FX’s Black. White.

[yesdachi]

Has anyone seen this new show on the FX station? I watched it last night and found it to be pretty interesting.

Clicky to the show’s site (http://www.fxnetworks.com/)

And one to an article about it. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11394595/)

Basically a black family gets to be transformed via Hollywood make-up magic into a white family and a white family, into a black one.

They did a great job with the make-up. and the family interaction seemed real, they were respectful to each other but they were not holding back their thoughts.

My quick observation is that the black family had a much more negative outlook on life in general and the white family was much more... glass half full. this mirrors many of my personal experiences i have had.

We have hit abortion, politically correct sheep, inbreeding, religion, even bacon but we haven't hit race in a few days. what do you think your experience would be like if you were transformed into a black/white person?

Being in a pretty white dominated area i am sure i would have plenty of little kids asking their parents what i was - HA! I think the way i would carry myself would be the factor and not just the skin color. i don't see much racism around here as long as your “look” fits within the comfort zone of the people.

[Duke Malcolm]

I don't think it would be much different.
Except that I could use words such as "Bruvva", "Nigga", "Home boy", "honky", and "cracker" without being called racist.

[Devastatin Dave]

what do you think your experience would be like if you were transformed into a black/white person?

.
Depends. If they enlarged my penis for a full transition to a black male, then I'd be tapin' the hunnies like old school playa. I've been to basic training in the military, public showers. Bruthas are packin' no doubt!!!

[Duke Malcolm]

Either that or they keep the less well endowed gentlemen fully clothed.

[Gregoshi]

I saw most of it last night and it was pretty interesting.

Bruno, the white father, seems the most closed minded (or optimistic?) of the bunch. He has a few good points about attitude and looking for prejudice, but I think he's only right up to a point. Although in discussion he admits there must be something to prejudice/racism, his positive outlook and attitude-defines-all mentality has him come off as being mostly closed-minded about it. He admits it must be there but he talks it down.

I think the segment with the focus groups was the most interesting. The expressions on the face of the white mother were very telling as she, posing as black, hears what blacks experience with racism and then in the white focus group when she's behind the two-way mirror. She seemed almost stunned and appalled by what she was hearing. For the black family, the father appears to be getting the most impact of his race change. He seems amazed at the sense of freedom (from his skin colour) he's experiencing being white. The white daughter's reaction to attending the black poetry class was interesting to see. She was overpowered and scared by the raw emotion of the poetry - poetry of the black experience. Of all six, she seems to be the one most embracing of what she can get out of her experiences being black.

From my score card, the black father, the white mother and white daughter are getting the most out of this experience so far. I'd like to see more of the experience of the black mother. Hopefully we'll get that chance in the coming weeks. In this first episode, the two fathers seemed to get the lion's share of the attention. Maybe that's because that is where the most tension is at this point in the experiment.

If they don't move this show around the schedule too much, I might be able to catch it most weeks because it is on right after Mythbusters - the only TV show I watch regularly. After one show, Black. White. looks like it could be classified as "good TV" in my book. :thumbsup:

[thrashaholic]

Is it just me, or do the black family in white make-up not look very white at all, especially the mother...

In my eyes the white family look more convincing, but you can still tell. I don't know if I could tell if I didn't know what they really were though.