The hilarious disaster of ‘The American Society of Magical Negroes’

Those who can, teach. Those who can’t, but want their narrative told anyway, try satire.Somewhere in the basic code of screenwriting is a mantra that says, “Show don’t tell.” If you have a message, and you dispense it visually, audiences are smart enough to follow it and see the point. And if they watch and learn a lesson on their own—they become knowledgeable and feel empowered. Bludgeoning viewers with a message is pedantic. Counterproductive. Case in point.Writer/director Kobi Libii has decided to give credence to a trope about Blacks being subservient by nature, on demand or by bad circumstance. He ups that ill notion by creating a group of Black folks whose mission is to make white people feel comfortable. Like Mammy, played by actress Hattie McDaniel, did in Gone With the Wind. Or like actor Lincoln Perry did when he rode his Stepin Fetchit Uncle Tom persona to fame and fortune. You get the picture? McDaniel’s fawning, amiable mammy figure is one white audiences love—even now. What Perry left behind is an image of clownish submissiveness that is as rueful today as it was yesterday. It’s a self-defeating persona that’s been banished from public display for a long time,...