White Famous
“Pilot”
Season 1, Episode 1
This is a First Look Review of Showtime’s White Famous starring Jay Pharoah, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Cleopatra Coleman, Lonnie Chavis, and Jamie Foxx.
Do you want to ride or die?
The backstory behind the new Showtime series White Famous is a way more enthralling story than its result. The casting, too, promises a better tale. For what it’s worth, White Famous is doing what its title suggests; it’s making the lead character played by Jay Pharoah famous with white people. He’s taking a role that speaks out against his inner and outer black being. Yet he’s doing it for a good reason (i.e. his son). Where is it supposed to go from there?
Pharoah takes on the role of Floyd Mooney (a composite of show creator Jamie Foxx) who seemingly has a bone to pick not with one white person but the entire race. Sure, he’s trying to keep it real in a world that doesn’t want him to be real. But, at some point, Mooney veers into cartoonish territory with his anti-any-race-other-than-black attitude. His character is similar to Eastbound and Down’s Kenny Powers or Vice Principal’s Neil Gamby (really, any character portrayed by Danny McBride). Mooney isn’t as boorish nor is he as graphically explicit. He lacks the single quality that makes McBride driven characters so likeable: charm.
Somehow, this oaf managed to land Cleopatra Coleman’s Sadie, knocking her up so that she’d give birth to their son Trevor (This Is Us star Lonnie Chavis). The family’s back and forth is good with the pilot setting up several reasons why the audience should root for Mooney even when he doesn’t want to root for himself. The comedian/actor aspires to be like Eddie Murphy yet not taking into account how Murphy got to where he is. Mooney paints the world as against him rather than accepting all of the praise he’s getting. A mid-episode lunch meeting with a director goes south because Mooney dubs him as racist when offered a less than appealing role. There’s an easier way to do that. Leaving another restaurant meeting later gives him another opportunity to land a bigger, more demeaning role on the very same film. This way, Jamie Foxx will be his co-star and not his superior.
Mooney describes this next level as “white famous.” In his eyes, he’s no longer a man of the people; he’s corporate schilling mannequin. All seriousness set aside, isn’t this where he should want to be? He needs the acceptance of the people running Hollywood in order to become the next Eddie Murphy so it’s better to be with them than against them.
The script comes from Tom Kapinos and direction is by Tim Story. Kapinos, who is probably the nicest guy in the world, is white. White Famous would’ve played better and been a lot more relatable if someone of color penned it. It makes no sense to have a white guy tell the story of a black man. While it’s true Foxx and Story could’ve had some input on the script, White Famous itself loses credibility just as its main character thinks he lost.
Should you watch White Famous?
We’re almost seven episodes in at the time of this review. If the pilot threw you off, stay away. White Famous is a missed opportunity and it doesn’t look like it’s earning back the credit it desires.