By Laura Eley
“Black-ish” is ABC’s latest attempt to connect with African-Americans. Although it features the usual stereotypical black family, it portrays them in an unusual location: the suburbs.
“Black-ish” imperfectly balances urban and suburban comedy in its story of two well-off, working parents trying to raise their kids where black has traditionally been the minority.
The comedy stars comedian Anthony Anderson as Andre ‘Dre’ Johnson Sr., a doting father and advertising executive whose only goal in life is to ensure his children, especially his son, don’t get affected by the white world around them. His wife Rainbow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross) is the hard working mother who tries to be a friend and authority figure to teenage social butterfly Zoey (Yara Shahidi), middle child Andre Jr. (Marcus Scribner) and crazy twins Jack and Diane (Miles Brown and Marsai Martin). Laurence Fishburne plays Dre’s condescending father “Pops.
“Black-ish” falls short just where it really needs to succeed in its exploration of what it’s like to be black in the ‘burbs. Dre’s antics become increasingly annoying. He and his father become so overly aggressive with their racial tirades that they overshadow the comedy that the show is supposed to have. Thus “Black-ish” lacks the comforts of a traditional family comedy and doesn’t connect well with the shows that air before and after it.
“Black-ish” needs a major makeover to make it work. How about making the family less obnoxiously wealthy and the kids less socially stupid? Maybe adding a father who accepts his kids with reasonable reservations could help.
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