So did anyone else watch this Wednesday night? It was on late and so I'm not going to remember everything, but here's my take on it.
To answer
thedude110's question, I didn't hear them say much about the socio-economic status of the two families, and they definitely didn't play up that aspect of it in this first episode. The black family (the Sparks) are from Atlanta and the white family (the Wurgles) are from the Los Angeles area; based on what little is said about them on
the FX site, both appear to be middle-class families.
To me (a white guy) the make-up job for the Wurgels was a lot more convincing that the make-up job for the Sparks. That is, if I had nothing other than their appearance to go on, I wouldn't suspect that the (made-up) Wurgles weren't black. The Sparks family's make-up job left them looking biracial or something, in my opinion.
OK, let's just get this out of the way: The Wurgels' daughter, Rose, looks a lot prettier with the make-up than she does without it. There, I said it.
This first episode seemed mainly to focus on the experiences of the two fathers, and the Wurgels' daughter Rose. Rose seems to be fitting in really well with her black peers, and we had one part of the episode focused on her attending a "slam" poetry workshop. I do wonder if we will see the two teenagers adapting better to this change than the adults do as the series goes on.
The two fathers appear to have the greatest differences of opinion about how black people are treated.
Mr. Sparks made a big deal about the fact that the first time he went shoe-shopping as a white guy, the salesman was very attentive and offered to measure his feet, place the shoe on his foot with a shoehorn, etc. He said that this was the first time he'd ever been treated that well in a shoe store -- he said that the salesman would go fetch the shoes for him, but that's where the service ended.
There's also a subplot where Mr. Sparks goes and applies for a job at a bar in an all-white neighborhood. He gets the job, and we see him talking with one patron who goes on and on about how this neighborhood is one of the last "safe" neighborhoods left. I don't remember if the patron explicitly says that it's safe because there are no black people there, but it's definitely implied.
Mr. Wurgel keeps trying to make the case that if he just goes into a store and treats people with respect, that they'll do the same to him. He believes that Mr. Sparks is so conditioned to seeing the world as racist, that he interprets any slight from a white person as racially-motvated. For example, in one scene both men are walking down a sidewalk side-by-side (Mr. Sparks without his "white" make-up). They are taking up most of the sidewalk, and when a group of white people steps aside to let the two men pass, Mr. Sparks attributes it to racism.
Anyways, it was kinda interesting. There are plenty of cringe-worthy moments, but the show didn't come off to me as a purely exploitative thing. They aren't putting the two families into goofy stereotypical situations to see how they react; it all seems pretty genuine. I'll definitely watch again.
