Kenya Barris returns to the well of interracial dating and relies heavily on a tried-and-true format. There aren’t any spoilers here because you can’t spoil anything derived from the well of Blackish. The film is familiar, horribly timed, with references to police brutality and of course there are sneakers… which unfortunately feels dated and so mainstream that when Complex Media shows up it fits perfectly because Complex Media is a lot like this film, awkward and appropriating. Barris and his co-writer Jonah Hill are only saved by the comedic timing of Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Fox Mulder; seriously David Duchovny was brilliant and underutilized. That’s a lot to drop in a first paragraph, so I’ll slow it down and deliver this in segments: Did I like it?, sneakers, culture, and elephants in the room.
Did I Like It?
Let’s get this out of the way, it’s funny and entertaining, but everyone who has watched, Blackish, Grownish, Mixedish, BlackAF has heard and seen Barris’ mimicry of The Jeffersons and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Watching the film is an exercise. It’s an uncomfortable, trope filled film that places an incredibly talented cast in the difficult position of making the discussion of Jews and Blacks less heavy, which is impossible when Kanye and Kyrie are still fresh in the minds of the nation. Which ties the film to sneakers, but it’s hard to get there when the country is seeking a bit of levity as we deal with the airing of more trauma media in the form of policemen in Memphis murdering a young Black man, who was the age of the characters falling in love in the film. Barris and Hill write into the script an entire section of Dreyfuss talking about police brutality as a bit. You People is uncomfortable. The film is predictable, but watchable because the casting director chose well. Seeing Lauren London in a film again, with homages throughout to Nipsey was an excellent touch. Was the pairing of Hill and London’s characters realistic? Not in the least, but I was willing to let that go once Hill’s dad, played by David Duchovny breaks into a rendition of John Legend’s ‘Ordinary People’ after attempting to share his admiration of Xzibit.
Sneakers
Any film that ends with a podcast of a Jewish guy and a Black, gay person on Complex nails the culture at this time. Sneaker culture stopped being a Black and Brown thing years ago when it became mainstream. That isn’t a problem. The problem is the culture now revolves around hype and a look at any media site delivers imagery and content of the same things. There is redundancy in sneakers when you fail to dig, and Barris’ love of the culture misses on so many levels it feels like there wasn’t a consultant on the set. First in real life, Jonah Hill is an adidas rep with his own sneakers from the brand. Lauren London is a Puma endorser with her own sneakers. Neither character really rocks with the brands they endorse and maybe that’s by design, but it gets a bit weird when the couple bonds over a pair of Sean Wotherspoon Air Max 1s… when SW is now with adidas. There is a scene built on the on-foot scan of London’s Gucci slides and Hill’s character, Ezra, wearing a pair of Off-White Dunks, but there isn’t any feeling involved in these moments. It’s just tossed in like it is from the start of the film and throughout to provide an element of faux cool. That’s kind of where sneaker culture is now and it’s epitomized in a superficial moment where Ezra is taken to a basketball court to hoop. He looks like DJ Khalid, but the director asks us to abandon any knowledge of the game that created sneaker culture to buy that Hill can hoop.
Culture
Culture is fueled by DNA and can’t be absorbed through the skin like a drug. Culture can’t be bought, only appropriated even when it’s acknowledged by the people acquiring the trappings of history. The film understands the tension of Jews and Blacks but reduces the discussion to the burning of a kufi. The N word is a tool Barris uses to create awkward engagements which don’t need any other fuel because the interaction between cultures, races, demographics has more than enough energy to drive narrative. Does the film work here? It could have, but it missed.
Elephants in the Room
I laughed often during the movie, but lingering under the surface was the introduction of pedophilia, stereotypes and appropriation. Comedy is a tool for connection, but it doesn’t have to be a balm to soothe tensions. Art doesn’t have to carry the weight, but it does. Barris goes to the well and in some instances, Blackish, he nails the nuance in interracial/cultural relationships, but he has the ability to do so much more. That’s not his job though. I’m the elephant in the room. I walked into this film carrying my own baggage. I placed this onto the table and demanded more of the creators of a story. I rolled on the floor in moments and had continuous side-eyes, but I’m still writing about it, just as I continue to write about sneaker culture. Kind of appropriate…
