Opus & The Middle Perspective

With love and compassion, I don't think anyone gives a fuck about what you feel, love, or hate.

How would you feel if your partner said that to you? In Mark Anthony Green's Opus, Kent (played by Young Mazino), says exactly those words to his presumed girlfriend, Ariel (played by Ayo Edibiri).

Those words, delivered with affection and calm, sound more like care than cruelty. But the content itself? Harsh? True?

What do you think?

In the opening sequence of Opus, Ariel pitches a feature story about music artist Tamra Camden. Then, despite a positive response from her boss, Green highlights Ariel's invisibility when her boss immediately turns to another colleague to confirm his idea to assign Ariel's story to another writer.

In the next scene, Ariel sits with Kent for lunch, and processes her thoughts and feelings about her lackluster writing career. It's in this sequence that Green offers us a perspective to identify with as we watch the film. While this lunch scene may not feel as glossy or pointed as some of the film's satirical moments, it's quietly essential. It is the emotional and philosophical backbone of the film.

The scene also offers us something rare in American media: a quiet, un-performative moment between two people of color discussing ambition, voice, and creative doubt--without spectacle, and without trauma.

Kent Speaks the Truth & Green's Message to the Audience

After Ariel explains her career path to creative autonomy (write about famous people, then she will be interesting, then she can write books!), and lamenting her lack of progress, Kent asks her if she just wants to vent or if she wants actual advice. When she replies, "I'm open," he begins by telling her that no one gives a fuck about what she feels, loves, or hates – essentially, no one gives a shit about her opinion.

Can you imagine your significant other telling you that?

Well, it might be true – why do we find ourselves so self important? Why do we bother to create online profiles and post to Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok?

Kent's calmly delivered harsh reality is disarming. The content of what he says hurts Ariel, but he couches the painful observations with love, listening, and presence. Perhaps in this exchange, Green establishes the tone of Opus overall: reality might be fucking awful and insulting, but since we're going to sandwich the pain with kind words and cover everything in a pretty aesthetic - it's fine. Right? It's fine.

The Creative Dilemma: Do You Need a "Reason" to Tell A Story?

This scene cuts to the heart of something many writers and creatives quietly fear: Am I interesting enough to matter? Are my thoughts, values, ideas, and conflicts actually important enough to make art about?

Ariel's impulse is familiar. She is unconcerned with her own personal significance, so she tries to write about someone else's. Someone with celebrity. Impact. "Weight." Many storytellers start this way. You piggyback on what people are already paying attention to--then slowly, maybe, you build enough credibility to turn inward and tell your own truth (note: am I doing this right now by writing about Opus while it's trending on HBO Max? Gasp. Sigh. Ugh.)

We can see this arc with filmmakers like:

• Ryan Coogler, who directed Creed and Black Panther before creating Sinners
• Greta Gerwig, who adapted Little Women and helmed Barbie before stepping fully into auteur territory
• Donald Glover, who went from Community and stand-up to Atlanta, where he masterfully blends the lines between identity, artistry, and commentary

So Ariel's dilemma? It's real. And it's not "just" about race, or class, or gender, or genre - those "non-middle experiences" (according to Kent). Ariel's dilemma is about her voice. Her perspective.

Identity, Privilege, and the "Middle POV"

Kent describes Ariel's position as "middle." She's not wealthy, but not poor. She has stable parents. She hasn't experienced major trauma. She's not exceptional in any visible way. In a culture that thrives on exceptionalism and spectacle, being "middle" can feel like being invisible.

Sidebar – “Middle America” is a mythic idea, not a geographic or demographic category

When people use the term "Middle America," they often mean more than just “the middle of the country.” It’s a symbolic phrase, used in politics, media, and culture to evoke a certain kind of American identity—one that's often imagined as:

• Geographically: rural or suburban regions in the Midwest, South, and parts of the interior West. (Places like Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, etc.)
• Culturally: traditional, church-going, family-centered, patriotic, and community-oriented.
• Economically: working or middle class—neither wealthy nor impoverished.
• Racially: often imagined as white (even though this isn’t accurate or comprehensive).
• Politically: "common sense," "heartland values," usually coded as conservative or moderate, though not exclusively so.

But these are generalizations. The idea of Middle America is often used to flatten diversity and suggest a monolithic “real American” identity—one that politicians and marketers like to reference, but which doesn’t actually reflect the complexity of the country.

It’s also worth noting that Middle America is often positioned as a foil to:

• Coastal elites (New York, California, DC, academia, Hollywood)
• Urban centers (diverse, progressive, multicultural cities)

In 2025 America, depending on your walk of life, your experiences, and how you identify, your feelings about discussions of race, class, and gender could be really supercharged, angsty, frustrated, triggered, overwhelmed, angry, apathetic... anything, really.

I'm going to guess that the more conservative, white supremacist and/or Christian Nationalist, leaning person would watch a film like Opus and find it an annoying piece of woke nonsense trash.

Meanwhile, a more progressive leaning, self-proclaimed ally might watch Opus and judge Ariel for perhaps trying to succeed in white corporate media and systems.

And an abolitionist person that can hold many complex truths at the same time might watch Opus and just think "you do you, Mark Anthony Green," and it depends on the person how they receive and accept this film.

But if we imagine "middle America" and a "middle perspective" where the majority of people are:

• not experts on discussing race, class, and gender
• not consuming all kinds of intellectual/academic literature on these topics
• wanting to be kind and live in a just world
• are aware of prejudice, bigotry, and racism either because they've experienced, seen, or read about it
• just trying to live life the best they can

Is this not also Ariel?

Is Ariel's character meant to be symbolic of the Middle American Experience?

Despite the ease with which Stan, Ariel's boss, and others dismiss Ariel, Green doesn't let us do the same. I'm going to keep referencing the opening image, because although Ariel's voice is quieter and overlooked, and her emotional expressions show her grappling with her frustrations and holding them in, Green still suggests to us, the audience, that Ariel stands out:

She is the one warm soul in the gray corporate world. When things are in motion, it might be easy to overlook her. But when you pause for a moment, it's easy to see that she stands out.

Ariel's "Invisible Blackness"

While Green visually signals that Ariel is different through her warmth and her searching expressions, her Blackness is not emphasized as performance or spectacle. She isn’t narrating a trauma story. She isn’t a symbol of suffering. She’s just… present. She’s a young Black woman in corporate media, navigating invisibility, rejection, and doubt—but with no need to “code-switch” or explain herself.

Even in her relationship with Kent, race is never the subject of their conversation—but it informs it. When Kent calls her out for lacking trauma, it hits a sore spot. But he doesn’t reduce her to a label. He sees her as a whole person. She’s not a “strong Black woman.” She’s a writer in crisis, an artist in the middle of becoming, a woman who refuses to share her vulnerability enough to ever get hurt.

Kent, Young Mazino, Asian Masculinity, and the Model Minority Myth

As an Asian viewer myself, when I'm watching a film with a predominantly white cast, but then a scene with a Black and an Asian person discussion topics of oppression, I can't not think about racial dynamics and the model minority myth. What's more – when I see a male Asian actor depicted in hunky, calm, self-confidence - I'm also given pause. Kent's character doesn't play into typical tropes: he's not hyper-logical or stoic, nor is he a nerd or a sidekick. He's open, affectionate, and emotionally intuitive.

More importantly, he speaks. The model minority myth, which emerged in the U.S. in the 1960s and '70s, cast Asian Americans--particularly East Asians--as the "good example" of assimilation in the U.S, and has been used as a wedge to undermine Black and Brown communities, and to justify systemic inequality.

The model minority myth essentially functions as "look how quiet, compliant, and high achieving that minority is! Why can't you be more like them?" It's a false and flattening narrative that erases the diversity of the Asian diaspora, downplays anti-Asian racism, and pressures Asian individuals into silence and performance.

Yet, here is Kent being anything but silent. He's being an open partner, speaking blunt truths. He gets to be sharp and soft. He isn't angry. He simply speaks plainly--from one person to another, a boyfriend to his girlfriend.

It's rare to see a scene where two people of color engage without performance. No code-switching. No winking to the audience. No translation for white comfort. Just two fully realized characters, in private conversation.

Black and Asian communities in the U.S. have a complicated history, especially in urban settings, where there has been both solidarity and tension. The tension is often manufactured by the systems that pit marginalized groups against each other (look at the Irish vs. the Chinese in Warrior, as an example).

So, What is Green Telling Us?

If we take a step back, this lunchtime exchange is Green using Kent to tell us, the audience, that no one gives a fuck about what we feel, love, or hate. No one cares about the opinions we're posting/sharing on social media. Especially those of us who are in the middle, without trauma, without adverse experiences, or opinions with value.

Perhaps Green is asking:

Are you performing significance? Or are you living something real?

We live in a world where opinions, hot takes, and vulnerability are content. But does anyone really care about what you feel if it's not part of a spectacle, a tragedy, or a brand? (I hope so, those that care would be true friends/community – but spending so much of our lives online might lead us to believe that no one really cares more than a like or a fleeting comment).

Guiding Questions for the Lunch Scene: