The premise of this show is simple: Take two families, a white one from Santa Monica, California, and a black one from Atlanta, Georgia, and have them live together in a house in L.A. The white family, who at times puts on make-up to look black, are: Bruno, the father; Carmen, the mother; and Rose, the daughter. The black family, who at times puts on make-up to look white, are: Brian, the father; Renee, the mother; and Nick, the son. I have been using the series to explore issues and thoughts regarding race relations.
This show went downhill fast. I am very disappointed. When I look back at my early reviews of the show, in which I spoke of hope the series would aid in progress of race relations, I just have to sigh. The show failed the world. This show helped the world about as much as an episode of Cops.
Reflection
My confusion and naiveté stem from the billing of this show as a documentary series. The executive producer made The War Room, which was a good thought-provoking documentary.
But this series was more a reality show than a documentary. One of the early complaints I wrote about, the manipulation of footage, provided good clues that this show was more interested in controversy than in actually helping us understand other races.
Jesse Jackson may have said, “Keep hope alive!” but I was about ready to quit watching this show by episode three. The fourth episode, though, was a vast improvement. The best part of episode four involved Bruno and Nick, whose own families said they were ignorant about racism, as I wrote about in a prior Blogcritics' review.
Unfortunately, the fifth and sixth episodes were also quite bad. By the end of the show Nick had learned why it is unacceptable to let white people use the "N" word around him.
Throughout my reviews I have speculated that Bruno was a fitting representative of white male Americans. Bruno is the type of guy who says he is tired of blacks complaining about what he terms "that whole slavery thing." Bruno expresses frustration—sounding at times almost like jealousy—that blacks can use the "N" word but whites can't. Carmen, though, got it. "We don't have the right to use that word and they do," Carmen said. My prediction for this series was this: If Bruno leaves the show having learned something valuable, then this series will have been an asset to racial tolerance.
But in order to learn, Bruno has to listen. And he repeatedly demonstrated he was more interested in talking and spouting off about his generalizations about blacks, rappers, and other things than in actually learning from the experience. Bruno, put simply, spent much of the series talking out of his ass. He might as well have stuck his head in it for all he learned.
Article comments
1 - A.L. Harper
Scott -
I love this article! Great writing!
2 - Jewels
Scott - Have you ever read the book, "Black LIke Me?" Just curious, no malice intended, just, sometimes I feature things in post I have not actually put my lips around... Anyway, I did -- 6 times. GREAT read. I took to this book in my teens while growing up in a racially impacted area. Awesome premise for its time - but I really don't think the TV show gave it (the idea) the creedence, value and due the book did to this idea of switching races, not matched by the book and author.
Enjoyed your article.
3 - Scott Butki
A.L., hanks.
I never read the book but from all accounts the book is good while as I've described the show is really bad.
4 - Dan
It could be that the reason you think the show was such a failure is because you hoped that your view of abundant white racism and black victimization would be substantiated. When it didn't happen, you might be disappointed.
My take on the show is that, despite disproportionate attempts to "root out" white racists, the editors weren't able to "michael moore" the film enough to create a desired impression.
Perhaps the calculation was that Bruno would have been a hostile observer to any shenanigans to slant a story-line. The producers could have probably shut people, like Bruno, up with some monetary enhancement, but maybe they, like you, figured the desired impression would become self-evident, and didn't secure such a deal before hand.
Bruno was particularly vindicated in the "jumper-cables in the parking lot" scene. This was going to be Brian's sure-fire outing of white racists.
At the end, I found it touching that they sort of bonded. I think it was sincere. There was a commonality among them. It got me thinking.
The best way to get people of different races to bond-- and that's whats needed-- is to place them in circumstances where they're forced to struggle against a common adversary. In this case, it was the show. Even though points weren't made regarding who's more racist, the actors suffered a common stress that they had to endure to end the thing. Bruno and Brian still disagree but I'd bet thay would buy the other a drink at a bar.
A historical common adversary would be a war. That's not popular these days, and nobody really feels threatened by Islamic terrorists...yet.
5 - Dan
I forgot to mention, that the most commonly observed example of my 'bonding through shared struggle' phenomenon is in sports. White and black athletes, on the same team, harbor almost zero racial animostity.