10 Scenes To Remind Us Why We Love The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air

3. Will And Carlton Go To Jail - Mistaken Identity

http://youtu.be/bbszy1l83Qc Will and Carlton are tasked to drive Uncle Phil's associates car down to Palm Springs for him but are pulled over and jailed for 'theft' of the car. Although this episode ended on one of the rare serious notes in The Fresh Prince, this clip was another excellent performance from the two cousins as they are locked in a prison cell with a rough, tattooed, opera-singing, white man. While the episode contains many humorous instances such as this, the pay-off it the end is about racism and social perception. A lot of people were offended by the racial stereotyping of white people in the show, in that white characters often appeared as clueless about black culture, or were driven by dubious racial stereotyping, like the cop in this scene. Will and Carlton are assumed to have stolen the car and thrown into a holding cell, despite their protestations. When Uncle Phil arrives to bail them out, he is treated with offhand disrespect by the officer, enraging him further. The sad reality is that this is exactly the type of prejudice that many black people did encounter every day in the California of the 80's/90's. A show such as The Fresh Prince had every right to address these concerns through the use of racist white characters-it would have been stranger for the show not to have. Besides, at least different racial backgrounds weren't merely referred to through a superfluous token character, like in Friends. American TV at this time tended to address problems with the racial divide with kid gloves, or ignore multiculturalism altogether. Whatever criticisms can be levelled at The Fresh Prince, at least it didn't duck these issues.