Kobi Libii’s work on the sadly short-lived Comedy Central show “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper” always tended toward the confrontational. By donning the guise of right-wing media provocateurs, he highlighted the absurd internal contradictions of ideological hardliners.
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Everything about his feature directorial debut, “The American Society of Magical Negroes” would seem of a piece with that pugnacious posture. Yet the hard-edge stops largely with the fantastical concept of his satire. Libii’s film marks a personal reckoning with the titular trope, a stock character in storytelling who exists only to further the development of a white person. This tendency toward self-sacrifice, often deployed as a safety measure for Black Americans, becomes a literal superpower in his imaginative world.
Libii’s story follows the induction of mild-mannered visual artist Aren (Justice Smith) into a secret society of shadow operators for the benefit of Black people. Libii treats the American Society of Magical Negroes as earnestly as a spy thriller like “Kingsman” treats its spy agency. Through clever and humorous demonstrations of their “client services,” the hero learns about how obsequious Black helpers are more than just the product of a limited authorial imagination. In Libii’s reclaiming of the idea, magical negroes like Aren’s mentor Roger (a soulful David Alan Grier) possess agency in their quest to keep a fragile peace through the appeasement of white discomfort.
The rubber meets the road quickly for Aren as he gets his first assignment: an underachieving tech bro, Jason (Drew Tarver), who cannot square his confidence with his own mediocrity. His “white tears” meter runs dangerously high, to put it in the parlance of the film’s technology. But the protagonist’s sense of duty collides directly with his own desires as Jason’s entitlement extends to a coworker Lizzie (An-Li Bogan) on whom Aren has developed a budding crush.
Tucked inside Libii’s high-concept comedy is an earnest romantic tale between Aren and Lizzie that might initially strike as pulling focus from the film’s main narrative thrust. Yet with time, this storyline becomes the beating heart of “The American Society of Magical Negroes.” Libii understands that to critique an existing system has its purpose, but envisioning a different world also means providing replacement values. His film commits to building the very framework it wants to see in movies moving forward.
The scenes Aren shares with his love interest provide the space for self-actualization that the magical negro trope gives to white people and denies to Black sidekicks. Lizzie understands the turmoil inside Aren’s mind forms a kind of intimate violence perpetuated against oneself. It’s less visible than, say, the violence inflicted upon the Black body by institutions steeped in institutional racism. Yet on the strength of Justice Smith’s vulnerable performance, “The American Society of Magical Negroes” provides the chance for viewers to share in the defeating sensation of discrimination so insidious that people internalize it.
Libii’s film is not just going for the low-hanging fruit of mockery. It’s among the first major works in the post-George Floyd world to navigate outside the cul-de-sac of anti-racist book clubs. Acknowledging white fragility and discomfort as a root cause of societal strife is a necessary step to dismantle oppressive structures, but that alone will not solve issues. “The American Society of Magical Negroes” reconfigures privilege not only as a playing field for leveling but as a set of benefits that all should receive. Libii restores an element often lost in conversations about racial reconciliation – people of all races deserve the confidence and comfort that white people enjoy as a base state of being.
Apart from a climactic scene of on-the-nose monologuing that speaks the subtext a little too literally, “The American Society of Magical Negroes” makes its case in the form of a gentle nudge not unlike the stereotypical figure might. That’s the point. The fiercest resistance to a harmful categorization can often come from within by robbing the idea of its power.
Libii celebrates the extraordinary humanity displayed by magical negroes across time as a way to simply survive a world hostile to their very existence, but he does so with an eye toward why they must be superheroes in the first place. At the same time, Libii presents Aren’s journey toward prioritizing his own needs as fulfilling and unlocking the revolutionary power of Black self-worth. “The American Society of Magical Negroes” is a gracious work that both shows and critiques the very nature of humility. [B+]
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