If you loved MADtv, then keep your fond memories alive by not watching Malibu’s Most Wanted. Did Malibu’s Most Wanted’s creators watch Bulworth? The movie is about the rich, white kid who acts like a gangster, i.e. black, and embarrasses his father, who is running to be governor of California. His campaign manager decides to arrange a fake kidnapping to make it a life situation: stop doing that or die. Things go wrong and shenanigans ensue. It is deeply not funny. I did not emit a chuckle.
I vaguely remember enjoying Bulworth, but when I’m watching a movie spectacularly failing to entertain me, it gives me more time to think about what makes it problematic. Malibu’s Most Wanted is aware that all black people do not act like gangsters, but fails to fully explore why we equate gangster with black, especially since by the end of all these kind of movies, there is this effort to redeem the white character by showing that he is actually more gangster than many black people. The reason that I know movies like this do not really believe that gangster does not equal black is because there is always a character who is black and authentically gangster, who never breaks out of character in front of the camera and never really acts like a human being, which in real life, gangsters actually do.
The Hollywood image of gangster versus the real life version is like night and day. The reason that movies like this are not funny is that they don’t fully reflect on the original image to then successfully ridicule it. I would highly recommend that you read A Piece of Cake: A Memoir by Cupcake Brown. The implication seems to be the comedic equivalent of films like The Lincoln Lawyer or Arbitrage, the slick ultimate white man trope who can move through any and all socioeconomic circles, including being black. The movie’s punchline is that B-Rad is better at being black than the campaign manager and the two actors who kidnap him. The image that they do understand in these kinds of films is the politician, who belongs in this trope. A politician is regularly forced to appeal to different people, and the reason that films like Bulworth and Malibu’s Most Wanted keep visiting the hood is because it is the opposite of who the politician actually is, but he must still succeed at somehow authentically inserting himself into that community.
Films like Malibu’s Most Wanted and Bulworth are never about real black people, but a kind of Rachael Dolezal desire to achieve blackness as a goal, a type, a prize. It is just another way of proving that you are the best because you can navigate all parts of the world without fear like an explorer, a missionary without spiritual intentions, a conqueror.