ABC is leading the way this season for diversity on network shows, with one new drama (How to Get Away with Murder) built around a black woman, and two new comedies airing later in the year about a Mexican woman (Cristela) and an Asian family (Fresh off the Boat).
Then there's black-ish, a new comedy premiering Wednesday about an upper-middle-class black family.
Black-ish starts with a voiceover from Anthony Anderson's Andre, patriarch of the Johnson clan, telling the audience how he grew up in "the hood" but committed himself to moving up in the world by getting a good education and job. With a doctor wife (the marvelous Tracee Ellis Ross), four adorable kids and a big house in a nice Los Angeles neighborhood, he's living the dream. Problem is, he doesn't always feel like it's his dream. Andre is anxious that his family's success is threatening to erase his racial identity.
"I worry that in an effort to make it, black folks have dropped a little bit of their culture, and the rest of the world has picked it up," he says.
It's a weighty topic, and it's to black-ish's great credit that it never feels like it's proselytizing. The show's exploration of race is, first and foremost, laugh-out-loud funny, like when Andre's son's friend assumes the family has grape soda in their fridge, and, well, they do.
Black-ish thrives on specifics: Andre's teenage son wants to join the field hockey team ("Isn't that a women's sport?" Andre exclaims), be called "Andy" instead of "Andre" and have a bar mitzvah. When Laurence Fishburne as Andre's cranky, old-fashioned father claims he "marched on Washington" for racial equality, his son reminds him he shot himself to get out of serving in the army. (Fishburne, uncharacteristically light and goofy and deadpan, threatens to steal the whole show.)
By honing in on this family, the show make its point about Andre's insecurities without making the Johnsons stand in for all black people.
Comparisons to The Cosby Show, another sitcom about a black family that went off the air more than 20 years ago (!), are inevitable. But black-ish is more concerned with what it means to be black today, when, Andre says, Justin Timberlake is an R&B god and Kim Kardashian is a symbol for big butts. The show is refreshingly frank when it comes to the daily ramifications of modern racial politics.
The pilot's sharpest criticism comes when Andre, an advertising executive, is appointed senior vice president of Urban Division at his company instead of just senior vice president. Funny, yes, but also (disturbingly) reflective of real life.
Black-ish gets a prime spot on ABC's Wednesday lineup, right after Modern Family, one of the biggest sitcoms on TV. Here's hoping that audience sticks around for this show, a solid family sitcom that makes it a point to explore important topics we could all spend more time thinking about.
Michelle Stark can be reached at mstark@tampabay.com. Follow @mstark17.