If I had to water down my thought to one feeling it’s this: black Americans are faking being black Americans.
I've shared that thought, although I'm not as sure it's new. I haven't watched the movie, but I'll take your word for it that the performance lacks the authenticity of a Friday.
Most black people are interested in protecting an ethnic identity. I'd bet that number approaches 100% when it comes to black entertainers. Cynically, because ethnicity means a target demo to make money from. Less cynically, because they are responding to cultural norms that push them to be black, and actors, often annoyingly, consider themselves representative.
Maintaining a culture that can induct new generations requires understanding and conformity. Time and entropy weakens the ties to founding myths and common understandings. A culture then places more importance on fewer pillars, popular ideas, and easily identifiable signals. There are still many black people alive who can share personal experience that bonds them to the black experience. However, these people are dying. As they die fewer grandparents share the old understanding of Civil Rights, racism, victimhood, etc. Young black people can (and do) try fit their experiences into the broader cultural framework and society, in this case, helps facilitate it. But, since these individuals cannot always credibly sell their stories as the same old stories they can sound little off. Did you know 13 unarmed black men are killed by police each year?
It's not unusual to hear black people tired of being black because blackness imposes on them. The bits that outright blame black culture is a less public grievance, because there's taboos, norms, and bad words to call people who fight this type conformity. The most socially acceptable way to express this sentiment in the mainstream is to primarily fault white people for the cultural pressure or, in entertainment, blame the Jews. Even with a few naysayers, demand for blackness remains staggeringly high. Black people favor more blackness, the studios want more blackness, many white people want more, but the black people selling blackness today lived different lives than the story everyone wants and is familiar with. Those within the culture can choose belief, others that are most inclined can humor it, but for the rest of us this is more difficult. It requires talent to sell us on an update that aligns close enough with our own. Maybe Sinners as a production didn't have much talent, but a show like Donald Glover's Atlanta did.
Black people may have another Tyler Perry to rally behind, but it's also possible we'll notice more performative blackness as relatively unblack, untalented people contort themselves to try and fill that demand. Blackness has already been fully commodified and commercialized, so maybe we can call it post-commodified blackness? Uber commodified? Flanderization also comes to mind, but what is an identity if not some grade of caricature or stereotype?
That said, if you're just now noticing this, then it's more likely something has changed your perspective recently. This is an ongoing, decades long trend, and Friday is a part of it.
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I've shared that thought, although I'm not as sure it's new. I haven't watched the movie, but I'll take your word for it that the performance lacks the authenticity of a Friday.
Most black people are interested in protecting an ethnic identity. I'd bet that number approaches 100% when it comes to black entertainers. Cynically, because ethnicity means a target demo to make money from. Less cynically, because they are responding to cultural norms that push them to be black, and actors, often annoyingly, consider themselves representative.
Maintaining a culture that can induct new generations requires understanding and conformity. Time and entropy weakens the ties to founding myths and common understandings. A culture then places more importance on fewer pillars, popular ideas, and easily identifiable signals. There are still many black people alive who can share personal experience that bonds them to the black experience. However, these people are dying. As they die fewer grandparents share the old understanding of Civil Rights, racism, victimhood, etc. Young black people can (and do) try fit their experiences into the broader cultural framework and society, in this case, helps facilitate it. But, since these individuals cannot always credibly sell their stories as the same old stories they can sound little off. Did you know 13 unarmed black men are killed by police each year?
It's not unusual to hear black people tired of being black because blackness imposes on them. The bits that outright blame black culture is a less public grievance, because there's taboos, norms, and bad words to call people who fight this type conformity. The most socially acceptable way to express this sentiment in the mainstream is to primarily fault white people for the cultural pressure or, in entertainment, blame the Jews. Even with a few naysayers, demand for blackness remains staggeringly high. Black people favor more blackness, the studios want more blackness, many white people want more, but the black people selling blackness today lived different lives than the story everyone wants and is familiar with. Those within the culture can choose belief, others that are most inclined can humor it, but for the rest of us this is more difficult. It requires talent to sell us on an update that aligns close enough with our own. Maybe Sinners as a production didn't have much talent, but a show like Donald Glover's Atlanta did.
Black people may have another Tyler Perry to rally behind, but it's also possible we'll notice more performative blackness as relatively unblack, untalented people contort themselves to try and fill that demand. Blackness has already been fully commodified and commercialized, so maybe we can call it post-commodified blackness? Uber commodified? Flanderization also comes to mind, but what is an identity if not some grade of caricature or stereotype?
That said, if you're just now noticing this, then it's more likely something has changed your perspective recently. This is an ongoing, decades long trend, and Friday is a part of it.
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