68. Not that old.
That show started to air in France I think in fall 1991, I was eleven. Needless to say I was instantly hooked. That story sounds like mine, only I have white parents and no brothers and sisters! I’m from the “countryside ghetto”, another weird angle but the show’s “let’s try to make it all together despite our differences”, that I dug hard. Of course, Will’s wit.
Also, the father figure. Uncle Phil was acting and giving Will the same things my dad gave me except for hugs but that’s just how France is. His character in the show is described as “strict, gruff, kind of a miser” pretty much my dad too.
I was wondering if just a change of skin color would make things better. Of course it would have, because it’s not just that. when I saw episodes where dance is involved, I know I would have LOVED to be ridiculous in the front of the couch, shouting “popcorn!” with James Brown and dad. Damn, I dreamed of this and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was delivering that part to my brain (family reunion episodes would always make me sigh so hard).
But it also made me conscious that you’d rather have a white dad that doesn’t really understand you, that no dad at all like I started. Or being a dad at 15, when episodes were talking about this issue in the black community. All that shit was running in my head while I was listening to harder and harder music (Sepultura 4ever), I guess trying to be as invisible as a black man as I could be in a white world.
So those 30 minutes of blackness everyday for almost a decade were super precious to me. And I knew who Quincy Jones was, that black dude who was making music with Michael Jackson was also producing the show. Nothing in my world was that black and that cool at the same time. And fucking everyone regardless of race loved that show. It made me feel good. It made me have hopes.
And Uncle Phil was awesome. RIP, Mr. Avery. Damn that’s young, pop.
If there’s a paradise, this is probably what James did to Jesus. (Do Not Fuck With Uncle Phil)