2 posts tagged “reality”

I like Airline but my wife hates it. Sometimes she lets me watch it, sometimes not. Yetserday's episode was rather funny, though: it was filmed on April 1st and had some practical jokes being played on crew members. One was slightly malicious - a guy pretended to have cataracts so he could preboard, then admitted he does this all the time and chortled at Southwest's falling for it - and the other was just hilarious. In the second, a passenger trying to check in wants to get preboarding for his "invisible wife." At first I thought it must be an April Fool's joke, but he was so convincing I decided he must actually be crazy. After all, he had a ticket for his invisible wife, and who would buy a ticket as part of a joke? But it turned out the check-in staff convinced a passenger to help them play a trick on their supervisor, and they printed up an extra ticket. The supervisor had handled the situation with aplomb - he didn't laugh too much, and he acquiesced and gave the guy preboarding because "not all disabilities are physical." But then the guy admitted it was all a joke, and it was a big "gotcha!" on the supervisor. It amused me.

I was a little surprised by how quickly one of the stars of Black. White. let out her secret. I fully support her reasons for doing so - she needed to in order to be comfortable - but I was surprised that it happened in only the second episode ever.

I don't really like Carmen. After she called Renee a bitch, Carmen turned it around and tried to make herself seem like the victim - "I'm very sensitive, and you have ideas." She also couldn't understand the difference between "wearing a dashiki to church is a good idea" and "if you are going to wear a dashiki to church, that is a nice one." It's really not that hard a concept! And her speech for Rose's poetry group was completely misguided.

As for the other family, I think Brian has a pretty negative outlook on the world. As NPR commentator John McWhorter said in an opinion piece yesterday afternoon, Brian sees racism everywhere he goes. I don't think American culture is as all-embracing as Bruno seems to believe, but Brian takes it to the other extreme and thinks everyone is racist. It doesn't help that the show takes place in Los Angeles, far away from Brian's home in Atlanta but near Bruno's home in Santa Monica.

It's an interesting concept for a series, but its success will be largely dependent on the people starring in it. If the producers had picked different families, it could be a very different show.