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CREATIVITY

If “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” were a gritty 2019 drama, this is what it would look like

This trailer reimagining “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” may be fake, but the nostalgia is real.

BY Joe Berkowitz1 minute read

What: Bel-Air, a fake trailer for the 2019 update of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Who: NOT Will Smith, but rather writer/director Morgan Cooper and star Jerry Madison Jr.

Why we care: Last year, SNL served up an extremely dark and gritty reinterpretation of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The digital short mixed ’90s nostalgia with some disturbing elements for a truly surreal throwback. But director and lifelong Fresh Prince superfan Morgan Cooper has something more ambitious in mind with his just-debuted tribute to the show.

Bel-Air is a fake trailer that heavily dramatizes the events of The Fresh Prince so convincingly, you could swear it was a real movie. This well-produced short cheekily uses all the tropes of a tear-jerking Oscar-contender, while breezing through a checklist of Fresh Prince lore. We see more of that “one little fight” that so scared Will’s mom on the series that she exiled him from West Philadelphia to Bel-Air. We witness the historic initial meeting between Will and his sidekick Jazz, portrayed as though it’s John Lennon meeting Paul McCartney for the first time in a Beatles biopic. We hear Carlton being a little prick. The only thing this otherwise perfect fake-trailer is missing is a joke about recasting Aunt Viv midway through.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Berkowitz is an opinion columnist at Fast Company. His latest book, American Cheese: An Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World, is available from Harper Perennial. More


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