Anderson on Black-ish’s fine line
The night after the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election, Black-ish creator Kenya Barris sat down to write a particularly angry, albeit still funny, episode called Lemons.
It aired in January and explored the impact Donald Trump’s election had on the Johnsons, the upper-middle-class African-American family at the heart of the ABC sitcom. For a sitcom, it seemed a rare, real-time response to a contentious and controversial period in American history.
“Sometimes there are issues that are like the elephant in the room,” says Anthony Anderson, the star and executive producer of Black-ish in an interview at the Banff World Media Festival.
“You have to talk about them and Lemons was one. But it’s not our way to be timely or topical. That’s not what we thrive on. It’s not like ‘Oh this is the issue, let’s talk about this or let’s talk about that.’ We just talk about these things that have been affecting us as a family as our characters in our community. But every now and again there will be something we have to deal with. The election was one that Kenya felt strongly about.”
It’s a balance the Emmy-nominated show has maintained in its three seasons on ABC, offering a funny but often poignant look at a successful advertising executive who struggles with his sense of identity and fears his children are not exposed in the urban culture he grew up in as they are raised in a predominantly white neighbourhood.
Anderson was in Banff to receive The Hollywood Reporter Impact Rockie Award on behalf of Blackish. He also hosted the Rockie Awards on Tuesday night and, on Wednesday, gave a master class to discuss the series.
Diversity was a hot topic this year in Banff and part of the conversation Wednesday revolved around the cultural relevance of Black-ish as a socially conscious sitcom. Anderson has said in the past that he believes the show helped usher in a new age in network television when it came to diversity storytelling.
“With the success of the show, it opened up the doors for other minorities to come on board and start telling their stories,” Anderson says.
“Fresh off the Boat, Cristela, Uncle Buck, Jerrod Carmichael and shows like that; I like to think because of the success of Black-ish, were able to get produced and on the air.”
It’s not that the series has reinvented the wheel. Anderson acknowledges that it is following in the footsteps of other sitcoms that pushed boundaries in their depictions of race and class.
In its three seasons, Black-ish has had stories dealing not only with politics, but racism, homophobia and even police brutality.
“The things we’re doing were things they were doing with All in the Family and Good Times and The Jeffersons and a bunch of other shows 30 or 40 years ago,” Anderson says.
“It’s being a show with social commentary, a family show with humour and dealing with life’s issues: good, bad or indifferent. That’s the voice of our show. Ev- erything is cyclical and it was just time to have a show like that again.”
The series will return in September for a fourth season. Anderson, who is also a stand-up comedian and has starred in everything from the 1990s teen sitcom Hang Time to the police procedural Law & Order, says it will continue to tackle tough issues. But like All in the Family, Good Times and The Jeffersons — which were all shows Anderson watched while growing up — the intent is never to be heavy-handed and preachy.
“It’s a fine line that Kenya Barris and the rest of our writers find for us to teeter,” he says.
“It’s the authenticity in which we approach this and the honesty and the way that we tell these stories.
“That’s why the balance is easy. Nothing is sensationalized or created for shock value. It’s all real issues, in real time with a real family and their perspective.”
With the success of the show, it opened up the doors for other minorities to come on board and start telling their stories.