Tame-ish but often very funny-ish
ONE of modern life’s pleasures is the ability to watch a US sitcom about a black family without worrying about Bill Cosby being in it. The third season of sitcom Black-ish has just hit DStv, and I advise you to enjoy it before Donald Trump’s America shuts down production.
Black-ish in some ways fills the void left by The Cosby Show after Cosby was exposed as an almost certainly bad dude. It is facile, of course, to compare one American sitcom with another on the basis that they both feature a predominantly black cast. What the two shows share beyond this, though, is a certain outlook on the world: family comes first; work hard and you’ll be rewarded. Its vision owes more to the political philosophy of the DA than the EFF.
The central gag of the show is that of previously working-class parents who have made good and are now raising decidedly upper-middle-class kids. The class divide is most apparent between the family’s grandparents and grandchildren. Contemplating a visit to Disneyland, Grandma — a former postal worker — reminisces: “I opened up 70 Christmas cards to get the money for those tickets.” Now, her grandchildren are able to make the trip to the theme park as VIP visitors.
The show captures well the sense of discombobulation that must accompany raising children who will never know the same economic disadvantage you experienced in your own life. No doubt there are a good few South Africans who can relate.
Black-ish is very much of the mold of another current American hit, Modern Family, except that its core relationships are more conservative. As with Modern Family, some of the humour is derived from putting adult speech in the mouths of children: good for a laugh, if something of a cheap trick.
It has been said of the show that it seems uncertain of its target audience. This comes through in its sometimes tame handling of racial matters. As perspective, Kenya Barris, the show’s (black) writer and creator, has previously said that he is not a fan of the phrase “black lives matter”, because it feels exclusionary to indispensable white allies.
One of the episodes where the show really seemed to find its voice has yet to air on DStv. “Lemons”, an episode hastily written after Trump’s election victory, constituted as valid a piece of post-election analysis as any I’ve seen. It concludes with lead character Andre blowing up at his officemates for failing to understand that Trump’s America is the one he’s been dealing with his whole life. When Black-ish is funny, it’s very funny. But when it takes the risk of delivering a punch, it can also be unexpectedly powerful.