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PORTSIDE CULTURE

NETFLIX’S ‘GOOD TIMES’: AN EXPLICIT REVIVAL WHICH FEELS
CALCULATED TO OFFEND  
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Eric Deggans
April 13, 2024
NPR
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_ The new show feels too much like a different program twisted into
something vaguely resembling the old show, but without the sense of
mission and pride that made the original series such a television
landmark. _

The Evans family in Netflix's Good Times: Jay Pharoah as Junior,
Marsai Martin as Grey, Yvette Nicole Brown as Beverly, Gerald Anthony
"Slink" Johnson as Dalvin and J.B. Smoove as Reggie., Netflix

 

Netflix's animated series revival of _Good Times_ seems almost
genetically engineered to snark off critics like me.

With an opening image that reads _Good Times (Black again)_, it's
packed with the kind of stereotypical characters and imagery which
seems sure to anger fans of the original series, which was a
groundbreaking, '70s-era sitcom revered for the way it challenged
presumptions about a poor Black family "scratchin' and survivin'" in a
Chicago housing project.

Described by Netflix as a "spiritual sequel," the animated _Good
Times _features the fourth generation of the original series' Evans
family living in a Chicago housing project.

This new show opens with the patriarch, a bombastic, not-too-smart
cabbie named Reggie Evans, singing part of the original _Good
Times_ theme in a duet with a cockroach (he's such a soft touch, he
has trouble earning a living because fares keep stiffing him).
Matriarch Beverly Evans can tell when her baby is around because her
breasts lactate and leak through her shirt.

The baby, Dalvin, has been kicked out of the house because he's a
pistol-packing drug dealer with studs in his ears. And when his
militant older sister Grey decides to go on a hunger strike in
protest, she gets emaciated and has flies swarming around her face
like a child suffering in an African famine.

It's a universe where, when Reggie takes his artistic son Junior to a
broken-down medical center for a prescription to help him focus in
school, a gunfight breaks out. And when baby Dalvin leaves their
apartment after a visit, Beverly makes sure he doesn't forget his
handgun. Sigh.

Edgy content brings criticism

Yvette Nicole Brown voices Beverly in _Good Times._

Netflix

Much of it plays like one of the most jacked-up editions of Adult Swim
I've ever seen, littered with images that sometimes feel like
stereotypical cartoons exhumed from the worst online Reddit
conversations. Taking advantage of the freedom provided by animation,
the show provides trippy scenes that sometimes verge on the
fantastical — sometimes this works, and sometimes it just feels
oddly creepy. There's even one chunk of dialogue cheekily cloned
straight from the pilot episode of _The Cosby Show_.

Already, the show's trailer has drawn criticism from the NAACP. Kyle
Bowser, senior vice president of the civil rights organization's
Hollywood bureau, wrote in a guest column
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Hollywood Reporter_ that it's clear Netflix made a choice "to market
the show based on an interpretation of Black life as an 'otherized'
experience, replete with abhorrent beliefs and behaviors." A
Change.org petition urging viewers to boycott the show
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more than 3,700 signatures.

 

But I'm wary of delivering the expected critique of such jarring
imagery — in part, because there are interesting messages buried
beneath them. In the episode where he and his dad visit a run-down
clinic, Junior struggles over why he needs to take medication to build
up his mental focus in school at the expense of his creativity – not
sure why he has to choose between the two – and Grey learns to shake
off the shame she feels after having her first menstrual period,
finding liberation from patriarchy in the process.

Part of the issue here is the connection to the original _Good
Times_ — celebrating its 50th anniversary this year
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which was considered the first TV show centered on a two-parent Black
family, humanizing folks who live in poor, Black neighborhoods. As a
kid watching the show who didn't have a father in the house, I found
it inspirational to see John Amos' character James Evans as a stern
but loving paternal presence in a home with Esther Rolle's
quick-witted matriarch Florida, BernNadette Stanis' earnest daughter
Thelma, Ralph Carter's studious son Michael and Jimmie Walker's
borderline-stereotypical artist son J.J.

Yvette Nicole Brown plays Beverly and JB Smoove voices Reggie in Good
Times.

NETFLIX

After a multitude of references to the original in the first episode,
the new show doesn't seem particularly tethered to that old template,
which can make watching it a tough experience for longtime fans. And
it doesn't have the same mission as the old series, though it
eventually depicts a family that loves each other through all of the
craziness. (It also bleeps out usage of the n-word, but doesn't bleep
profanities like s*** or f***. Hmmm.)

In a way, it would have been better to just craft this as an original
series without all the baggage and expectations of reinventing a TV
classic – but then, Netflix wouldn't have gotten all the headlines
and attention from the shocked reactions.

This is a project with a pedigree. _Family Guy_ creator Seth
MacFarlane and basketball star Steph Curry are executive producers,
alongside original _Good Times_ executive producer Norman Lear, who
worked on the show before his death in December
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age 101. Ace talent like J.B. Smoove, Jay Pharoah, Yvette Nicole Brown
and Wanda Sykes voice characters.

Still, for this longtime _Good Times_ fan, the new show feels too
much like a different program twisted into something vaguely
resembling the old show, but without the sense of mission and pride
that made the original series such a television landmark.

_Story edited by __Jennifer Vanasco_
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* good times
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* Black culture
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* NETFLIX
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