Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – drama series review

 I m on a vintage drama series binge watch. Considering that Fresh Prince was first aired in the early 90’s and it is already 30 years old, says something about the speed with which time is passing by!!! There used to be on and off episodes of this series shown on DD sometime back and was never a fan. I specifically wanted to give this a try while reading some trivia about black people in entertainment, when watching Star Trek. And Will Smith was always an exceptionally likeable character by people world over. There is a positive, unbridled energy about him that even dull and sad characters come alive on screen. This being his first attempt on screen, having started his career as a rapper, it was quite surprising to see his performances. In fact of all the other senior members of the cast, it felt as if he was the only person so sure of the story line and performances. The confidence displayed, for a new comer was amazing. May be it tripped the performances of others possibly, as they seem to be bit unsure around him. The theme of the story line being similar to city mouse country mouse, where the latter visits the former. And in the predominantly black cast, where they make fun of everything about them and lot of leg pulling on the lifestyle of white people, there are episodes that are specifically devoted to struggles of black people, how they are mistreated by the cops (a real time scenario still unfolding in USA), the stereotyping of their race and so on. Be it the 60’s America (based on the cast of Star trek and on the themes chosen) or the 90’s America based on this sitcom, though they’ve moved a bit ahead, there still remains lot of heartburns and fault lines within that racially divided society. The effects of which are seen in the 2020’s as well, with so many protests and legal ramifications. It may take more than a couple of decades for US to get this situation corrected. I see a deep parallel between what happens in India post the 90’s due to reservation and what is happening in US. In our case, the fallouts have more or less subsided and may flare up based on the political scenario. But in US, it goes back centuries of oppression and bypasses several generations of ill treatment. No number of laws or appeasement actions can ever soothe those wounds and may only result in more harm for the other section of the population will feel unjustly penalized for the fault of their forefathers. Same is the root cause between Israel and middle east. Wherever there is a deep rooted problem, unless every single surviving member of the victim’s clan feel suitably served justice, the embers are always going to burn. All it needs is a wily politician to whip it all up and start the fire all over. Fresh Prince might have been a comic series, but the problems it deals with are very serious and very relevant, with no solution in sight.