TV Review: Method & Red

6/17/2004

Method & Red: whodeeWHOOO!

Having been named after one of Method Man's many aliases, this robot felt it would be only fitting to review Fox Television's new foray into the land of racial bias, 'Method & Red'.

The show's premise is that Method Man and Redman are big rap artists and friends, and Meth buys a nice house for his mother in an upscale community. Now, I don't know why, but he and Red also live there. So much for realism. Anyway, hilarity is supposed to ensue, and does at times, though not as often as I thought it might.

The backstory is presented in a pretty original way -- mamma brings home a goldfish for Meth, and you see through the fish's POV as Meth and Red describe why, exactly, they moved to this neighborhood. They ask the fish a series of questions which are followed by flashback scenes. For instance, (fisheye lens treatment looking at Red and Meth) "You think we moved out here for the fresh air?" Cut to a shot of the front door of the house opening, from which clouds of smoke billow out. Meth steps onto the front porch and asks, "What's that smell?" "Fresh air," says Red. Meth looks disgusted, coughs violently, and goes back into the cloudy house. (This is especially funny to me as a dedicated weed smoker and adamant resister of fresh air, nature, and most daylight activities.) Cut back to the fish's POV and both guys say, "Naaah." There are three or four of these cuts in a row, each starting with a question to the fish, a flashback in direct contrast, and then cut back to the fish's POV where the two answer their own question with "Naaah." The end answer is that Meth's mamma has worked in a tollbooth on the Jersey Turnpike for 30 years, and now that he's got dough, he wanted her to never have to worry again about a place to live.

So now we've got backstory, what of the pilot's plot? Well, as one can well imagine, two rap stars living in a quiet gated community are gonna cause some noise, and their first party does just that. This, of course, pisses off the most vocal resident (played by Beth Littleford of 'The Daily Show'), who looks up the communities' rules and regs regarding loud music and finds that she can kick the guys and mamma out of the neighborhood. In order to try and stay, Red and Meth decide that they just have to get the neighbors to 'like' them and everything will be cool. This leads to a bunch of "yessa massa" moments which singlehandedly destroy 50 years of civil rights, and directly contradict what could be a humorous treatment of different cultures getting to know and appreciate one other. It's not completely without humor -- one of the ways in which they try and get to be friends with the neighbors is by making fruitcake for all of them. In Redman's words, fruitcake is "white people's soul food." As they walk around to hand out their peace offerings, you see a ton of really funny reactions. The funniest is when Method Man approaches the house of the lady who's trying to kick them out. Her husband and son are home, and as Meth comes up to the front door, he's got a paper bag cradled in his arm, which he reaches into as he's saying, "Yeah, homie, I got somethin for ya." The husband obviously thinks he's about to get shot (cause you know that's all black folks do is shoot each other -- please), and is like, "No, you want my wife! I don't care about the music!" It's pretty funny, even if it is unabashedly racist. In the end, it is an empassioned speech by one of the other residents of the community which keeps the group from being evicted. (weep, weep, sob, sob, puke.)

As with the occasional television show, they do try and work some positivity into the themes here. For an example, when one of the neighborhood boys is getting bullied by some schoolmates, he asks Meth and Red if they can beat the kids up for him. The guys say that they don't get down like that and that if they handle this problem for him then where will it stop. They teach him the valuable life lesson of needing to handle your own problems, and that's cool.

The greatest part about the show, for me, was seeing the comic style of Method Man. He has a lot of talent, and takes some really funny physical comedy influence from Groucho Marx. Like "Hiiiii, naybor ladeee!" with that crouched down, lean forward/lean back, exaggerated leggy walk that Groucho Marx pulled off long before the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. Conversely, the low point (besides being unimaginative and racist), was the happy Uncle Tom attitude that each of the stars donned at various points throughout.

From a filming standpoint, there was huge reliance on that "sproiiing!", cut to fast forward tracking through the scene which 'Malcolm In The Middle' made famous, and which I think is pretty hip. Additionally, this show curses relatively freely with bleeps over the cursewords instead of writing them out. This is a successful aspect of 'Chapelle's Show', and I've never seen it on network before, so hopefully this'll be a new trend.

In the end, I'm pretty disappointed to see that one of the most creative artists and lyricists in hip-hop (Method Man, aka Mr. Mef, aka Tical, aka IronLung, aka Johnny Blaze), who is executive producer and co-writer and creator of the show, came up with such recycled crap for his first dive into the murky waters of network television. The whole show functions on the differences between inner-city black folks and uptight, gated-community whitebreds. It's been done so many, many times that it's just too late. Where 'All In The Family' and 'The Jeffersons' were cutting-edge in their fearless treatment of racism and stereotype in the first decades after the civil rights movement, 'Method & Red' is a watered-down, basic breakdown of black folks who like to dance and party and white folks who like to sit still and be quiet. And where 'Chapelle's Show' continues with a new-school, in-your-face approach to the extremes of blacks and whites, 'Method & Red' is just too academic, using simple contrasts like the two main characters playing tennis. Unfortunately, 'Method & Red' is more Fresh Prince than Archie Bunker, and that is going to be its single biggest failing.

I give it 6 clanks for treating cursing and weed smoking as normal, and because I'm a huge MM fan. If not for that, it would get a 5. On the other hand, Mrs. IronLung gave it 0 clanks and threatened to write to Fox Television and complain about them putting such a racist show on television. (Not a big Archie Bunker fan.)


So says...IronLung!

Method & Red's Music Mixer

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