Netflix's animated revival seems calculated to offendExBulletin

The revival of the Netflix animated series Good time seems almost genetically engineered to ward off critics like me.

With an opening image that says Good Times (black again)it's full of the kind of stereotypical characters and images that certainly seem to irritate fans of the original series, which was a groundbreaking '70s sitcom revered for the way it challenged presumptions that a poor black family “scratches and survives.” ” in a housing project in Chicago.

Described by Netflix as a “spiritual sequel”, the animated film Good time features the fourth generation of the Evans family from the original series living in a Chicago housing project.

This new show opens with the patriarch, an explosive and not-too-intelligent taxi driver named Reggie Evans, singing part of the original. Good time duo theme with a cockroach (he is so soft to the touch, he has difficulty earning a living because the prices keep making him stiff). Matriarch Beverly Evans can tell when her baby is here because her breasts are lactating and leaking through her shirt.

The baby, Dalvin, was kicked out of the house because he is a drug dealer with guns and studs in his ears. And when her activist older sister, Gray, decides to go on a hunger strike in protest, she becomes emaciated and has flies swarming around her face like a child suffering from an African famine.

It's a universe where, when Reggie takes his artistic son Junior to a broken medical center to get a prescription to help him concentrate in school, a shootout breaks out. And when baby Dalvin leaves their apartment after a visit, Beverly makes sure he doesn't forget his handgun. Sigh.

Bold content draws criticism

Much of the game feels like one of the most enhanced editions of Adult Swim I've ever seen, littered with images that sometimes look like stereotypical cartoons exhumed from Reddit's worst online conversations. Taking advantage of the freedom afforded by animation, the series features trippy scenes that sometimes border on the fantastical, sometimes it works, and sometimes it seems oddly creepy. There's even a piece of dialogue cheekily cloned straight from the pilot episode of The Cosby Show.

Already, the trailer for the series has drawn criticism from the NAACP. Kyle Bowser, senior vice president of the civil rights organization's Hollywood office, wrote in a guest column For The Hollywood Reporter that it is clear that Netflix made the choice “to market the series based on an interpretation of black life as an “othered” experience, filled with abhorrent beliefs and behaviors. » A Change.org petition urging viewers to boycott the show has more than 3,700 signatures.

But I'm wary of delivering the expected critique of such jarring images, in part because they have interesting messages buried beneath them. In the episode where he and his father visit a dilapidated clinic, Junior wonders why he has to take medication to develop his mental focus in school at the expense of his creativity. He doesn't know why he has to choose between the two and Gray. learns to get rid of the shame she feels after having her first period, thus freeing herself from the patriarchy.

Part of the problem here is the connection to the original Good time celebrate its 50th anniversary this year which was considered the first television show centered on a two-parent black family, humanizing people who live in poor, black neighborhoods. As a child watching the series without a father in the house, I found it inspiring to see John Amos' character, James Evans, as a stern but loving fatherly presence in a household with the quick-witted matriarch of 'Esther Rolle, Florida, BernNadette Stanis. ', serious daughter Thelma, Ralph Carter's studious son Michael, and Jimmie Walker's stereotypical borderline artist son JJ.

After a slew of references to the original in the first episode, the new series doesn't seem particularly tied to that old model, which may make viewing it a difficult experience for longtime fans. And it doesn't have the same mission as the old series, although it ultimately depicts a family that loves each other through all the craziness. (It also beeps for use of the n-word, but doesn't emit profanities like s*** or f***. Hmmm.)

In some ways, it would have been better to create this as an original series without all the baggage and expectations that come with reimagining a television classic, but Netflix wouldn't have attracted all the headlines and watch out for the shocked reactions.

This is a project with a pedigree. family guy creator Seth MacFarlane and basketball star Steph Curry are executive producers, alongside the original Good time executive producer Norman Lear, who worked on the series before his death in December at the age of 101. Talents like JB Smoove, Jay Pharoah, Yvette Nicole Brown and Wanda Sykes voice the characters.

Yet for so long Good time fan, the new series feels too much like a different program transformed into something that vaguely resembles the old series, but without the sense of mission and pride that made the original series such a television landmark.

Story edited by Jennifer Vanasco.