of English literature.
But his impatience with his students’ cultural sensitivities is threatening his academic standing, while his latest novel is failing to attract publishers; they claim Monk’s writing “isn’t Black enough.” One night, in a fit of spite, Monk concocts a pseudonymous novel embodying every Black cliché he can imagine.
His agent submits it to a major publisher who immediately offers the biggest advance Monk’s ever seen. As the novel is rushed to the printers and Hollywood comes courting, Monk must reckon with a monster of his own making.
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