FX tackles racial stereotypes in “Black. White.”

By Ray Richmond

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – You can’t help but
approach the new six-episode FX quasi-reality series “Black.
White.” with a healthy degree of skepticism.

It feels on the surface like just another contrived
unscripted gimmick: Members of two families, one black and one
white, undergo extensive transformative makeup from an
Oscar-nominated artist (Keith Vanderlaan) to pose as the
opposite race.

The expectation is that soon enough, those decked out in
blackface will infiltrate soul food restaurants, while those in
whiteface will try to crash exclusive white enclaves. So the
shock is that this show goes in for neither cheap gags nor easy
stereotypes, crafting a thought-provoking narrative that
embodies genuine sociological heft without transforming its
subjects into buffoons. It allows them to do that themselves.

Developed and exec produced by R.J. Cutler (the man behind
the exquisite 1993 documentary feature “The War Room” and more
recently TV’s “American High”) and multimedia maestro Ice Cube,
“Black. White.” is much like others of its reality ilk in that
it goes to great lengths to stir the conflict pot. For one, it
cast two clans whose individual members have a natural
antipathy that extends beyond their racial composition — and
then places them underneath the same roof to ensure maximum
volatility.

Yet “Black. White.” (call it “Changing Races”) proves
compelling in spite of the obvious contrivances and
manipulations. On one side, we have the black-to-white Sparks
family from Atlanta (41-year-old contractor Brian, his
38-year-old office manager wife Renee and their high school
student son Nick, 17). On the other, there are the
white-to-black Carmen Wurgel, 48, a location scout; her
18-year-old college-going daughter Rose; and her 47-year-old
live-in boyfriend, Bruno Marcotulli, a public school substitute
teacher. They reside in Santa Monica. But for the purposes of
this made-for-TV social experiment, all six will live in a
two-story dwelling on a quiet cul-de-sac in Tarzana, Calif.,
and undergo three to five hours of daily makeup to pass as what
they are not.

The makeup work is pretty phenomenal, though it’s
unpredictably more convincing on the Sparks trio than the
Wurgels and Marcotulli. But the series largely works because
it’s far more about behavior, perception and expectation than
it is appearance. We really do get a vivid illustration of what
it’s like to live quite literally in someone else’s skin. The
fallout isn’t always pretty.

As “Black. White.” moves through its early episodes, the
personalities and rifts emerge and broaden. The boorish but
guileless Bruno, despite having grown up and lived his entire
life in Los Angeles, leaves the impression that he has rarely
encountered a black person and certainly never seen “Crash.” He
believes that racism is largely a myth and that it’s really all
just a matter of putting out the energy you expect to receive
in return. Simple! This naturally infuriates the more worldly
but wary Brian. Worse still is the interaction between Carmen
and the purposefully strident Renee. Carmen is a study in
awkwardness, so fearful of being politically incorrect that she
invariably always is (enraging Renee by saying “Yo bitch” in an
unfortunate attempt to connect).

The clear hero of the show is Rose, who is as smart,
sensitive and articulate as those surrounding her are uptight
and/or ignorant. She receives a disproportionate amount of the
camera time because she deserves it, handling herself with
class and compassion at every turn (particularly during a few
anxiety-riddled sessions in an all-black poetry class). We’re
consistently left wondering how this girl emerged from an
environment of such sheer naivete.

“Black. White.” is a bit like a paint-by-numbers drawing
that turns into a complex rendering before your eyes. It stirs
real debate about the roles played by judgment and attitude in
defining what constitutes race-based conduct and
discrimination. What further compels is the issue of how
expectation and self-fulfilling prophecy might intertwine.
Because the show raises such probing questions, we can look
past some others, such as how the pretense of having a camera
present as they interact in public is never discussed, how no
one bothers to ask why these people have such unnaturally shiny
faces and why it is they never have to explain how a black guy
got the name Bruno.

Executive producers: R.J. Cutler, Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez;
Co-executive producers: Fernando Mills, Jude Weng, Keith
Hoffman; Senior producer: Michael Bernstein; Supervising
producer: Donny Jackson; Producers: Alexandra Reed, Keith
Vanderlaan; Coordinating producer: Eric Mofford; Story
producers: Todd Lubin, Megan Moroney, Jubba Seyyid;
Co-producers: Mary Lisio, Dave Hebenstreit Directors of
photography: Derth Adams, Andrei Cranach, Todd Dos Reis, John
Tarver; Editors: Andy Robertson, Poppy Das, Greg Finton, Yaffa
Lerea, Maris Berzins; Special effects makeup: Keith
Vanderlaan’s Captive Audience; Makeup effects supervisor: Brian
Sipe; Key makeup artist: Will Huff; Hair stylists: Louisa
Anthony, Camille Friend; Music supervisor: Margaret Yen; Audio
mixers: Monroe Cummings, Keith Garcia, Jimmy Norris.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter