Surprised that there isn’t a thread about this show. Any other Dopers watching it?
I was just about to start this thread. There seems to be a lot of miscommunication. The “bitch” incident and Brian thinking that Bruno’s experiement in the bar was malicious come to mind. I’m interested to see how this dashiki debacle shakes out.
I’ve only seen the first episode, but from what I saw in that, it’s interesting, but not something I want to watch all the time. I can’t even recall when it’s on.
Oh, right now. How about that.
One thing I noticed in the first episode was the slants to how they saw the world. When the white man-as-black and the black father went into the store and the associate came over to ask if they needed help, the white guy just saw that as what it was, the man coming over to see if they need help. The black man, on the other hand, immediatly saw it as getting “sized up”, as one would a potential thief, because they were black. He chose to see what he wanted to see to spin it to his angle.
On the other hand, the white guy seems to flat out refuse the fact that ther is still racism in America, and cannot for the life og him get past his own…I don’t want to go so far as to say predjudices, but perhaps just his own views about blacks and black culture, in the process being insulting, im my mind (the fact that he is the one saying n***** more than anyone else comes to mind.)
Maybe it’s just the “innocence of children” but the only ones I can even identify with are the two kids. The black kid, Nick, just doesn’t seem to give a shit about this entire social experiment. Overall, it makes him a pretty poor character to spend any significant amount of time on but it would be nice to see his reflections on what’s going on between the parents.
The white kid, Rose, doesn’t have all this baggage of what’s right and what’s wrong. What’s over the line and what’s politically correct. She’s genuinely accepting and really wants to learn about other cultures. She also looks the most convincing of any of the six as the others’ race.
The parents on both sides…wow. Brian seems to be the most well adjusted of the four but even he seems to view the world through discrimintory-colored glasses. Bruno and Carmen are so open minded they’ve actually swung the dial back around to bigotted, which is a really hard feat to accomplish. Renee should just learn to relax a bit more. The “bitch” comment was over the line but it was said in jest and there were multiple apologies afterwards. If she can’t get over that, then pretty much all hope is lost. Also, the producers really need to change her wig out. That’s about the most unconvincing hairpiece of anyone on the show.
I caught a preview while channel-surfing at my sister’s. I’ll try to catch the first episode and watch it again. I am curious why an apparently working class kid is wearing a $150 watch.
Unfortunately, I saw the Oprah rehash, recap, and reunion before the show aired. That alone convinced me not to watch it. Because several episode clips were shown, and because the people pretty much had it out onstage about the whole experience, I’ll spoiler my comment about it:
There is a very deep chasm between these people. The bitch thing still hasn’t been forgiven despite that even Oprah understood it was meaningless. There is another incident in which the white mother talks to the group gathered in her house and speaks of the “beautiful creature” that she sees when she looks at one of the black kids. The word “creature” pushes the siren button and sends people into a tailspin of animosity. They learned little if anything from each other. The white dad still doesn’t get that the subtle racism that permeates a black man’s existence is something onerous and burdensome. The black dad is convinced that just because a shoe salesman used a shoehorn with the man he perceived as white, that he was racist. After all, he reasoned, no one had used a shoehorn on him before. I just can’t bring myself to watch what I already know is a really pathetic trainwreck.
Is this series supposed to be “reality” show. Are we (the audience) supposed to believe that none if it is scripted and that these people aren’t acting? Are we supposed to believe that there are enough cameras following these people around to shoot from all those angles in one take? Are we supposed to believe that some editor somewhere did not spend countless hours creating all that drama from scenes that orignally had none?
I understand the premise that some people are affected by racism and some people are blind to it, but how are we expected to gather any important information from a source that is ultimately just the opinion of the show’s director and/or writer and/or editor?
Liberal. Wow, man. What a missed opportunity.
[spoilers]The producers are responsible for deliberately selecting a group of suspicious, inflexible people together. This kind of conflict serves no good purpose. This might have been interesting if they had a second household of people who are proud to share their ethnic heritage and be genuinely open-minded with to contrast with.[/spoilers]
I love the concept of this show, but the execution is rather disappointing. I don’t know what the problem is, either. The show has such GREAT potential to be an effective social experiment. Shame on the producers for purposely casting families who will clash easily. Dear God, could the white parents be any more clueless? And the black mother needs to get over the bitch incident. I don’t know how many times the white mother apologized, but it should have been enough to patch things up.
Maybe there will be a second season, and they’ll do it better.
That’s exactly how I see it, Askia. There was such great potential with this premise to do something really worthwhile. Like you, I blame the producers. It’s relatively easy to ferret out the hopeless grudge bearers and clueless idiots from those who genuinely want to understand the other side. According to the interviews on Oprah…
…the producers had given the white mom a “booklet” of black phrases that she should use to pass as black. And — surprise! — one of them was “bitch”. Now, the white dad relied on the same sort of production material when he dropped the N-bomb at a meeting. This all was clearly designed to become a hopeless mess of cheap drama.
My feelings exaclty. Great potential, but flawed. I hope they learn from this.
I’m also a little disapointed in the people they picked look-wise:
White Dad: He looks more like an Indian (form India) than a Black guy.
Black Dad: He’s pretty good as a White guy.
Black Mom: No way would she be seen as “White”. Hispanic, maybe.
White Mom: Looks like a White lady painted black.
White Daughter: She could pass (at least form my persective, as a White guy)
Black Son: He looks more like an Amerasian kid, but not too bad.
And White Dad’s attitude is just too much. Go ahead, throw some racism at me, I dare you. I’ll fight thru it with my amazing mental abilities!
I feel so sorry for White Daughter trying to pass her Cranberries-loving White ass off as a Black Girl. But she seems like she’s trying!
(I haven’t seen episdoe 2 yet.)
The Cranberries thing cracked me up. I loved how the other kids there were like, okaaaaay. Obviously there are black girls out there who like atypical music, but the white daughter should have gotten a clue, and named something more believable to the poetry class. Hell, even saying Will Smith or Brian McKnight would have been better than the Cranberries. :smack:
What was the “bitch” thing about?
Alias, The Cranberries cracked me up as well. I happen to love me some Cranberries (esp. To The Faithful Departed). But you have to know your audience. I would probably, in my first meeting with the group, talk about my love for old school hip hop, R&B, funk, and even my boys Living Colour. I would drop my love for The Smiths and INXS a little later once we got to know each other. But I wouldn’t announce those artists as favorites at the first ever meeting.
(Quick note: all Black people have a “guilty pleasure” music stash. It might be Duran Duran, Garth Brooks, or The Carpenters, but they have it. Look in your Black friends’ CD rack next time you visit. In my case, it’s just that the “guilty pleasures” outweigh the down-ass music…)
Guinastasia, the women were given dialect lists of words to practice. “Bitch” was listed as an informal greeting between Black women, so Carmen says, “Hey, bitch!” to Renee. (I think we just heard Renee recount the situation.) Renee took it as if she was being called out - like Carmen wanted to call her a bitch anyway and just used the coincidence that it was on the list to say it. Kinda like how Bruno drops “nigger” in conversation whenever he gets a chance, I guess.
WTF is up with Bruno saying that word so much? Even if I was wearing black makeup, and passing 100% as a black girl, there is no way in hell that word would come out of my mouth. It’s just too much! Bruno and Carmen are sooooo clueless. I think they really mean well, but they just don’t get that black and white are two totally different cultures.
The dashiki situation was so painful to watch, that Harborwolf wanted to turn it off. I’m so glad they didn’t actually wear them. What the hell was Carmen thinking?
Black dad is definitely my favorite so far, but that mustache is a little too much. I wonder why the make-up guys insisted on that. The conversation he had with the customer in the bar was just too much. I like the way he just went with it instead of trying to challenge it. Plenty of time for that later. And besides, he’s trying to feel what it’s like to be White, not change the world in the process. Again, that might come later.
This show is one degree of stupid away from being a skit on Chappelles show. The white parents are that painful. The daughter isn’t bad at all, but the parents are just clueless.
It’s a shame. I wanted this show to be more than another “watch the trainwreck” reality show. It is right now, but just barely.
Bruno and Carmen (the white couple) are so clueless it’s painful. I hate listening to white people go on and on about how there’s no more racism in America and if they ever had to deal with it, they’d just blow it off. Riiight. The horrendous racist comments in the white bar should be enough to convince them. They embarrass me.
OTOH, Brian and Renee are definitely looking for reasons to be pisssed at Bruno and Carmen. They could be educating but they aren’t. The whole dashiki incident smacked of revenge on Renee’s part, like she was hoping Bruno and Carmen would wear them and look like idiots. Good on Brian for being honest about it and saving them from making asses of themselves in church (though they sort of did anyway).
I don’t blame Nick, the son for not wanting to participate. I wish we saw more of him, but he may be undermining the show enough for them to be editing him out. Too bad.
The best individual on the show, though, is Rose. She has the humilty to admit she’s clueless, the moral fiber to come clean with her poetry class and accept the anger she got, and really seems to be thinking about the import of the experiment she’s in. I’m basically watching the show to follow her.
What’s so inherently funny about black people liking the Cranberries? I’m black and so is my wife , and we like the Cranberries (at least a coule of of their albums). Part of my childhood, and most of my wife’s, were spent living in mostly black neighborhoods, and yet we were able to pick up some “atypical” tastes and interests. The other kids in the the poetry group seemed to find her response unusual and unexpected, but not necessarily “wrong”.
That moment could have been useful jumping-off point for a discussion the stereotypical assumptions people make about themselves and others, but the producers chose to make it a tv-dramatic “look at the conflict!” situation instead.
Except for Rose, I don’t like any of these people. And she is the only one who actually looks convincing as the other race.
The black dad (Brian?) is just looking for racism everywhere. The two men are walking down the street, and a white person walking the other direction moves aside so as not to bump into them and he calls that racist!? Are you freaking kidding me? That’s call common courtesy, you moron. Would you have preferred the person to not move, and knock into your shoulder? I’m sure that would have caused you to whine about how of course they were “racist” because they expected that the black man would move aside! :rolleyes: I can’t believe he got offended at how Bruno enjoyed the church. I’m not religious, I’ve never been to church, but come on! That just looked like a good time, certainly more fun than just sitting quietly listening to a sermon. Let the man have some fun!
Bruno has a good way of looking at the world but dude, you are so clueless about some things. I agree that how you hold yourself will affect how you are responded to, but it’s not as black/white (ha ha :rolleyes: ) as you think it to be. Just because you don’t see racism doesn’t mean it’s not there, although I certainly don’t think it’s as prevelant as Brian makes it out to be.
White mom is just waaaay out there. She seems nice but so out of touch and just weird in a very awkward way. I don’t believe there is anything malicious about her though.
Black son has been a non-entity so far. You don’t look convincing as white, I can barely understand a word you speak, and apparently the editors agree since I can’t remember a single interesting thing about you.
Rose is interesting, is actually trying to learn something from this project, and seems to have made some friends. I really just want to see what she does for the rest of the series since both sets of parents are lost causes who won’t learn a thing.
Renee, let me put it to you this way. You have now shown that you are, in fact, a Bitch.