I can’t believe I fell for watching You People. Well played, Netflix. You lured me in with a stellar cast and then proceeded to deliver almost 2 hours of Jonah Hill being that obnoxious insecure kid from Hebrew school who fetishized Black culture because he thought it would make him exotic and cool.
If your social media hasn’t already been littered with ads, You People is a Netflix original movie about star-crossed lovers, the self-hating white Jewish Ezra Cohen (Jonah Hill) and his African American Muslim boo Amira Mohammed (Lauren London) who fall in love, get engaged, and plan a wedding despite her dad’s irrational disapproval and his mom’s awkward overly zealous and tone deaf approach to embracing a Black woman as a daughter-in-law.
It’s a tale as old as time and one that if done right, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, could have been truly funny, moving, timeless and purposeful, everything this movie failed to be. Even a cast featuring legends Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nia Long, and David Duchovny couldn’t save the film from being the boring, offensive and uncomfortable social and political evangelism it turned out to be.
Honestly, I’m not convinced the cast weren’t blackmailed into doing this.
There were some funny bits – and I’m being generous here – but overall the whole thing was a huge cringey mess that probably made everyone more racist by trying too hard to be provocative and spark social justice conversation about who’s a bigger victim, Jews or African Americans. Because you know, that’s what Jews and Black people talk about when we get together, who’s more miserable.
Among the many things this movie got wrong is the narrative that Black and Jewish people have never crossed paths. That they are completely oblivious to the existence of the other and have no idea how to be in each other’s presence without being normal and civil. This movie is set in Los Angeles. Yes, there are areas that are more populated by one or the other but no one is shocked at seeing Black people in Century City or white people at Roscoe’s Chicken ‘N Waffles.
But worst of all is Ezra Cohen, played by Jonah Hill, who also co-wrote this movie with Kenya Barris. Ezra is the worst thing to happen to Jews since Kanye West. It’s one thing for an unhinged celebrity to make dangerous antisemitic comments but another thing for one of our own to write such offensive and very annoying caricatures of their own people.
But Ezra’s identity crisis is not the most unrealistic part of the film.
He also wants to leave his boring but lucrative office job to pursue a career in podcasting, about Black culture no less, when he and Amira just bought a house after looking at Zillow for two minutes. It’s not cheap living in LA. There is no way this can or would happen. I paid $7.50, NOT including tip, for a regular latte. If my husband suddenly decided to leave his secure job at UCLA to dabble in stand-up comedy, I would have some questions and concerns. Love be damned. We can’t both be broke.
And what about Amira? It looks like the writers just completely gave up on Amira’s story halfway through. In the beginning she was on her way to work and then what happened? Was she fired? And in what world would she pull off buying a house with her very serious boyfriend and not tell her family with whom she’s very close? Did they never visit her? Or help her move? Did the writers just run out of space to really flesh her out or did they use that space to give her stereotypical Black girlfriends?
Besides buying the house (and a ridiculous amount of sneakers), Ezra and Amira also bought a very expensive Timothy Oulton marble Junction dining table from H.D. Buttercup and I know this because we just bought the same table last week (on sale because we’re not stupid). To add insult to injury, we bought the version with all marble legs which is not the one I wanted. So seeing the version I did want flaunted right in front of me was really the last straw. (The first straw was Jonah Hill’s hair).
But this is all beside the point.
Despite the hot mess this film turned out to be, this is a story worth telling. Awkward and uncomfortable conversations are inevitable when two families, especially of different backgrounds, are potentially going to unite. It’s a relatable story because we’ve experienced either welcoming someone with a different race into our family or being that person. (I can’t tell you how many times allergies, gefilte fish and the Holocaust come up with my sister’s white Jewish husband my brother’s Canadian Jewish fiance). But You People was too lazy to really see the actual humor and also the love that goes into creating a diverse family.
Instead they utilized racist tropes for cheap laughs that not only served no purpose but actually did a huge disservice to both the Jewish and Black communities by taking every extreme stereotype from both cultures (sprinkled with some new ones) and pitting them against each other, with the Jewish side being the overbearing, privileged guilt-ridden villain and the Black side the angry, bitter victim who loves rap and expensive sneakers.
Of course, in the spirit of true rom com, the two offending parties responsible for their breakup, Akbar (Murphy) and Shelley (Louis-Dreyfus) have a heart-to-heart (apparently, because we don’t see it) and make things right by throwing a surprise wedding for their children at their favorite sneaker store.
Which is a shame because I was really rooting for them to stay broken up.
If you haven’t already guessed, I hated this. I feel robbed considering this cast, including Lauren London and Sam Jay, who did her best to portray the tired trope of the sage Black friend who has no identity outside of the obligation to aide in the growth and advancement of her more important friend. The script did not do any of them justice.
I’m convinced no one will ever accomplish what Nia Vardalos did in My Big Fat Greek Wedding but it wouldn’t kill them to at least try.
