The whole cast of characters is updated and redressed for plot and conflict. Cooper and Smith slam their plot points down hard, taking cues from melodramatic primetime soaps and upping the ante with music video-style glam shots. Will (Jabari Banks) tussles with white kids at Bel-Air Academy, sparked when one of them is rapping along to a song and says the N-word (the N-word is used a LOT in this) Will constantly questions Carlton's Blackness while Carlton swings back and calls Will a thug and Will's humble upbringing causes a lot of tension between him and the entire filthy-rich Banks family. (Yes, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air covered plenty of serious subjects, but it earned those moments and didn't handle them at all like Bel-Air does, which is to say with blunt force.)Īs a serious drama, Bel-Air fills up most of its time with questions of class, race, and Blackness, though the ways they're handled aren't exactly original and unexpected. Is Cooper going for real shocking drama here, or is he still winking at the audience as he did in his short film? Bel-Air is played as the former, with zero laughs in sight, meaning the whole series is either an inside joke that we're kind of in on or we're really doing this and Carlton hoovering pain meds is something we're taking seriously. When Bel-Air's Carlton (Olly Sholotan) - a character best remembered for the very intentionally funny Carlton dance from Fresh Prince - chops up and snorts Xanax (!!!), he may as well also snort the line between intentional and unintentional parody. That feeling of perplexity works for a three-minute video - kinda like something from that episode of Rick & Morty where they watch cable TV from other universes - but taking these well-known pieces and making them "edgy" for an entire episode, let alone two full seasons, is fun for a bit, until it ultimately becomes a test of patience and sanity. Bel-Air tries to separate itself from the original while also using the original as a template, making it impossible to watch without constantly being reminded of the bizarre road Bel-Air took to get here.
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