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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Fifty Shades Of Black

FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK (Michael Tiddes). 93 minutes. Opens Friday (January 29). See listing. Rating: NN


The timing couldn’t be better for a Marlon Wayans comedy, arriving during peak Hollywood diversity crisis to throw some more shade at the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. If there were ever a purpose to these crass, imbecilic parodies, it’s to remind us that the closest black actors come to starring in something like Scream, Paranormal Activity or Fifty Shades Of Grey is when Marlon Wayans spoofs them.

So it goes with Fifty Shades Of Black, co-written and starring Wayans as a Nubian version of E.L. James’s Christian Grey who’s amassed his fortune by selling crack. 

Following the same beats as the movie being satirized – itself best viewed as an unintentional comedy – Wayans relies on predictable gags. People fall down, get smacked by elevator doors or whip out grotesquely large (or tiny) prosthetic dicks and testicles. 

Most jokes will make you cringe, while precious few warrant a laugh. Seen through the prism of the current controversy, some have more impact. Christian whines about how Kevin Hart is in every movie. He’s not, but the studios do rely on Hart to star in movies made for black audiences. When he’s in the red room preparing to punish Kali Hawk’s Hannah Steele, Christian browses the whips at his disposal, all named for some of the Oscar-nominated movies that actually star black people: Amistad, Glory, 12 Years A Slave and Django Unchained.

Touché.

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