Black.White: Trading races or Trading paint?

Is FX's 'Black.White.' Treading in the Gray?
The cable network hypes its documentary on race, but questions of
accuracy are raised.
By Greg Braxton, Times Staff Writer
March 4, 2006

THE title song of FX Networks' new "Black.White." is both come-on and
warning — "Please don't believe the hype. Everything in the world ain't
black and white." It also may turn out to be an unintentionally ironic
commentary on the project itself.

The six-episode series is being aggressively hyped by the cable network
as a provocative and insightful documentary examining race relations in
America. But here in Los Angeles, where the show was filmed and where
issues of race continually bubble near the surface, some participants on
the program, which premieres Wednesday, say its mix of creative
manipulations and reality show tactics undermine the frank discussions
about race relations its producers said they wanted to inspire.

In "Black.White.," two families — one black, one white — switch places
through the magic of movie industry-caliber makeup. The Sparks family of
Atlanta becomes white and the Wurgel family of Santa Monica becomes
black. The families lived together in Tarzana for six weeks last summer,
and the show traces not only their struggles with experiencing life in
another person's skin but also tensions within and between the respective
families.

But before the show has even aired, local residents, from the Crenshaw
District to La Crescenta to Hollywood, who took part in the program are
coming away from the experience feeling singed.

Hoping to capitalize on its critically acclaimed status of producing edgy
dramas such as "The Shield" and "Nip/Tuck," FX is heavily promoting
"Black.White." as a major breakthrough television event, with numerous
commercials, print ads and public screenings for politicians and groups
such as the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. Oprah
Winfrey devoted almost a full hour to "Black.White.," calling it "a
groundbreaking documentary series."

The project was developed by filmmaker R.J. Cutler, who also produced the
Oscar-nominated documentary "The War Room," as well as FX's documentary
series "30 Days" and the unscripted "Freshman Diaries" and "American
Candidate" for Showtime. He intends for "Black.White." to illuminate what
he calls "the defining issue of American life," claiming that race is
often "swept under the rug."

"Race is still very complex and has a thorny set of issues," Cutler said.
"My goal is to tell a story, to tell the experience that these people had
over the course of six weeks, and tell those stories as truthfully as
possible, the conflicts they had."

But the questions of truthfulness and misrepresentations have ignited
complaints and concerns among some of those associated with the show.

Key creative forces behind "Black.White.," as well as members of the
families, say that, despite the network's insistence on pushing the
documentary label, "Black.White." does not accurately reflect some of the
events prominently featured on the show and that the show's point of view
— the perspective of the families — was edited, much like a reality show,
to focus on the most confrontational elements.

"There were some moments that were true but others that were designed a
little or genetically modified," said Carmen Wurgel. "It cast a certain
slant on reactions. I trusted the integrity of the show, and, overall, I
still do, but I don't respect any manipulation that distorts reality.
It's like taking a fresh orange and adding sweetener when the orange is
already sweet enough."

Questions have been raised in particular about two of the series'
highlighted segments during its first four episodes.

In one, Leimert Park, a village-type area in the Crenshaw District
distinguished by coffeehouses and cultural art enclaves, is portrayed as
a hotbed for angry blacks who become agitated at the presence of what
they believe is an interracial couple: Carmen Wurgel in no makeup and
Bruno Marcotulli in black makeup. Although the couple is never seen being
openly challenged, Marcotulli declares that he feels threatened by the
"bitter, self-pitying people" in the park.

The show lingers on their fears, though Deanna Michaux, a local black
advice columnist who went with the couple to the area, said later that
the tension they felt was misinterpreted. That misunderstanding was then
heightened on the show by the producer's decision not to provide full
context to the incident.

Michaux said that those in the park were reacting to Wurgel's disrespect
of the rituals of the cultural activities, such as the African drum
circle. She said that Wurgel was too aggressive in trying to interact
with park-goers. "It is an unbalanced and negative view of Leimert Park,"
she said. "White people should not be afraid to come here. The message
should be, 'Enjoy the culture and keep it moving.' "

Cutler said he had concerns about the sequence, constructing it with a
great deal of thought, consideration and debate. "The story we're
ultimately telling is of their experience. It wasn't my goal to make a
definitive statement about what was happening in Leimert Park."

Meanwhile, the owners of a predominantly white sports bar in La Crescenta
say the makers of the show have unfairly tainted the establishment and
the community as racist. In the first two episodes, Sparks and his wife
speak to two customers who express negative opinions about minorities.

Both Sparks and Cutler acknowledged that the couple separately also spoke
to other patrons with less divisive views on minorities, but those
interviews were not shown, at least in the first four episodes.

"This is so disturbing to us," said Leo Lesh, owner of Leo's All-Star
Sports Bar & Grill. "This is not good. They were not looking for anything
positive. This is a good community, and we did this to have fun. This
will lead to no good … but the producers could care less about what
happens to us. They just want to raise heck."

A reality show?
STILL, FX Network's president and general manager, John Landgraf,
bristled when asked whether "Black.White." should be defined as an
unscripted series rather than a documentary. The reality genre, he said,
"feels at liberty to play it fast and loose with characters and the
realities of what really happened."

But Cutler and Ice Cube, another of the show's executive producers, have
distanced themselves from FX's documentary tag. Cube said the series is
more a "reality experiment," while Cutler said, "I'm not a social
scientist. I'm telling a story. We never said we were telling a
comprehensive story."

And several of those associated with the series pointed out
misrepresentations of fact in the initial few episodes:

Wanting to immerse herself in black culture, 18-year-old Rose Wurgel, in
black makeup, enrolls in an all-black slam poetry class in Hollywood run
by veteran spoken-word artist Poetri and his wife, Juren Smith. What's
not mentioned is that the class, run by the couple for several years, is
normally a multicultural mix of students. According to Poetri, the show's
producers instructed him to create a class of all young blacks just for
Rose's experience. The sequence also doesn't disclose that the couple was
fully aware that Rose was white.

Before Brian Sparks is shown talking to the customers at Leo's All-Star
Sports Bar & Grill, there is a scene in which he interviews for a
bartending job with co-owner Leslie Lesh. What the producers do not show
is that, according to Lesh, she had previously reached an agreement with
them to give Sparks a four-day position at the bar under the guise that
he needed to interview patrons for a research project.

Not long after that, Sparks is shown talking to a patron who tells him La
Crescenta is one of the "last unaffected bastions of middle-class
Caucasian America" and that the community did not want a lot of change or
"a lot of immigration" that has affected surrounding areas.

Intrigued by her husband's encounter, Renee Sparks visits the bar without
her makeup and engages in a conversation with an unidentified man who
tells her that blacks in the area don't want to assimilate and that they
place more emphasis on being "dumb" and denouncing education. Following
the conversation, Renee Sparks is shown walking toward the exit with her
purse.

Cutler defended not airing any of their conversations with less-biased
patrons.

"Did she talk to other people? Yes," said Cutler. "Did we say that she
only talked to one man? No. He was in the bar, she met this guy, they had
a conversation. What am I supposed to do? We shot 2,000 hours of footage.
Did I show every minute of what happened? No."

There are other, more garden-variety instances in which the truth appears
shaded, even in the families' biographies. Advance materials describe the
Wurgel family as "Carmen Wurgel, Bruno Marcotulli, and their daughter
Rose." But Rose referred to Marcotulli at last week's premiere of the
show as her mother's boyfriend. Wurgel, in a later interview, said the
couple are partners but are not married.

And while hidden cameras are sometimes used in the show as the families
interact with the outside world, there is no mention that the presence of
a full camera crew may have influenced certain scenes, as when Sparks, in
white makeup, is seen marveling when a salesman at a Pasadena golf shop
helps him try on a pair of shoes. "It's never happened to me as a black
in 40 years, but the first time I go and buy shoes as a white, I have it
done," he says on the show. Sparks had not attempted to shop in the same
store as a black man for comparison.

It's 'trivializing' race

NELSON GEORGE and Tonya Lewis Lee, two filmmakers who have been involved
in several projects about race, say that the issue is too delicate and
volatile to be handled with anything less than sensitivity and honesty.
Journalist and cultural critic George believes the series could
potentially aggravate racial tensions, particularly in L.A., rather than
leading to more understanding.

"When race is featured on shows like this, one of the agendas is to
create racial tension," said George, who produced the HBO film "Everyday
People," which explored the multicultural dynamics of several people
affiliated with a New York restaurant. "If the world moves too easily,
it's not good TV. What this show seems to be doing is taking an important
subject and trivializing it.

"On a daily basis, people of all races work and interact with each other
more than they ever have. To have a show like this that takes an evolving
situation and puts a more nuanced dynamic on it is not only bad TV, it's
phony and potentially dangerous."

Lewis, a producer of "That's What I'm Talking About," a recent TV Land
documentary on African Americans in the entertainment arts, added, "When
it comes to race, you have to be real careful. Documentary should be
about truth. I applaud these filmmakers for trying to do something
interesting, but there should be a disclaimer."

Cutler knows that "Black.White." will push buttons, but denies that it
will pour fuel on the fire of racial tension: "If it does, I hope it's a
fire that burns away the misunderstanding and ignorance that makes us
shut our eyes."