“Atlanta”, a bittersweet black series

Series on OCS on demand

This is one of the most endearing dramatic comedy ever. A contemporary and creaking comedy but, above all, an eminently inventive series because of its successful project of capturing with finesse and humor what it means to be a young black deprived in America today. Its creator, Donald Glover – who did his writing classes for the series 30 Rock –, is also the director, producer and main performer.

The banality of everyday racism

If we had to sum up these ten episodes in one sentence, we could say that they are two cousins ​​who are trying to break into the world of rap in Atlanta. But that would be to erase Donald Glover’s talent for putting on stage characters all well characterized, all very different and original and put in a situation to give us to grasp, with a smile and a slightly magnifying reflection, what the banality of racism in everyday life.

Paper Boi is a small-time rapper, a dealer to make ends meet, a video of which will make him, overnight, a small luminary in Atlanta. However, his cousin Earn (Donald Glover), educated but without work – and a baby on his arms – has just returned to this city, who will become the manager of Paper Boi. What the latter will have difficulty accepting at first glance, seeing in Earl a too soft “Martin” (Luther King), when he would need a hard “Malcolm” (X).

If you are running out of time to watch this series, at least watch Episode 7, which can be viewed independently of the others (this is called a stand-alone). Paper Boi is there the guest of a talk-show organized by the Black American Network (BAN), during which is presented a report on a young black man who feels, since very young, that he is in reality… white . Just as some are born transgender (woman in a man’s body or vice versa, or even with both sexes), this man suffers from a “transracial” identity, as a white in a black body, and saves for his operation “A complete racial transition”… An anthology episode.

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