fresh prince and black complexity

A Fresh Prince episode that I remember being particularly dramatic included Uncle Phil, Will, and Carlton being pulled over by a white cop. I wasn’t able to find this episode on youtube, but they were given a ticket even though they weren’t driving over the speed limit. Will believed they were pulled over because they were three black men driving slowly in a car, looking suspicious to the apparently racist white cop (they were actually going slow looking for their exit). Carlton didn’t recognize any racism in the situation, convinced that the cop was just being precautious and doing his job. While some comedic relief was included in the episode, it mainly addressed the issue of racism. According to Will, if they were three white men in the slow-moving car, the cop would not have pulled them over- or would have kindly asked them if they needed directions. Instead of creating a feel-good conclusion, the episode remained open-ended.
One of the black shows that arrived on television in the 80’s, Fresh Prince of Bel Air is a perfect example of a “dramedy,” which Zook described in “The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television.” It is a sitcom that is known for being humorous, but also includes developed characters and deep story-lines. Zook called this black complexity, and described it as the reason that Fox cancelled many of its black television shows in the 90’s. Fox cancelled these shows in 1994, tried targeting white male audiences and failed, and then other t.v. networks began picking up the black television shows and black producers/writers that Fox originally had. When new black t.v. series were developed, however, they included less complexity by avoiding touchy issues.
I appreciate that shows like Fresh Prince did include relevant issues. Even though I am not part of the African American community, I can appreciate that these topics are important and I also enjoy the episodes- they make me look critically at things that people are still dealing with. It is also realistic that the characters should be so developed (making them especially likeable)- they are funny much of the time, but they can also be angry and serious.