I was very happy that Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Best Supporting Actress Award for “The Holdovers,” and I hoped Jeffery Wright would take home the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for “American Faction.”

A Black man and a Black woman winning two of the top awards at the same Oscar ceremony would be exciting to the power of ten. As I held that fantasy, I had trouble breathing. 

But it wasn’t to be, and I was deeply disappointed because I felt Wright deserved the Oscar.

Jeffery Wright, who plays Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a writer in the layered film about the complexity of Black life. 

“American Fiction” is a very complicated film, one that old Hollywood would never consider making, presenting Black people, their relationships, and their lives in authentic ways.

There weren’t any screeching tires and no fist fights.

Wright’s brother, played by Sterling K. Brown, is a plastic surgeon and a drug addict who regrets never telling his now-deceased father that he is gay.

Wright finally finds success in a trashy book called “Fuck” that caters to the White liberal imagination. 

His book is a success but has sent him into a tailspend. Wright writes serious books, but the trashy ones are selling.

Wright wrestles with the professional consequences of his newfound success while grappling with grief and shifting personal dynamics.

Cord Jefferson won Best Adapted Screenplay for “American Fiction.”

“American Fiction” has ushered a new look at Black life, and it’s not the new version of “The Color Purple.”