I don’t know whether or not I’m Through with White Girls––a low-budget, semi-high-concept rom-com about a black comic book nerd who makes a conscious decision to stop dating girls who look like me in order to start dating girls who look more like him, but ends up falling for a girl who looks like Lisa Bonet in High Fidelity, except more so––has the power to ignite a real, widespread conversation about interracial dating and the contemporary politics of race+class+coolness (or lack thereof). But after last night’s packed-house screening at BAM, which was followed by a surprisingly feisty Q & A, I do know that White Girls has the power to make a Brooklyn blogger self-censor, and that’s a feat to which few films can lay claim.
It was the title that did it, more than anything actually on screen. Screenwriter Courtney Lilly says he figured out what to call the film before he’d fully fleshed out its concept––he was inspired by a song called “I’m Through With White Girls,” by punks The Dirtbombs, who are playing a show in Fort Greene on Saturday as part of BAM’s AfroPunk festivities. When asked at last night’s Q&A if the film was based off personal experience, the sometime Arrested Development writer quipped, “Personal experience of listening to a Dirtbombs song, yeah.”
The screenwriter’s “it is what it is” treatment of his film’s provocative appellation pleased the crowd, but producer Phyllis Johnson––sister of the film’s star and driving producer, Lia Johnson––characterised it as a punk-rock badge of honor **** niche marketing strategy. “This film is kind of finding a cult appeal,” she said. “[The title] initially limits the audience as far as commercial base goes, but ultimately it’s bringing a more engaged audience.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but no shit. Last night’s Q&A didn’t even get started until 11ish and it ran long, and yet most of the audience not only stayed, but seemed eager to participate in a real discussion. I’ve never seen such a thing on a Monday night in Brooklyn.
But it wasn’t all a lovefest. At one point during the Q & A, a youngish black woman settled in a front row to ask her question––which was really more of a statement of offense. “I’m a blogger,” she said. “And I have a lot of white girl friends. I was going to blog about this movie tomorrow, but I felt like all I would be able to say is, ‘I saw this really funny movie and I can’t tell you the name.’
A mermer spread through the crowd, soft at first but escalating quickly.
“Why couldn’t you say the title?” asked screenwriter Lilly, not quite indignant but clearly tired of audiences getting hung up on this very thing.
As if certain that she had an unassailable point, the blogger responded: “Well, what if a movie was called I Am Through With Black Girls?”
Lilly could barely get his answer out before the crowd erupted in claps and cheers. “I would go see that movie!”
The wall of noise soon faded into an un-miked, un-moderated discussion amongst audience members with occasional interjections from the filmmakers on stage. A blonde co-ed broke through at one point to make a political statement: “I just want to say, it’s perfectly okay to make fun of white people.” With more pressing issues to discuss, no one immediately took the bait.
It’s hard to describe how unlikely such a sit-in seemed whilst sitting through the sitcomish film itself. A broad comedy that occasionally suffers for its leads’ lack of comic chemistry, it’s essentially a Lost Man Child story of redemption, with race, class and cultural affectations serving as both armor and weapons in the war of intimacy. It looks surprisingly glossy for an indie shot in 24 days with a mostly handheld camera on the streets of Los Angeles, and tonally, it plays a lot like a race-conscious version of Swingers, but lighter on the so-true-it’s-painful sparks of humiliation comedy. At times, it feels a bit too picture perfect; commenting on a scene in which lead Jay (Anthony Montgomery) finds himself flanked on a bus by a swan-necked black girl by whom he’s obviously intimidated, and white girl with an easy smile who seems much…easier, an audience member quibbled: “Anyone who’s ever been on a bus in L.A. knows that the people don’t really look like that.” She paused. “Except on the Santa Monica bus.”
But even if it takes the film a while to work through the stereotypes it traffics in before it can critique them, there is some inspired comedy here waiting for the patient. Near-brilliant one-liners sometimes seem to drop from the sky out of nowhere, often from the mouth of Jay’s white best friend Matt, whose subplot involves a crash course in hip hop culture in the name of impressing a girl. And I love the film’s last scene, a fractured musical number/rite of humiliation so thrillingly weird that it defies any expectation of how a scene in which Our Hero melts hearts on the dance floor is suppossed to play out.
White Girls features a number of character actor veterans of 70s and 80s TV in supporting roles, including Richard Lawson and Johnny Brown in supporting roles (Lawson was credited simply as Angry Black Man in an episode of All in the Family). “It’s kind of a testament to how few good black roles there are that they wanted to do this indie film,” said director Jennifer Sharp. Likewise, there was a sense of gratitude in the room last night, which is surely testament to the paucity of films made with a young, racially mixed, politically and intellectually engaged audience in mind.
Or maybe everyone was just happy to have been spared a bit of sanctimonious bloggy hand wringing. For sheer virtue of who it upsets, White Girls would appear on the right side of the fight.
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SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth