Thread by @jmariemorgan

Finally watching #youpeoplenetflix

…thoughts to come…🤔

.Aight, I’m about to tweet some of my thoughts on #youpeoplenetflix into the abyss lol

My thoughts are fair game for discussion, so feel free to chime in! And even if we think differently about the movie, I still genuinely love you… not even kidding ☺️

Here we go: a 🧵

.Let me start with what some of my presuppositions were going into watching #youpeoplenetflix:

A) It’s a comedy and comedies often inherently lack nuance in order to… be funny. So, I knew it would lack most of the gray area needed for any discussion of cross-racial relations.

.B) I have never liked #KenyaBarris’ #Blackish because it often boldly takes on comedically what (I think) should really never be absent of nuance and so… I didn’t have much faith that what should be handled with care in #YouPeopleNetflix would be… handled with care either.

.C) This one’s about climax in comedic screenwriting:

Y’all… there’s only but SO many climaxes Barris could’ve written for #YouPeopleNetflix. Did we REALLY think it wasn’t gonna involve Amira spending way too much emotional labor to educate her racist, white mother in law?

.D) I came into #YouPeopleNetflix with the same energy our collective auntie #IssaRae gave us at the ‘17 Emmys:

I’m rooting for everybody Black.

So, I came to the movie for #EddieMurphy, #NiaLong, and #LaurenLondon, Amen?

Amen 😌

.Okay, so with ALL of that said, here’s where #YouPeopleNetflix surprised me a little bit:

I did NOT expect the level of satire Barris gave us.

I mean… to have #JuliaLouisDreyfus skillfully playing up the vices of pseudo-woke white people for the whole movie? **chef’s kiss**

.I also didn’t expect the consistently overt way Ezra disapproved of his mother’s racism in #YouPeopleNetflix. I expected Barris to back down from those moments but we caught some gems (e.g., Amira’s first time meeting the parents, alone with his mom in the kitchen).

.(I keep only mentioning Barris when Jonah Hill co-wrote #YouPeopleNetflix— my bad, y’all!)

There were some things Barris & Hill did with Akbar’s character that I didn’t like (I’m starting to wonder if maybe Barris has a thing with making father figures a bit grotesque🤔).

.For one, I worry that Barris/ Hill choosing to make Akbar a nearly “hateful” Muslim in #YouPeopleNetflix actually caricaturizes Islam…

and we truly don’t need anymore of that in cinema.

But, again— it’s comedy, so… I get why they did it 🤷🏽‍♀️

.And secondly, (and in usual Barris fashion), Akbar’s emotional intelligence is woefully absent in #YouPeopleNetflix.

I get why Barris/Hill used Akbar’s heavy-handedness to create tension in the storyline, but I’m just… tired of seeing the trope of the emotionally-stunted dad🤷🏽‍♀️

.But, honestly, with all of that considered,

if #YouPeopleNetflix is going to be anything…

it’s going to be a non-nuanced, comedy about cross-racial family dynamics that’s only funny because it eagerly exaggerates how destructive white wokeness can actually be (and often is).

.But my humble invitation would be that folks would NOT watch #YouPeopleNetflix expecting to see cross-racial marriage done in a way that effectively protects the minoritized member of the couple (i.e., Amira) from further racial trauma.

cc: @KyleJamesHoward’s 🧵:

https://twitter.com/KyleJamesHoward/status/1619832284731035649

.Also: even though #YouPeopleNetflix tries to flatten the power dynamics between Amira & Ezra’s families in order to play up the comedy,

that’s make-believe 😌

Minoritized members of cross-racial couples are often retraumatized while merging into the dominant-cultured family.

.Ultimately, I got some good chuckles here ‘n there out of #YouPeopleNetflix ‘cuz Eddie, Nia, Jonah, & Julie Louis-Dreyfus are good at what they do on screen…

…and ‘cuz I’m Black and sometimes I have to laugh to keep from crying about what white wokeness actually does to us🫣

.For a satirical comedy, it’s not
✌🏽terrible✌🏽.

I give it a 6/10 🤷🏽‍♀️

Thanks for readin’, y’all!

#YouPeopleNetflix

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