Photo: Greg Gayne/Peacock
Revisiting a Sundance panel with Black filmmakers whose work appeared at the festival in January, I was struck by what Aftershock filmmaker Tonya Lewis Lee had to say about the state of Hollywood and its fixation on gangsters and struggle. “Where’s the story about the tech bro who’s doing something?” Lewis Lee asked. “Where’s the story about the Black guy who’s MacGyver? Where is our Black Indiana Jones?” Lewis Lee thinks these projects are on the horizon — that the industry is waking up and realizing “what we really have to offer.” But I doubt such reform is possible. Is the industry waking up or is it realizing it can stripmine Black aesthetics — language, style, swagger — using Black…
