Of course, Will (Jabari Banks), the fulcrum of the show, is dealing with trying to be West Philly Will in Bel-Air. And Uncle Phil (Adrian Holmes) has an old suitor show up while Aunt Viv (Cassandra Freeman) is battling for her voice and freedom. Jones) and ex Lamarcus (Justin Cornwell) are on full display. Hillary’s (Coco Jones) relationship struggles with Jazz (Jordan L. Geoffrey, played by Jimmy Akingbola, reunited with his son. I mean, give Olly Sholotan all the awards for portraying Carlton in such a fashion that literally forced me into emotional reactions to a television character.Īnd look, every character on the show has battles and evolutions to go through. And the entire time, you still want to root for Carlton, but Sholotan’s acting actually made me dislike Carlton…again. We watched Carlton move from low to high, all the way back to low in a way that no other character on the show got to fully realize. ‘Bel-Air’ breaks Peacock streaming record Carlton went from being one of the Black students of Bel-Air Prep to being one of the students who happened to be Black who hung with the rich, super-privileged white kids because that’s where he identified. He struggled to navigate his goals against the goals of his people, and that forced him back into drugs, caused him to fall back into old habits and sent him back to old friends who kept him around as a token. The second season though, Carlton took a complete 180, succumbing to the pressures of being part of the Black circle at his school and taking a stand. They might be rich, but they’re Black boys, and they needed each other…and knew it. Carlton and Will found - in each other - confidants and a camaraderie that allowed them to stand tall in the face of adversity. I understood him better and appreciated his struggles as a child of privilege trying to navigate his world of prosperity as a popular minority, but also the introduction of his much cooler, system-bucking cousin from West Philadelphia. By the time the first season ended, the tide turned. In the first season of “Bel-Air,” I literally went from HATING Carlton to him being my favorite character on the show because of his growth and evolution as a spoiled, drug addicted, rich Black kid who loved the status quo and was opportunistic enough to let his white friends use the N-word around him because he just wanted to get along for his personal gain. “Bel-Air,” the reboot of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” where Anthony Sparks was the showrunner for the second season (perhaps coincidentally, but perhaps not) is heading in a similar direction with Carlton Banks, played by Olly Sholotan. Peacock’s ‘Bel-Air’ renewed for third season With Ralph Angel, they created a character who got to evolve, grow and experience various facets of Black manhood and humanity. With multiple seasons and episodes per season, you can spread your wings in ways you can’t do in a movie. I once told Anthony Sparks, the showrunner and a writer on the show through its first six seasons, that they’d managed to craft and write the most nuanced Black male I’d ever seen on television. Ralph Angel often zagged when you thought he would zig. He let his son, Blue, play with a female doll named Kenya, was protective of his gay friend and ensured that friend had space to be himself. He became an organizer, community builder and a leader. He was a devout family man and father who was concerned about legacy while also, early on, prone to committing crimes that might separate him from his family. Ralph Angel (sometimes referred to as Ra, and played by Kofi Siriboe) was hyper-masculine, yet extremely progressive in his views about masculinity. I’m a huge fan of the OWN series “Queen Sugar.” Ending in 2022 after a seventh season that introduced us to a story about a Black family that we’d never seen on television before, it also introduced us to who I’d argue is the most complex Black male character of all time, Ralph Angel Bordelon.
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