Black. White.

Hubby-Eric has started watching this show, Black. White., on FX. As is often the case, I watched because he was watching, and now that I've seen two episodes, I have a few things to say about the show.

For anyone not familiar with the series, it's a semi-reality series that takes two families, one white and one black, and uses make-up to change their ethnicity. The white family consists of Carmen Wurgel, her daughter Rose, and her significant other Bruno Marcotulli. The black family consists of Brian and Renee Sparks, and their son Nick.

First up: the make-up. If I hadn't seen the transformation taking place on camera myself, I would have hardly believed it to be possible. Well, at least in the case of Carmen, Rose, Brian, and Nick. Bruno still looks Italian and Renee looks much like herself. Rose's transformation is probably the most impressive, as she really looks like a beautiful black young lady after the make-up has been applied. Brian looks like he might break out into the Redneck stomp at any second, while Nick's transformation to white makes him look vaguely Hispanic. I was afraid the transformations would be disrespectful or look horrible, but the make-up artists did an excellent job.

Next up: the kids. Nick hasn't had much of a role so far, but if not for Rose, this show would be unwatchable. The first two episodes had a lot of focus on Rose, who jumped right into the fray without fear and with a huge desire to learn as much as possible while she had the chance. Seeing a different culture through her eyes was fantastic. Her disguise gave her a different outlook on what she was seeing, and Rose managed to convey that to the audience.

I do wonder about the cameras, and how they were manned and described to the students in the poetry class. While it did seem raw and amazing, let's not forget that it is still a reality show and being observed often changes the way people act even when it's non-intrusive.

I also like that Rose was honest with the poetry class and showed them her true self in the second episode. I wonder how many sessions there were before she admitted she was white. The reaction of her fellow students to her true face was one of the highlights of the show so far. You cannot script that sort of reaction.

And now let's move on to the adults: I don't feel completely qualified to comment on the Sparks, but the white couple are perhaps the most clueless liberal twits I've ever had the misfortune to see.

Bruno's attitude that you get out of life exactly what you put into it is admirable, but at the end of the day he's going to go home white. He'll probably never have that one scarring experience that clarifies racism in the souls of its victims. Worse than that, he seems to be looking for confrontation. He seems to believe that racism is something big, out in the open, and completely obvious when it happens. And he really wants to see it happen. He's quite capable of ignoring all the little bites of racism, all the ways in which a person is slowly nicked to death by tiny slights and minor insults. And while he's partially right... it can be ignored and overcome, he hasn't had to deal with it all his life.

Carmen is worse. She thinks she understands. She's energetic and eager to play the role and wants to use all her accumulated knowledge of black culture that she got in the 60s when her parents marched for equal rights. But she's completely off. She's playing black like a bad actor in an old sitcom. She acts like she's what black should be, and doesn't take kindly to Renee's stunned anger when Carmen crosses lines that no polite person would cross. It's like Carmen doesn't think that there are rules of conduct when you are black or something. Her speech to the poetry class (as a white woman, thank goodness) when they came to visit Rose was cringeworthy in the extreme. She thinks she's ready to try to be black, but she's already made up her mind what is going to happen, so she can't seem to understand when reality turns out to be different than what she expects.

Both Bruno and Carmen have an air of superiority and confidence that makes them unable to see what's in front of their faces. Neither of them have come into this show to learn, they both seem to want to prove a point. Until, unless, they get a clue-by-four somehow, they will be so difficult to watch in this series that I'll be squirming in embarrassment every time they are the focus of the show.

Moving on to the Sparks... I don't have a lot to say about them. Brian seems like the most sane of the adults. He's open-minded, willing to experience whatever comes his way. The job he gets in a bar that is almost exclusively patronized by whites is a great way for him to see if he's treated significantly different. As Brian points out in the first episode, he and Renee already know how to act white. It's a survival skill for them. And while Bruno has a point about Brian seeing racism in the smallest things, I tend to see Brian as a guy with a good head on his shoulders. Of the adults, I would trust Brian the most.

Renee... I really can't say much about her. We've seen her mostly in conflict with Carmen, and that doesn't show off her positive qualities. Renee seems like fairly normal person of her generation to me. Like Brian, she's much more willing to sit back and listen, but she's also more willing to call life as she sees it. Until we see her interacting more in her white make-up, it's too hard to say much about her.

Overall, this is a pretty good show... as long as you are willing to discuss it and think about the situations. It's very difficult to watch Bruno and Carmen playact, but Rose and Brian make up for a lot of that. And no matter how embarrassing it is... it is really thought-provoking.