The Wayans Brothers’ seriously bad, and highly campy “White Chicks” was a strange, quasi-dubious tackling of gender and race relations in the 21st century. The film explored themes such as class, gender, race, the handicapped, age, but depicted them with ultra-pop and racist-filled lens. In the years since its release the film has come to be regarded as a cult classic.
A 2004 movie that was critically decimated, “White Chicks” was littered with offensive jokes, sexism, racism, and, really, just the most politically incorrect and offensive jokes imaginable. And yet, it was highly watchable, the same way Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” or Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 From Out Of Space” were terribly-executed pearls of cinematic history. Meaning, 17 years since its release, it very much is a time-capsule-worthy bomb.
Marlon and Shawn Wayans had starred in several movies together before “White Chicks,” they were the “brains,” or lack there of, behind such films as “Scary Movie,” “Scary Movie 2” and the abominable “Little Man.” By all accounts, “White Chicks” must have seemed like a preposterous idea to make into a movie. It had the Wayans brothers playing FBI agents who go undercover by putting on “white face” and dressing up as token WASPY white females Tiffany and Brittany Wilson. The gals didn’t look white at all, they looked like female-versions of Michael Jackson — although the movie implies that the people around them are so oblivious to this fact, that they truly believe they are interacting with white women.
Terry Crews played the man that fell for one of the “chicks” — he’s already touted his accomplishments in a fair warning to the him/her that “once you go black you end up in a wheelchair,” cue in a super-white, wheelchair bound ex-conquest of his entering the scene. Even more comical is how into white culture Crews’ character seems to be. He knows every word to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles,” the whitest song ever released, and is an avid rave aficionado, whistle et all.
It’s all plays like “Some Like It Hot” without the wit, for a pseudo-unethical, morally devious generation of dumbasses. It’s almost too irresistible not to watch. Of course, It’s almost impossible to think such a movie would be greenlit today, what with blackface controversies swirling all around us, a “white face” movie is the last thing any producer would want to commit to. And maybe that’s the biggest blessing that comes with “White Chicks,” that it actually exists and that we will likely not get another one quite like it ever again.