It would be hard to talk about this show mostly because it is almost identical to Black-ish. The dad is the creater and has thus become rich from it and Mixed-ish and a few other shows. I wasn't sure what this was, and had not had an interest in watching it thinking it was going to be something dealing with race or whatever, but we saw the preview while looking for something to watch and it turns out to be a mockumentary following the family of Kenya Barris, the creator of the shows above. His wife is portrayed by Rashida Jones and I am a fan from her days on The Office and then Parks and Rec. They have way too many freaking kids, like six, but whatever.
I instantly connected with Kenya, he is a thinker, always worried that he doesn't do enough with his kids, he doesn't want to be like his father who was never really around and wants to be a good father. He also hates his kids because they don't seem to honor him as he sees it in his eyes that they should all worship him for providing the life that they have. I have these same feelings a lot of the time. The boys know I would bend over backwards to provide them whatever they want, both boys are spoiled to a degree that their friends can't even comprehend, yet sometimes at the end of the day I really feel like I want to kick Boy in the 'nads because he can't give me 10 minutes of his time, ever.
Kenya has the worst of it, in that he has older girls and all that goes with that. He worries about his daughters being trendy, but then "do they look like hoes?" He helps get them to good schools for college, only to hear that the older one wants to drop out and go get a marketing degree in a different university to be with her BF. If all that isn't stressful enough, he is constantly plagued by issues of being black. Is he selling out to the man? Is he being rewarded by the man in more of a "we feel sorry for you..."? He drives his wife crazy with his issues, and usually a word will trigger a response the whole family is familiar with, that they all roll their eyes. That is the part I relate to. At one point, Wife paused the show so our boys could come in the room and she wanted me to ask them if I yelled too much. Sweetie answered before the boys a quick "yes!" to which I looked at her and said "have I ever yelled at you, directly?" she responded with a small "no." "Then relax," I continued, "don't get me wrong I want to yell at you and kick you in the ass sometimes, but you are not my kid, so I can't." Boy then said I yell a lot. I said "well, yeah, but is it in anger at you, or is it just to be loud?" We agreed that it was mostly to be loud and the yelling between Javalina and I is different because he is the up and coming smaller gorilla trying to take the alphas position, so we go at it differently, but never with hatred. Javalina also added that he didn't care about my words or my tone, because he can dish it out too, plus I know that he likes being confrontational.
Overall, I enjoyed the show. It might have even taught me a thing or two, like when he has Tyler Perry on. He makes black movies that I don't usually get and that was his whole point. He told Kenya to stop trying to please everybody, don't make your projects so big to please everybody because people never do and then you invite criticism in. Just do what makes you happy and your audience will find you and appreciate you. You will never be happy if you spend all your time trying to please the masses.
No comments:
Post a Comment