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Keenan Ivory Wayans’ 2004 comedy “White Chicks” was an unlikely hit when it was released in 2004. Unlikely, because the premise is wild. Shawn and Marlon Wayans play\u00a0Kevin and Marcus Copeland, two FBI agents and brothers who, as\u00a0punishment for a bungled drug bust, are forced to escort a pair of annoying, vapid, wealthy white socialites to a fashion event. However, the vain sisters Tiffany and Brittany (Anne Dudek and Maitland Ward) receive small facial cuts in a low-impact car accident and refuse to go out in public with such injuries. To save face (heh), Kevin and Marcus decide to contact a makeup artist friend of theirs, have masks constructed, and masquerade as Tiffany and Brittany. The film’s comedy extends from two adult Black cops trying to behave like young rich white women.<\/p>\n
“White Chicks” was panned roundly by critics and was nominated for five Razzies. Its low humor was not appreciated, and its racial commentary was subsumed by its uninspired slapstick. In his one-and-a-half-star review, Roger Ebert wrote<\/a> that audiences will “attend ‘White Chicks’ [wanting] sharp, transgressive humor, which they will not find.” Nevertheless, the film made a startling $113 million at the box office against a $37 million budget and even made waves on Netflix<\/a> as recently as last year.<\/p>\n “White Chicks” has six credited writers, including the above-mentioned Wayans brothers, as well as Andy McElfresh,\u00a0Michael Anthony Snowden, and Xavier Cook. In Entertainment Weekly<\/a>‘s 2020 oral history of the film, Shawn and Marlon Wayans remained very positive on “White Chicks,” noting how classical the movie is. Specifically, the Wayans didn’t think that “White Chicks” would work until they remembered Billy Wilder’s 1959 comedy classic “Some Like It Hot.”<\/a> If a 1959 comedy about men in drag could work, then, they figured, so could “White Chicks.”<\/p>\n