MovieChat Forums > The Wonder Years (2021) Discussion > Honest question ? Do you need to be Afro...

Honest question ? Do you need to be Afro American to get the most of this show?!


I am Franco Irish and I grew up with the original. I watched it dubbed in French and in English once I moved to Ireland at age 12. Although I was a French kid growing up in the 90’s in France and Ireland I easily could relate to the life of that American kid growing up in the 60’s/70’s . His relationships with his friends and family were so easy to relate to . Also Kevin was so flawed , like a real kid and he often put himself in awkward predicament that also connected with me. Now, I went into that new Wonder Years REALLY ready to it but 6 episodes in and I am starting to feel that this show really is written for a specific audience and I do not mean it in a bad way at all. Maybe African Americans could not relate to the original Wonder Years at all and I am happy they now have a version they can see themselves in. They might have felt the Arnold Family impossible to relate to, for all I know. Personally me I do not feel like the writers of the reboot are interested in a mixed audience, it is really written to explore the African Americans experience of that time. As an example , in the last episode the kid asked his dad to join his Friend Scout troop and I was thinking it was going to be interesting to explore his relationship with his white friend whom so far had barely anything to do but instead the episode was about the Father dead set against his son mixing with white people and about them creating an all black scout troop instead . It was a call back to the first episode when the dad was against his son playing baseball with white kids . It is personally Hard for me to warm up to a family who keeps talking about not wanting to mix with white people. The only white character in this show is merely a token character so far and often the episode is about the family wanting to stay inside their own community. I understand that reflect the time it was set in but because the show as such an heavy emphasis on racial divide as a European I do not feel connected to that show at all like I was to the original. The original show was about relationships not about race . You could be from all walks of life and there was something with the original you could connect to but this one is really heavy on the racial issues. Again , I do not think this is a bad show. That is not what a I am saying. The actors are all great , it is well directed . It just do not have as much universal appeal as the original . I am happy for the ones who loves this show and I hope it will be renewed for them but me, I am just going to give it a couple more episode to see if it grows on me but if not I still have the original to enjoy. P.S That is just MY opinion , I am speaking about my own feeling towards that show . I am sure a lot of white people enjoy it as well. Just me , personally I feel the writers do not have someone like me as a target audience.

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More than African American, you need to be woke.

But it's not just race virtue-signalling, the show is just not as well-written as the original. For example, in the latest episode the father becomes a scout-master and immediately puts the scout trope to do his home repairs. That's the kind of cheap sitcom joke that undermines a show seeking some nostalgic remembrance of how things were. No one can take those clownish kind of plots and pretend that they reflect the experience of growing up at that time. The original, on the other hand, got the poignant, nostalgic tone right, and didn't sacrifice it for a cheap laugh.

With the new one, it just doesn't ring true, so it can't be poignant and have emotional resonance.

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The show is watchable, but my biggest criticism ever since I saw the trailer for it is that they lean heavy into comedy instead of the drama. When you do comedy in the vein of the original show, it has to be subtle. Not that modern self-aware, hit you in the face, type of comedy that everyone does nowadays. In short, it can't touch the original and would have been better off being its own show instead of borrowing its predecessor's name in an effort to garner interest. Hollywood is so chickensh*t to just let new intellectual properties stand on their own. It's truly disgusting. With that said, the show has had its moments. It usually comes out of nowhere at the very end after 2/3 of the episode being mediocre.

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Show is definitely black Goldbergs more than it's black Wonder Years.

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Actually the show is a nice balance of comedy and drama and real history----you obviously haven't watched it a lot. There's nothing "disgusting" about it. Shows get rebooted all the damn time. Seems like some people on here are just upset simply because it's a reboot with black people instead of the usual white characters. Which is stupid, because white people are not the only people in the damn world with stories to tell, so get the hell over yourselves. This reboot takes place at practically the same era as the original show, only in a different place with a different family. And it's currently one of the more high-rated shows on ABC, and from what I've seen, the show stands very much on its own---it's definitely not a rip-off of the original show, which I was never was into anyway.

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Just about every show has a "white people are bad, all of them racist, no black people ever do bad things, all are eternal victims" message to it. Pretty much what I expected it to be.

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That's a damn lie,and not even true, but, hey, keep telling yourself that BS. You clearly don't even watch enough TV to be spewing that nonsense.

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To Olivergbynre:

First of all, you say you're European, and The Wonder Years is an American show. So the original show wasn't written for you either. Obviously since you're not American, you need to brush up on some African-American history---particularly the era in which the new Wonder Years takes place. Since you're not African-American, and have never had to deal with the issues the show depicts---which is actually the kind of issues black people had to deal with in that era. The thing is, racial issues have always been a thing in America, because white people have always made it that way. Race is very much a huge part of American life, and always has been.

That being said, the show is about a black Southern Family of that era. The reason the black father was against his son playing with white kids, is because back in that era in the South, black people were segregated from white people and completely banned from and not allowed to go to a whole bunch of places---swimming pools, libraries, they weren't even allowed to buy houses next door to white people. Do some research on that era, and you'll understand why the black father felt the way he did. And give the show another chance. Now you know how black American people felt for decades watching movies and TV where they saw literally nobody who looked or talked like them---that's all I can say about that. It's still a good show, though.

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Racial issues have been part of every country where there are differences in skin color. It's not unique to America.

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That's not true, every other country is a veritable Garden of Eden compared to the U.S. This country must be destroyed for being so systemically racist. I mean seriously, it's not like people are coming thousands of miles, risking their lives by hiking over dangerous terrain, and evading drug cartels in order to illegally cross a boarder so that they can have a better life or something! I mean, it's time for you to like totally wake up or something!

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