Watching TV these days, it often feels like we’re in the middle of a messy moment of self-reflection on the state of the nation. Earlier this summer, Orange Is the New Black’s sixth season delved more deeply than it previously had into issues of racial inequity within the justice system, both in prison and in court. The second season of Dear White People did the same thing with a fictional Ivy League university, exploring specifically how the Donald Trump presidency had affected students of color.
On Showtime, Sacha Baron Cohen literally asked the question Who Is America?, using shock humor, model genitalia, and clumsy stereotypes to explore how passively depraved the nation has supposedly become. In its best moments, Who Is America? was genuinely revelatory, but more frequently it felt like juvenile trolling from a self-coronated master of the form, made darker by Cohen’s refusal to distinguish between who deserved to be punked and who didn’t. The show exposed the country’s ugliest qualities rather than illuminating them.
America to Me, which debuted on Starz last week, is a corrective. The 10-part documentary series from Steve James (Hoop Dreams) is profound and thoughtful, taking a detailed look at inequality in America through the lens of a storied high school near Chicago.
[For more on this story by SOPHIE GILBERT, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/en...-in-new-ways/569107/]
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