A Brand New Jamie Foxx Series Is Blowing Up On Netflix
Have you seen the new Jamie Foxx series gaining attention on Netflix?
This article is more than 2 years old
Jamie Foxx takes self-insert to a whole new level with Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, a Netflix sitcom helmed by Foxx himself. Jim Patterson co-writes. The series is blowing up on the streaming service and is now the sixth most-watched show.
Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! tells the story of Brian Dixon, a cosmetics brand owner whose life is turned upside down when his ex-wife unexpectedly passes. Their teen daughter Sasha moves in with him and hijinks ensue. Foxx plays a bumbling, clueless (but well-intentioned) Brian, as he tries to adjust to life as a single dad, something he doesn’t happen to be good at. He isn’t a natural at developing and selling cosmetics either — he inherited BAY Cosmetics from his late mother — and juggles both responsibilities with all the finesse of a standard Eddie Murphy-esque figure. His elderly father Pops drops in from time to time, but is basically the Jack Geller to his Ross. Talk about taking it both ways. Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! is a rough caricature of Jamie Foxx’s personal life, particularly his experience of fatherhood. The Oscar winner once told Graham Norton his daughter is embarrassed by him, hence the title of the show.
Obviously, the show plays it fast and loose on its myriad themes, which range from grief and parental disconnect to mental health problems and teenage angst, all equally grave when tackled seriously. Losing a parent is no joke, and one’s adolescent years can be doubly traumatic depending on the emotional well-being of the child. But this is a sitcom, complete with a live audience, and the tragedy is (of course) played for laughs. The issues are mentioned, only to be punctuated with a witty punchline. There’s no telling when this kind of vacuous storytelling is going to get old, but based on trends and critics’ reviews, probably a while. Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! is currently the 6th most-watched series on Netflix and reviewers only have nice things to say about Jamie Foxx’s umpteenth comedy piece, after In Living Color, The Jamie Foxx Show, and White Famous, among others.
Regular viewers aren’t as comically quenched, however, and aren’t shy about leaving their disappointed one-stars on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB. But the show only just aired, so only time will tell if the bad reviews pertain to an unspoken fact, or the commenters are simply a loud minority. After all, Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! wouldn’t have climbed all the way to #6 — and stayed there! — without sufficient reason, and the numbers behind-the-scenes likely say a lot more.
Jamie Foxx reunites with In Living Color co-star David Alan Grier for Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!. Grier and Foxx both played multiple roles in the 90s sketch comedy series. Here, they’re father and son. Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! also stars Kyla-Drew (of Prisoners fame) as Brian’s daughter Sasha, host-performer Porscha Coleman as Brian’s sister Chelsea, Hellcats’s Heather Hemmens as Brian’s cosmetics colleague Stacy Collins, and impressionist Jonathan Kite as Brian’s best friend Officer Johnny Williams. Valente Rodriguez, Miracle Reigns, Luenell, Eugene Byrd, and Jackée Harry guest star. The show premiered globally on Netflix last week.
Like fellow comedians Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy, and Steve Carell, Jamie Foxx is beloved for his comedic credits but has made quite a splash as a dramatic actor in recent years. The Texas native played a staff sergeant in Jarhead, a volatile gangster in Baby Driver, and the titular Django Freeman in Django Unchained, and won several high-profile awards for Best Actor playing singing legend Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford-led biopic Ray. Foxx is also a veritable song-and-dance man, having proven his performing chops in famed musicals such as Dreamgirls and Annie. He’s also a celebrated singer, with five studio albums released and several more singles smashing charts left and right. He’s also responsible for giving British acoustic sensation Ed Sheeran his day in the sun and has already dabbled in comic book movies, playing the villainous Electro/Max Dillon in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and reprising the same role in the MCU Peter Parker’s third scheduled solo outing, Spider-Man: No Way Home.
He was last seen thrilling audiences and teaching kids about death and the afterlife as middle-school music teacher Joe Gardner in Pixar’s critically acclaimed tearjerker Soul. He also top-billed superhero movie Project Power as a heat-emitting former soldier. He’s currently filming supernatural thriller Geechee and They Cloned Tyrone, a science fiction flick. Jamie Foxx is a man of many talents, each as pronounced as the next, and his resume reflects it. If the genre exists, no matter how obscure, chances are he’s already done it.
