FX documents a social experiment far beyond 'Beauty and the Geek'

Two families -- one white, one black -- strive to get an unusual firsthand perspective on racism in America in "Black. White." The audacious but compelling six-part documentary series premieres Wednesday, March 8, on FX.

Using state-of-the-art makeup techniques by Keith VanderLaan ("Mrs. Doubtfire"), the series artificially changes the outward ethnic identities of the Sparkses of Atlanta, who are black, and the white Wurgel family of Santa Monica, Calif.

After makeup procedures taking from three to five hours daily for each participant, the Sparks family spends six weeks feeling its way through a predominantly white suburban culture in Southern California, while the Wurgels find new experiences and perspectives in South Central Los Angeles.

During off hours out of makeup, the families shared a home in Tarzana, Calif., during production, which took place last summer.

"Black. White." is the realization of an idea John Landgraf, the president and general manager of FX Networks, first pitched to acclaimed documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler ("The War Room") more than two years ago.

"I told R.J. ... that I wanted to see if we could do a series which explored race in America in which two American families would actually live in each other's skin," Landgraf says. "From that simple jumping-off point, R.J. ... and his partners, Ice Cube and Matt Alvarez, have developed an original series in which two families take a risky but enlightening journey."

The search for the right families was a long and demanding one, Cutler says, because in addition to being willing to participate in a project that was daunting and ultimately exhausting, participants also had to have the kind of facial features that makeup technician VanderLaan deemed "transformable" to another ethnic identity. But there was another factor as well.

"[We were looking for] folks who saw themselves as racially sensitive and open, who felt that their lives had diversity in it," Cutler says. "One of the things that we wanted to do in the show was explore a broad spectrum of points of view on race, not just kind of ignorant points of view, but people who saw themselves as open-minded and open- hearted. In a way, you could say it's as much a critique of progressive viewpoints and liberal viewpoints as it is of anything."

That's certainly evident as early as the first hour, as the liberal Wurgels -- husband Bruno Marcotulli, wife Carmen Wurgel and daughter Rose -- begin the project in a spirit that seems naively idealistic at best and startlingly insensitive at worst.

Marcotulli makes a serious misstep with the Sparkses from the get-go, expressing his firm conviction that racism in America today is largely a matter of perspective and expectation. If you go through life expecting offense and discrimination, that's likely to be your experience, he suggests.

Not surprisingly, that doesn't sit well with dad Brian Sparks, a light-skinned black man who has spent much of his life catching grief from both ends of the spectrum -- from whites because he is black, and from blacks because he is "not black enough."

"After 41 years of being black, I don't think one transformation or six weeks can accurately show what I go through on a day-to-day basis," he says. "You can just get a little taste.

"When I walk out, Bruno says plenty of times that I go out looking for racism. I don't have to look for it. It finds me. I just observe it when it gets to me already."

Even now that the project has ended, Marcotulli's basic attitude in this regard hasn't changed substantially, however.

"Brian and I had different lives as a child, and Brian explained this to me several times," Marcotulli says. "As a light-skinned black where he grew up, he got it from the black people and the white people to the extent of bricks being thrown at school buses and whatnot. I never experienced racism, so I felt that Brian brings his past scars to his present day, and a lot of the differences we had were where I didn't see what he saw, and, of course, I felt he saw what wasn't there.

"So who's right? Who's not? How much of what we see is dependent on what we want to see or expect to see?"

Although she had to endure the most extensive and painful transformation progress, teenage Rose Wurgel says she is grateful for the perspective she gained from the project, especially the time she spent in a poetry class with black peers.

"I went through incredible strife and struggle just with poetry alone, and then on top of it learning to be a friend in a place I didn't know," she says. "It's like going to school for the first time. What I ended up taking from it is that truly thinking of [whether], if you change the color of your skin, you therefore know the difference of race, when really, is it the difference of race that doesn't really exist? Is itthe difference of culture and how you're raised to believe in your race?"

Cutler says he realizes "Black. White." probably will push some buttons among viewers. He just hopes that it gets people talking about uncomfortable issues that too often go undiscussed.

"Look, if people are talking about race in America, whatever they might be saying, then to me the show will have accomplished something really important," he says. "Race doesn't get discussed nearly as much as it should.

"The struggle for white people to see the world through African-American eyes, and for African-Americans to see the world through white eyes, is a really strong one. There are really, really strong divisions in this country that don't get talked about and thought about. If this show kind of contributes to provoking conversation, I'm excited about it. The idea that someone would get their back up because race is being discussed is, you know, that's the problem to me."