So in the show, Louis’ ex wife is black, yet his kids from this woman are completely white. Or at least, that’s how it looks to me.
To be clear: I don’t care that they look completely white, I’m just wondering why those girls got cast for the show.
Google “Louie continuity” and you’ll have your answer, such as it is.
It’s a sitcom, so perhaps it’s a wink at Michael Jackson? MJ’s older 2 kids (at least) are white, and if you stop to think about what MJ looked like under all that cosmetic surgery, you realize that those kids most likely are not biologically related to him. The younger one looks partially black, and could perhaps be Michael’s biological child, altho in his case we don’t know who the mother was.
I’ve heard those are his actual daughters.
Omigawd, Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white.
They are not. Actresses, both of them.
The answer I think is that it is not really intended to make logical sense anymore than it would make sense for a nervous date to flee the scene via a conveniently waiting helicopter ;).
I think he’s having fun with TV conventions. I know that his ex-wife is played by a black actress, but is the character black? I’m not sure if that’s been explicitly stated (or, for that matter, if the two little girls played by white actress are actually white or mixed-race characters). Italian-Americans play Irish-Americans all the time (for example – obviously there are many others) – why can’t a black actor/actress play a white character?
I read in an interview that the Jamaican born actress was the one Louis liked best. He decided he didn’t owe anyone an explanation, that it is what it is, just accept it.
ETA - Here’s the interview.
Not sure where you’re at in the show but in the last season I watched there was a flashback to a much younger Louie agreeing to a divorce with a white woman. I assumed she was the girls mother.
It’s a meta commentary about TV conventions, I guess.
The woma in that flashback is playing the same character who is black in the present. Two different actors, one white and one black, playing the same character.
Louie has never even tried to maintain continuity. In one early episode he said he’d never had sex with a black woman, but obviously he had because the mother of his children is black. Recently, he’s been shown to be only moderately successful, but in an early season he hired a fleet of limos to take schoolkids on a field trip.
He kind of hand waved the issue of the kids’ mother away when Pamela asked him how “those white girls came out of that black pussy,” and Louie said that his ex-wife’s mother is white.
There was also an episode in the first season which flashed back to Louie’s childhood in Catholic school, showing him being semi-traumatized by a lecture about the crucifixion. His mom is shown in that episode as being young, attractive, and very caring. In a later episode set in the present his mother is *much *older and unpleasant. And she’s decided she’s a lesbian and is taking up with a very young & hot woman. She’s also shown to be somewhat mentally unstable. I suppose they could have been thought of as the same person, but not really.
Point is the show is an amalgam of his real life, with frequent deviations for comedic purposes. Also, Louie CK is very socially liberal, so he didn’t feel there was any reason to not cast a black actress in the role, after all it’s* ‘acting!’* And no, those two girls are not his real daughters, they are (very good) actresses. He does in fact have two daughters that age (keeping with the parallels to his real life)…
They actually make reference to it at the end of season 4, I believe. Where Pamela Adlon asks him how the hell his kids are white with a mom that’s black. I forget what non-answer he gave but it was clearly a way to at least acknowledge in show that it’s off.
As far as continuity itself, in the flashbacks, it’s all sorts of fun. His wife has been white, and they were both WAY younger than they should have been given it was a flashback referencing the time when they got pregnant for the first time. Also, flashbacks to when Louie’s a kid make no mention of either his brother or sister even though both have appeared on the show.
Post 11
For the same reason as all other TV programs of the current era: portraying a marriage between a physiological, identifying man and a physiological, identifying woman who fulfill each others’ sexual needs and are of the same race is just too damned radical for the audience.
Of course, OF COURSE, we should all read every post in the thread before contributing. Of course that’s the courteous, respectful thing to do on this message board.
But maybe…I didn’t.
I’m skeptical of this, but also skeptical that is a common case in real life, either.
That most marriages, up until about the now, have been heterosexual pairings and something near monoracial?
I can’t be the only one who finds it a trifle absurdist that every single relationship on TV now has to be homosexual or cross-racial (or, often, both). Okay, okay, we’re in a correction phase. I get it.
By every single relationship do you mean like 10%?
given that the race of the character in question is fluid and changes in flashbacks, maybe your pat answer doesn’t work here?
Also, I just remembered that Louie’s sister once called his ex a skinny Irish bitch in an early season.