Life In Black And White

Trading Races

(CBS/AP)  The series' timing is notable, with race brought into renewed focus by Hurricane Katrina and the disproportionate suffering it caused for blacks in New Orleans. But "Black.White." was conceived before the hurricane, Landgraf said.

He brought the idea of having two families trade races to Cutler, stressing that he wasn't looking for cheap conflict.

"I said, 'This is not cheesy, this is not about putting a white bigot ... in with black people and watching them beat the crap out of each other and watching sparks fly," Landgraf recalled. "And it certainly wasn't about some kind of makeup-driven freak show."

The families in "Black.White." are middle-class, the adults all college-educated. They received a modest fee for their participation, an FX spokesman said.

With special-effects makeup by Keith Vanderlaan and Brian Sipe that artfully used wigs, airbrushed skin paint and other elements, the families were transformed to a new ethnicity that could pass muster in varied settings.

Teenager Rose joined a poetry group with young blacks; Brian Sparks became a bartender at a place drawing white customers. The families also, in the best tradition of reality TV, shared a house in 2005 for the six weeks of production.

Cutler "wanted the families to live together, because a lot of discussion would be generated in each family coaching the other family on what it is to be white or to be black, and to pass or behave or act as white or black," Landgraf said.

Wurgel makes what she considers a black fashion statement, buying a dashiki for church, while Renee Sparks looks askance.

The housemates have revealing, sometimes heated clashes over their attitudes on race and the use of volatile epithets. One confrontation pits the black father, adamantly opposed to the "n-word," against his unconcerned teenage son.

For his part, Marcotulli consistently clings to his belief that an individual can erase bias by dint of sheer will and optimism.

Outside the house, attitudes are mostly, but not always, subtly expressed. In black makeup, Rose gets the brushoff when she applies for work at stores in a white area. One shopkeeper glances in a drawer and unconvincingly announces she's out of job applications.

Sitting in as a white woman on a focus group discussion on race, Renee Sparks is shocked to hear a young college student relate how he was cautioned to wash off the handshake of a black person.

"I thought, here it is, 2005, and people are still teaching their kids this," Sparks said in a recent interview with reporters.

Larry E. Davis, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center on Race and Social Problems, lauds the series' concept. "Black Like Me" was a powerful work in its day; projects like "Black.White." have potential value for now, he said.

"It will bring (issues of race) into a context and a time frame and a reality that a new generation can comprehend, can relate to and understand," Davis said. The goal is to "keep hammering away, hammering way, hammering away at the problem."