Summary
The Studio delivers a brilliant send-up of the ridiculousness of identity politics in Episode 7, while letting the real issue sneak into the margins.
Is the Kool-Aid Man a Black dude? This is the question at the core of The Studio Episode 7, and it’s a funny one to ask, since it raises the impossibly circuitous minefield of contemporary identity politics. Is it racist to have too few Black people or too many? Does gayness mitigate whiteness? Is this really the most pressing issue? Does anyone care?
Needless to say, the point of this episode is how ridiculous the issue is, emphasised by how ridiculous the conversations that spring from it are. But the sneakier, more salient idea is that while studio executives argue themselves in circles over this, the real problems are sneaking by unnoticed, handwaved away as less pressing matters versus the all-encompassing terror of potentially being canceled.
“Casting” also offers more direct continuity than usual, picking up the Kool-Aid movie storyline from the premiere. The teaser poster has just been released and is doing historically well, prompting Maya to turn up with giddy excitement at Matt’s place to gloat about all the billions they’re going to make. In her enthusiasm, Maya suggests making out, but Matt reminds her that they can’t do that anymore. Unless I missed something in a previous episode, I think this is the first hint we’ve had about a past relationship between Matt and Maya.
The Kool-Aid movie also has a diverse, approved cast including Josh Duhamel, Sandra Oh, and crucially, Ice Cube as the Kool-Aid Man himself. And this is where problems begin to arise, since Maya wonders if there being “a group of people who historically like Kool-Aid more than others” might make the casting of Ice Cube in the role — all together now — “problematic”.
This prompts a pretty unsophisticated investigation into the matter, which includes asking Quinn if she thinks it’s okay — though crucially not saying why they’re asking her, even though it’s obvious to everyone, including her, that it’s because she’s Asian — and then getting a more specific opinion from Tyler. But Tyler isn’t comfortable speaking for all Black people, so they ask Ziwe and Lil Rel, and it’s the latter who makes a pretty compelling case that the Kool-Aid Man is indeed a Black man.
However, this doesn’t put anyone’s mind at ease. In fact, it raises even more problems, because if the Kool-Aid Man is Black, his family needs to be Black too. That means Sandra Oh needs to be dropped in favour of Regina King. But with the live-action cast all being white, there’s now a segregation issue, so all the white actors need to go, to be replaced by Don Cheadle, Kiki Palmer, and “a young Black actor, TBD”.
Kathryn Hahn and Chase Sui Wonders in The Studio | Image via Apple TV+
Problem solved? Not quite. The non-Black writers now feel uncomfortable writing an all-Black movie, so they depart the project, leaving Nick Stoller to rewrite the entire thing himself, only five weeks ahead of production. To cut corners — and avoid paying more animators — he’ll have to enlist the services of an AI company, which Matt shruggingly accepts as the least of his problems.
Quinn points out the next obvious issue, which is that now it seems like the movie is implying that Kool-Aid is only for Black people. Matt’s solution to this is to try to make the cast exactly as diverse as America’s population, with some mathematical tweaking, such as rounding down for whites. There are an incredible number of funny one-liners in this conversation, including a gag about Jewish representation — “should we cast Josh Gad?” — and the notion that casting a pair of gay actors “has too many moving parts”.
Realizing the sheer ridiculousness of the conversation and hoping to put the matter to bed completely, Matt goes to see Ice Cube in person, who thinks that the question of whether casting a Black Kool-Aid Man is racist is, in itself, racist. Which is fair enough.
The Studio Episode 7 ends with Matt taking the stage at Comic-Con and announcing Ice Cube in the lead role to rapturous applause… only to be blindsided by a question about the use of AI replacing human animators. Ice Cube leads a “F*ck AI” chant and Matt gets roundly booed, while Maya and Sal, lurking off-stage, think this constitutes dodging a bullet.
The irony is that they’re probably right.
RELATED:
