LOS ANGELES (AP) – A surprise awaited “black” creator Kenya Barris and his family when they visited the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington in 2016: an exhibit about the television series was on display.
“I was very, very emotional” upon seeing the tribute, Barris said. He returned to the Smithsonian Museum earlier this month to salute “black” as the end of his eight-year run neared.
“It was just surreal. As a brand, The Smithsonian is connected to things that endure, that are part of the core DNA of this world. Putting our show in it meant a lot to me,” he said.
Sitcoms, particularly family-centric ones, are more likely to stick in viewers’ minds than museums. Shows like “The Brady Bunch,” “Good Times,” and “Full House” have been part of their viewers’ coming of age, loving the shows and their characters well beyond their original runs.
Talk to admirers of “black” and the same seems likely for the series, which airs its half-hour finale Tuesday at 9 p.m. EDT (midnight EDT on Hulu), followed by ABC News’ “black: a celebration.” on ABC. The series was a rarity on network TV: a portrayal of a wealthy, close-knit family of color, the Johnsons, with black creators shaping their stories.
“I remember when it first came out I was worried it was going to be either serious and gross or really sad and funny,” said viewer Onaje Harper. The pandemic has turned him into a binge-viewing convert, nagging online that the show isn’t “real”.
“It’s not real to them, but it’s my everyday life,” said Harper, an educator-turned-businessman in Dallas who is the grandson and son of African Americans. He recalls feeling the same way when he criticized The Cosby Show, a 20th-century television portrayal of a wealthy African-American family.
But “black-ish” has a significantly more layered view of race, beginning with the title, which reflects father Andre “Dre” Johnson’s fear that wealth is separating his children from their ethnic identity. It also has a sharper look at race relations, Harper said.
He cited an episode in which Dr. Rainbow “Bow” Johnson, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, is a supportive parent and volunteers for a private school fundraiser. One of the white parents offers her help, which the show used as code for “I think you’re going to fail and you’re overwhelmed,” as Harper recalled of the scene.
“I died laughing because the parents at my daughter’s school are amazing, but we often leave this place like, ‘Oh my goodness, I hope our daughter at least loves it,'” Harper said.
Jerry McCormick grew up watching Bob Newhart’s sitcoms and The Good Times in the 1970s and 1980s. He compared “black-ish” to another comedy of the time.
“We’ve never seen wealthy black people on TV, except for ‘The Jeffersons,'” said San Diego-based McCormick, who works in communications and teaches journalism. “I grew up in South Carolina and it helped attract it because it was ambitious.”
He looks “black-ish” much like “the grandchild from ‘The Jeffersons’ and the kid from ‘The Cosby Show.’ You have Dre and Bow, a couple who really care about each other. They raise their children. You run the house. The children do not overtake them.”
Ladinia Brown, a New York City fraud investigator, said she “loves reality. That stuff is funny because a lot of it is just so true.” She cited a favorite episode that dealt with colorism — discrimination within an ethnic community toward people of darker skin.
“It resonated with me because my kids are like different colors of the rainbow, they all have different complexions, and my family is the same,” she said. “I really understood when they addressed how people are treated differently within the African American race.”
Her daughter, 19-year-old Emily Johnson, welcomed the show’s handling of big and everyday issues that are part of black life but are largely ignored on screen. An example: a teenager’s dilemma of whether to continue straightening his hair or go natural.
“When I was younger, I really didn’t like my hair because I found it difficult to manage and I didn’t like the way it looked,” Johnson said. “But over time, I grew to appreciate my hair, and when I watched the episode, I liked it when[they]talked about all the things black hair can do.”
“Black-ish” also became a vehicle for sobering, nuanced chapters on racism, police brutality and, in a hard-edged 2018 episode, the ramifications of Donald Trump’s presidency. (The episode that was shelved by ABC was released on Hulu two years later.)
The goal is “to tell stories that are about something, to tell stories that have a point, that actually try to say something. It’s been what TV was about for a long time,” said Barris — whether it was the moralistic sermons of the father in “Leave It to Beaver” or the social satire of Norman Lear’s “All in the Family” and “Maude.”
While “black-ish” broached sensitive topics, it never stopped laughing throughout its more than 170 episodes, said Courtney Lilly, who has written the show since its first season and turned executive producer and showrunner.
“Obviously there have been episodes where we’ve been careful to address issues. But even then, we were relevant and fun,” Lilly said.
The series garnered the prestigious Peabody Award and other accolades — including multiple NAACP Image Awards for Anderson, Ross, Deon Cole and young actor Marsai Martin — but the top Emmys remained elusive.
When asked about the show’s legacy, Barris points out that it focuses on those who feel invisible in the world, regardless of ethnicity, and how “black” has attempted to break down divisions.
“It’s often considered rude to talk about certain topics that make people uncomfortable. We did that and we did it from the comfort of our own homes,” he said. “I think it made people feel a little bit closer to people they might not have been close to before.”