Posted on 07/09/2008
It was my master plan to write about the awesome Afro-Punk films altogether later in the week, but the New York City premiere of I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks), written by Courtney Lilly, made me change my mind. A romantic comedy that's not as centered around the title as you may think, "I'm Through with White Girls" is a literate tale of two misfits drawn together through their personal quirks and cigarettes.

After a string of failed relationships with the fairer hue, 30-year old illustrator Jay, embarks on "Operation Brown Sugar," in which he gives up White girls and looks for the sister everyone says he should've been dating all along. Of course, dating isn't all that easy for the well-to-do jetsetters of Los Angeles, so for a bus pass-toting comic book fiend with a penchant for PlayStation, things don't go so smoothly. He eventually meets successful author Catherine, who doesn't mind paying for their meals or driving him hither and thither. Jay does eventually realize that race wasn't the real reason his previous relationships didn't last, but there are so many other things he and Catherine learn about themselves, the way they see others and how Black people interact with one another, that the title is really just a small hook to get you in the theater (or a hump for all your friends to get over once they realize how good the film is).

Some stereotyping is impossible to avoid, though. A comment regarding the standard of beauty used in the film occurred during the Q&A as one male audience member applauded the everyday looks of the women in the film. Director Jennifer Sharp noted, though, that some viewers have questioned why the White women at the start of the film weren’t prettier. Though the film should be recognized for using average-looking women as opposed to Hollywood bombshells, the choice opens the door to the stereotype that Black guys date the White women that White men wouldn’t want anyway. Of course, the notion is implicitly racist by assuming one needs a good excuse, one based on physical attractiveness, for dating outside their race rather than finding the person of any color with whom your most compatible. But it also shows how difficult it is to break such ideas even when you are conscientiously trying to do so.

Completed two years ago, the film was shot in 24 days around Los Angeles and finally received distribution earlier this year. It will arrive on DVD in August (it's now available for pre-order on Netflix). I'm Through With White Girls reflects a welcome shift in Black independent film, where the filmmaker and writer don't confuse 'low budget' with 'independent' and churn out a thoughtless Tyler Perry facsimile or a ridiculous cautionary tale about familiar racial stereotypes. But they also aren't trying so hard to be different that they lose touch with reality. Like Sharp mentioned after the film, they were careful to tell the actors not to mock the lower class Black family. Instead, the film relates traditional Black tropes (the scene with the mother describing symptoms of the 'itis' to one of her bourgeois soon-to-be in-laws comes to mind) without resorting to plantation silliness. The laughs come from genuine places wrought out of a tight script, not contrived moments of 'time to teach the White boy to dance.'

As an added bonus, Alaina Reed Hall from "227" and Johnny Brown of "Good Times" fame co-star along with Lamman Rucker and Kellee Stewart from "My Boys." If you don't see the film to support quality work, at least go so you have an excuse to say 'Buffalo Butt' one more time.

- Candace L.