The American Society of Magical Negroes compromises when it shouldn’t

The American Society of Magical Negroes is an uncomfortable film for many reasons — most of them deliberate. The title spells this intention out plain as day. The film’s protagonist, a biracial Black sculptor named Aren (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-star Justice Smith), tiptoes through an art gallery — and his own life — as though he were perpetually walking across eggshells, consciously and unconsciously agonizing under the weight and expectations of the white gaze. Incapable of asserting the value of his work as an artist or his worth as a person — or simply unwilling to — he radiates an aura of discomfort that immediately draws the attention of Roger (David Alan Grier), a kindly older Black man who just so happens to be, you guessed it, a “Magical Negro.”

Kobi Libii’s writing and directing debut attempts to strike a balance between presenting a satirical secret society of Black men and women with magical powers, exploring Aren’s awakening awareness of his own needs and desires, and confronting the fragility of white expectations in the face of any attempts to highlight racism’s presence in everyday society.

Unfortunately, the film’s reach exceeds its grasp, resolving in a final act that feels like an contrivance born out of desire for a happy ending more than a satisfying or meaningful conclusion. The movie satirizes the prioritization of white people’s comfort above any other considerations, but then sidesteps those potentially high stakes for the sake of a pandering, facile resolution.

Early on in The American Society of Magical Negroes, Aren is recruited into a secret network of Black men and women who — in keeping with the trope Spike Lee identified in 2001 — comfort and support white people while voluntarily putting their own lives and desires on hold. Libii reveals a reasoning that explains the trope: The Society wants to mollify white people so they’ll be less likely to lash out against people of color.

Aren’s natural obsequiousness makes him the perfect candidate for this sort of work. His first client, Jason (The Other Two’s Drew Tarver), a disgruntled employee of a social media company called MeetBox, seems like a relatively easy fit for Aren’s particular skill set. But when the film introduces a love interest, MeetBox’s star employee Lizzie (After Yang’s An-Li Bogan), the film’s satirical focus begins to splinter into a romantic-comedy-adjacent fantasy that foreshadows the fatal misstep of the film’s ending.

Photo: Tobin Yelland/Focus Features

Throughout the film, Aren is torn between his feelings for Lizzie and his responsibilities to the Society, which strictly forbids him from pursuing a relationship with her once Jason takes an interest in her. During Aren’s initiation into the Society, he’s told that its magic is sustained by its members’ collective agreement to abide by the rule to appease white people, even at the cost of their own happiness.

He’s told that any failure to uphold this directive will compromise the abilities of everyone in the Society — so members who prioritize their own desires in any way will be immediately expelled, with their powers removed and their memories wiped. Faced with this ultimatum, Aren is forced to decide whether to continue repressing his own feelings and serve the interests of the Society, or eschew his responsibilities and risk forgetting he ever knew Lizzie.

[Ed. note: Significant spoilers for The American Society of Magical Negroes follow from this point.]

Image: Focus Features/Everett Collection

It’s a compelling conflict, one that forces Aren to consider his commitment in solidarity of a righteous cause (making the world safer for Black people) and his discomfort around the way coddling white fragility impacts his own life and happiness as a Black person. The American Society of Magical Negroes asks audiences to question why the “Magical Negro” trope exists in the first place, and the forms in which that trope continues to exist today. It asks whether the “Magical Negro” is an intrinsically American concept, and if so, why? These are interesting, provocative questions, ripe for the analytical clarity afforded by satire. That makes it all the more disappointing that Libii’s film balks in the face of its own challenge.

Aren ultimately decides to tell Lizzie his true feelings, in spite of the consequences. But when he’s unable to find her, he’s pushed to his breaking point by Jason, who expects Aren to serve as a token of diversity during a livestreamed global presentation of MeetBox’s new rebrand.

Image: Focus Features

Insulted, Aren confronts Jason during the stream and chastises him for his casual racism. His growing frustration with Jason’s inability to see how his words and actions impact other people climaxes with Aren giving an impassioned speech on the livestream. Finally, he asserts his own worth as a person, and speaks up for the validity of his thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

It’s a moving, cathartic moment, a necessary full-circle culmination of Aren’s character arc that eschews the Society’s servility in favor of brutal, vulnerable honesty. Knowing the Society will punish him for his insubordination, Aren uses his magical powers to whisk Lizzie away from MeetBox and confess his feelings for her, before he’s whisked away himself to face his punishment.

As Aren’s mentor, Roger is tasked with erasing Aren’s memories as part of his expulsion from the Society. But he can’t perform the spell, because Aren’s act of defiance has inspired other members of the Society to act in turn, fracturing the group’s solidarity and weakening their magic. Aren, having parted with the Society with his memories intact (and possibly his own magical powers? It’s unclear), reunites with Lizzie, and they walk off into the horizon together.

Image: Focus Features/Everett Collection

It’s meant as a feel-good ending — but even if it feels good in the moment, it quickly sours upon reflection. Allowing Aren to retain his memories on account of a technicality undermines the significance of his decision to be honest about his feelings and overcome his discomfort at the cost of losing his memories of Lizzie. He knows he might never see her again, but he still stands up for himself, and grows as a person because of it.

The complete lack of consequences for that choice — and the fact that Roger doesn’t seem to learn anything or make any similarly bold choice in turn — feels like a cop-out. The ending feels as false as a Magic Negro appearing out of nowhere to solve the hero’s problems: The twist is just shy of a deus ex machina, allowing Aren to have his cake and eat it too. In the end, The American Society of Magical Negroes prioritizes Aren’s relationship with Lizzie above his growth as a person, with Libii choosing to turn the film into a crowd-pleasing, fantastical romantic comedy rather than an incisive or satisfying satire.

There’s also the matter of the Society itself: By the end of the movie, its existence and philosophy remains fundamentally unchanged, with Aren’s defiance affecting almost nothing. The film presents this ludicrous, horrifying setup where magical Black people indenture themselves to white people to mediate racism, but it does very little to examine what’s wrong with that idea on a societal basis. It only considers how this setup doesn’t work for Aren specifically. The American Society of Magical Negroes leaves its biggest, most important questions unasked, and its potentially most relevant messages unexpressed. It’s evidence of a lack of courage to navigate difficult truths, a lack of clarity of purpose in its ultimate intent. No amount of magic can fix that.