Television and film have begun to break the mold of mental health in Black men being overlooked. In the past, fair depictions of Black men in therapy or having emotional collapses were few and far between or used as a brief diversion to the main storyline. Notable Black-focused entertainment projects have done what they can to mitigate the lack of representation.
Former comedy-drama Atlanta occasionally centered on the psychological unrest of protagonists Earn and Paper Boi. 2002 biopic Antoine Fisher was arguably the first of its kind to vulnerably evoke multiple traumas that impact Black boys and linger into adulthood, like sexual abuse and abandonment.
In 2025, talk spaces like podcasts and livestreaming have attempted to become a new form of therapy among Black men, but they can still be toxic platforms depending on their reach. With the growing male loneliness epidemic, which shows that men largely struggle to adapt socially with age in comparison to women, and the administration’s push to silence marginalized voices, there has been a progression in media that accurately represent the desolation in Black men.
This year, movies Magazine Dreams and The Man In My Basement, along with sci-fi comedy Demascus, have uncovered the emotional fatigue and nihilism that our men contend with, and the lengths they’ll go to break out of it.
The theatrical release of Magazine Dreams was in a tailspin following the arrest and conviction of actor Jonathan Majors, who was found guilty of misdemeanor assault and harassment just months after the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. After the movie was controversially removed from the Searchlight Pictures calendar, it was picked up by Briarcliff Entertainment for a limited theatrical run in March, during which viewers witnessed Majors’ tragic portrayal of the isolated bodybuilder Killian Maddox.
Majors unraveled himself into Maddox’s stoicism onscreen by throwing himself into strenuous weight training, downing excessive meals, and resisting human connection while using his muscular proportions as a shield. Maddox breaks down several times in the film, and among the most upsetting is when a date abandons the athlete at a restaurant after he retells the most harrowing incident of his life: witnessing his mother and father be slain in a murder-suicide.
Magazine Dreams was widely believed to be the project that led to Majors’ commercial demise; lawyers in his domestic violence case pointed to method acting, or complete immersion into an acting role, as the reason for his intense behavior. But Black men familiar with depression can observe Maddox’s depression — refusing necessary medical care, reacting violently to slights, and social withdrawal — and understand that he represents an aggrieved individual struggling to cope with their trauma.
While Magazine Dreams concludes with a fleeting look into Maddox’s healing process, he tosses a gun and steroid medication, showing a hopeful end to his destructive streak.
But not all portrayals of Black men struggling with depression have an optimistic finale. In The Man In My Basement, a movie adaptation of the 2004 Walter Mosley novel, protagonist Charles Blakey, played by Corey Hawkins, is an unemployed and financially unstable loner residing in Sag Harbor. Ironically, the character was originally supposed to be portrayed by Majors, but Hawkins convinces through Blakey’s ups and downs of identity and nihilism when faced with mysterious businessman Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe).
The man proposes to be imprisoned in Blakey’s basement for an indefinite period to ward off his psychological guilt, which mirrors Blakey’s own. Showing him a way out of the darkness is his romantic interest, Narciss (Anna Diop), but Blakey often falls victim to self-sabotage, reluctant to open up emotionally despite his willingness to love. Blakey’s sensitivity is also tested when memories surface of his abusive uncle dying in the home, which the protagonist blames himself for. The character eventually gives himself a fresh start after Bennet dies, and revitalizes his home into an art museum, a beautiful relic that survives his family’s unpleasant history.
Inescapable guilt is a common theme in entertainment in terms of Black men’s depression. The aforementioned movies condense the motif within storylines of less than two hours, but in series Demascus, the complications of mental health are given a fully thought-out portrait through the eyes of the titular character. With Demascus being a creative professional in his thirties, the show melds afrosurrealism and augmented reality when the character begins to feel out of place in his current reality.
Amid suffering from the loss of his mother, whom Demascus struggles to envision due to repressed memory, the character also expresses unfulfillment with his relationship, friendships, career and personality, which he tries to uncover through psychotherapy and digital immersive reality therapy (DIRT). Each episode feels like a jump in time, and Demascus meets alternate versions of himself, some humorous, but all unhappy while striving for self-realization.
By the season finale (spoiler alert), it’s discovered that Demascus was a patient in a mental hospital, where he hallucinated his entire ‘reality’ to avoid the root of his trauma, an extreme take on Black men who chronically evade painful circumstances.
Television and film are finding its way in the landscape of Black men facing their depression head-on. Still, Magazine Dreams, Basement and Demascus are closing the gap between media and reality. These projects have created dialogue about mental health and mutual support, and while they’re not a resolution to the hopelessness that Black men experience, they humanize its complexities.