Black-ish

Black-ish
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Kenya Barris
Starring	Anthony Anderson Tracee Ellis Ross Yara Shahidi Marcus Scribner Miles Brown Marsai Martin Jeff Meacham Jenifer Lewis Peter Mackenzie
Narrated by	Anthony Anderson
Theme music composer	Transcenders
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	72 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Anthony Anderson Brian Dobbins Helen Sugland Jonathan Groff Kenya Barris Larry Wilmore Paul Young Laurence Fishburne Peter Principato Tom Russo
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	22 minutes
Production company(s)	ABC Studios Khalabo Ink Society Cinema Gypsy Productions Principato-Young Entertainment
Distributor	Disney-ABC Domestic Television
Release
Original network	ABC
Picture format	1080p (16:9 HDTV)
Audio format	Dolby Digital 5.1 with Descriptive Video Service on SAP channel
Original release	September 24, 2014 (2014-09-24) – present
Chronology
Related shows	Grown-ish
External links
Official website	abc.go.com/shows/blackish

Black-ish (stylized as blackish) is an American sitcom starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross, broadcast on ABC.^[1][2] The single-camera comedy centers on an upper-middle-class African-American family.^[3] The series premiered on September 24, 2014^[4][5][6] and in May 2017 was renewed for a fourth season, which will premiere in September 2017.^[7] Since the second-season premiere, the show has received critical acclaim, receiving many awards and nominations including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Tracee Ellis Ross, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series, and a TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy.

Cast and characters

Main cast

• Anthony Anderson as Andre "Dre" Johnson Sr., an advertising executive who tries to pass on some of his urban culture to his seemingly uninterested children. His alma mater is Howard University.
• Tracee Ellis Ross as Dr. Rainbow "Bow" Johnson, who is Dre's wife. She is a biracial anesthesiologist who was raised by hippies. Her alma mater is Brown University.
• Yara Shahidi as Zoey Johnson, Dre and Rainbow's 17-year-old daughter. She is the attractive, popular, entitled, stylish, and socially active member of the Johnson family. She is typically apathetic to any dealings with her family and is always treated as the world's most perfect teenager, despite her generally shallow personality and tendencies of selfishness towards her siblings, especially Junior.
• Marcus Scribner as Andre ("Junior") Johnson Jr., Dre and Rainbow's 16-year-old son. He is a so-called "nerd" who is confused by the world around him and frequently subjected to disdain and pettiness at the hands of his more shallow and obnoxious father and siblings.
• Miles Brown as Jack Johnson, Dre and Rainbow's upbeat 9-year-old son, fraternal twin of Diane, who idolizes his father.
• Marsai Martin as Diane Johnson, Dre and Rainbow's 9-year-old daughter, fraternal twin of Jack, who considers herself smarter and more mature than her twin brother.
• Jenifer Lewis as Ruby Johnson (recurring season 1; starring season 2-present), Dre's mother.^[8]
• Jeff Meacham as Josh Oppenhol (recurring season 1, 3–present; starring season 2), Dre's co-worker.
• Peter Mackenzie as Leslie Stevens (recurring seasons 1–2; starring season 3–present), Dre's boss and co-owner of Stevens & Lido.

Recurring cast

• Laurence Fishburne as Earl "Pops" Johnson, Dre's father.^[9][10][11]
• Deon Cole as Charlie Telphy, Dre's co-worker and adulthood best friend
• Raven-Symoné as Rhonda Johnson, Dre's lesbian sister
• Faizon Love as Sha, Dre's male best friend since childhood
• Tyra Banks as Gigi Franklin, Dre's female best friend since childhood.
• Nicole Sullivan as Janine, the Johnsons' culturally clueless neighbor.
• Catherine Reitman as Lucy, Dre's co-worker.
• Wanda Sykes as Daphne Lido, ex-wife of Phillip Lido and new co-owner of Stevens & Lido.
• Allen Maldonado as Curtis Miller Jr., Dre's co-worker.
• Elle Young as Sharon Duckworth, Rhonda's fiancée.
• Regina Hall as Vivian, Jack and Diane's nanny.
• Daveed Diggs as Johan Johnson, Rainbow's brother.
• Nelson Franklin as Connor Stevens, Leslie Stevens' son.
• Diane Farr as Rachel, Stevens & Lido's HR rep.
• Rashida Jones as Santamonica, Rainbow's sister.

Episodes

Production

Development and casting

Black-ish first appeared on the development slate at ABC in October 2013, when it was reported that the project, which would star Anthony Anderson, had received a script commitment.^[12] On January 16, 2014, ABC greenlit the pilot episode.^[13] Two weeks later, Larry Wilmore joined the show as showrunner.^[14] In mid-February, Laurence Fishburne was cast as the father of Anderson's character, and Tracee Ellis Ross signed on as the female lead.^[15][16][17]

Filming

On May 8, 2014, ABC picked up the pilot to the series for the 2014–15 television season.^[1][2] A few days later, Anderson announced that Larry Wilmore would be stepping down as showrunner early in the show's run due to his forthcoming late night show, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.^[18]

On May 7, 2015, ABC renewed the series for a second season.

On March 3, 2016, ABC renewed the series for a third season.^[19]

On May 10, 2017, ABC renewed the series for a fourth season.^[20]

Spin-off

The twenty-third episode of the third season, "Liberal Arts", functioned as a backdoor pilot for a proposed spin-off, featuring Yara Shahidi's character, Zoey Johnson, as she goes to college. Shahidi will topline the proposed series, with Chris Parnell, Mallory Sparks, Matt Walsh, and Trevor Jackson guest starring in the backdoor pilot, and the possibility to become regulars should the proposed spin-off be picked up by ABC.^[21][22][23]

On May 19, 2017, Freeform (ABCs sister network) officially ordered 13 episodes of spinoff under the tentative title College-ish.^[24] The series was later retitled Grown-ish, with Parnell and Jackson reprising their roles from the backdoor pilot with Emily Arlook replacing Mallory Sparks in the role of Miriam.^[25]

Reception

Nielsen ratings

Critical response

Black-ish has been met with generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives season 1 a rating of 86% based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's consensus states, "Although it seems uncertain of its target audience, Black-ish ingratiates with a diverse cast and engaging cultural issues."^[35] Metacritic gave season 1 a score of 77 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[36] Rolling Stone's December 4, 2014 issue called it "one of the only new network comedies worth watching," praising in particular Laurence Fishburne's performance. Anthony Anderson's performance was met with critical acclaim, earning him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

Awards and nominations

Social and political commentary content

Racism

Black-ish addresses not only the racism that the Johnsons face as an upper-middle class African-American family, but also includes the racism African-Americans from a variety of backgrounds face in America. The "Pilot" episode starts off the series by introducing Dre's fear that his kids are too assimilated to their primarily white surroundings and are losing their black culture. The episode also addresses the racism African-Americans face in the workplace when Dre gets excited for a promotion at his advertising agency, which turns out to be for Senior Vice President of the Urban Division. In response, Dre questions, "Did they just put me in charge of black stuff?" This episode raises the question of where the line is drawn so that you are not defined by your race but your culture still remains relevant.^[58]

In the 25th episode, "The Word", Jack performs Kanye West's "Gold Digger" at school and says the N-word. The rest of the episode discusses the generational and multicultural perspectives of the word and how it has a different meaning to different people, even between different African-Americans. That different meaning comes with different guidelines and regulations for the use of the N-word based on the speaker, the context, and the audience.^[59]

LGBT

In the 22nd episode, "Please Don't Ask, Please Don't Tell". Dre's younger sister, Rhonda (Raven-Symoné), is introduced. Rhonda is a lesbian but never officially came out to her family. Family members just gradually figured it out because of Rhonda's live-in girlfriend, however, no one ever acknowledges it. Andre admits that homosexuality is a topic that most African-Americans prefer to avoid, which is why he never discusses it with his sister. This leads to Rhonda not inviting any of her family members to her wedding and Andre finally talking to Rhonda about her sexuality.^[60]

Police brutality

In the 40th episode, "Hope", the show tackles police brutality and Black Lives Matter as the family watches the news reporting about an unarmed young, black man's fatal run-in with police. Although the case was fictional, many real names, such as Freddie Gray and Sandra Bland, were included in the family's discussion. The debate format of the episode was able to address both sides of the situation and not completely villainize the police force. However, it leaned more towards the Black Lives Matter movement. The format also allowed for perspectives from different generations, backgrounds, and ideologies. The end of the episode revolved around a message of hope and the importance of protests, discussion, and attitudes when people are faced with tragedies from police brutality, assassinations, etc.^[61]

References

External links

• Official website
• Black-ish on IMDb
• Black-ish at TV.com