Some people claim there’s an important statement about sexual abuse to be found in this student short from 2011. The thirty minute STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS, made for the American Film Institute, has attained a fair amount of well-deserved infamy as a gross-out horror-fest, but viewing it as anything more than that is, I feel, plain wrong.
…well-deserved infamy as a gross-out horror-fest…
The writer-director was Ari Aster, whose future films would come to include HEREDITARY (2018) and MIDSOMMAR (2019). Both demonstrate an affinity for the outrageous and overwrought, qualities very much in evidence throughout THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS.
The story: one morning the middle-aged Sidney Johnson, a successful African American poet, walks in on his twelve year old son Isaiah masturbating to a photograph. Sidney has a talk with the boy, assuring him that what he’s doing is entirely normal for a boy; what we’re not immediately shown is that the photo to which the boy is pleasuring himself is of Sidney himself.
Cut to 14 years later, when Sidney is ensnared in an abusive sexual relationship with the twentyish Isaiah. Sidney recounts the abuse in the form of a memoir he leaves for his wife Joan to read, but Isiah finds it before she can, and threatens his cowed father with violence. Joan, for her part, knows about the abuse but does nothing to stop it, yet when Sidney commits suicide by throwing himself in front of an oncoming truck Joan has no choice but to confront her son about his evil deeds.
In this early effort the young Ari Aster couldn’t resist some show-offy visual bravura (such as a lengthy tracking shot through an outdoor party and a dramatic confrontation visualized entirely through barred windows), but for the most part the film is well crafted and affecting. This is evinced by the many reaction videos posted on YouTube in which non-rich (and, for the most part, non-white) viewers are filmed watching THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS; their shocked and appalled reactions are priceless, and cast serious doubt on the claim that Aster had aspirations other than those of the shock-horror variety.
In this early effort the young Ari Aster couldn’t resist some show-offy visual bravura (such as a lengthy tracking shot through an outdoor party and a dramatic confrontation visualized entirely through barred windows), but for the most part the film is well crafted and affecting.
The most subversive aspect of the film is the fact that the entire cast is black. The long held idea that all roles played by African American actors must “Uplift the Race” wasn’t followed by this film’s cast and crew, who appear to have hewed to the attitude put forth by the African American actress/author Carol Speed, who once questioned “If Jane Fonda could play a prostitute, how come I couldn’t play one?…The white people never expected Jane Fonda to carry their moral issues. We were held to a different standard, and I felt that was so unfair.”
The performances are quite strong, particularly that of the veteran supporting actor Billy Mayo (1957–2019), who generates an enormous amount of sympathy as the put-upon Sidney. I don’t believe Mayo succeeds in elevating this film much beyond the context-free jolt-fest it is, but his work does help immeasurably in imparting an authentically shocking and absorbing viewing experience.
Vital Statistics
THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS
American Film Institute
Director: Ari Aster
Producer: Alejandro de Leon
Screenplay: Ari Aster
Cinematography: Pawel Pogorzelski
Editing: Brady Hallongren
Cast: Billy Mayo, Brandon Greenhouse, Angela Bullock, Daniele Watts, Carlon Jeffrey, John C. Johnson, Reatha Grey, Connie Jackson, Stanley Bennett Clay, Casey Desmond, Anna Jean, Matt Baker, Matthew McCray