Marlon Wayans Doubles Down on the Cultural Importance of ‘White Chicks’

Marlon Wayans made his first foray into family films with the recent release of The Curse of Bridge Hollow, an endearing Halloween story about a family from Brooklyn who moves to a small New England town only to accidentally unlock an ancient curse that makes Halloween decorations come to life.

The Crown Prince of Parody sat down with BuzzFeed over the weekend to talk about the project, but an interview that was supposed to be about a festive family film somehow turned into a platform for the Scary Movie creator to rail against cancel culture and espouse the importance of films like White Chicks while lamenting that “society is in this place where we can't laugh anymore.” 

Someone reset the “Days Without a Comedian Who Hasn’t Been in the Spotlight for Over a Decade Complaining About Being Censored” counter to zero.

Early in the interview, Wayans was asked about what he had done behind the scenes to build on-screen chemistry with Stranger Things star Priah Ferguson, who plays Wayans’ daughter in The Curse of Bridge Hollow. After listing some pretty generic “adult trying to connect with a teenager” answers — asking her about her friends, talking about school, giving her business advice — Wayans subtly slipped a self-referential remark, saying, “I also recommended some movies for her to watch, like White Chicks.” Because there’s nothing that teenagers in 2022 love more than crossdressing comedies from George W. Bush’s first term.

The interviewer took the bait and passed Wayans a soapbox, asking him, “I want to know in this day and age with stricter forms of censorship , could a movie like White Chicks thrive?” After landing the question for which he had been fishing, Wayans preached the importance of movies about him and his brother farting in drag, saying, “I think they're needed. I don't know what planet we're on, where you think people don't need laughter, and that people need to be censored and canceled. If a joke is gonna get me canceled, thank you for doing me that favor.”

Early aughts comedians proudly inviting cancellation is in vogue right now, but this is one of the more egregious examples of a comedian whose old material isn’t worth starting a cultural discussion complaining about non-existent backlash in order to drum up some fresh press. Before this interview, there was no Twitter campaign to have White Chicks censored, nor was anyone trying to start a war over whether or not Wayans and his brother making Yo Mama jokes while wearing Frankenstein-ish drag makeup constituted a sexist racist transphobic microaggression worthy of a top trending hashtag.

Wayans concluded his “Old Man Yells at Cloud” tirade with a dig at the meddling kids and nebulous “executives” who fear the power of Gen Z Twitter, saying, “I ain't listening to this damn generation. I ain't listening to these folks: These scared-ass people, these scared executives. Y'all do what you want to do? Great. I'm still gonna tell my jokes the way I tell them. And if you want to make some money,  jump on board. And if not, then I'll find a way to do it myself.”

This interview about a Halloween kids’ movie is one of the most transparent attempts we’ve seen to create a controversy over a topic that no one was talking about, but it did give us one of the most self-aware quotes we’ve ever heard from any one of the Wayans brothers. Said Marlon, “One thing about the Wayans, we've always told the worst joke the best way.”

If there’s one thing that wasn’t missing from White Chicks, it’s the worst jokes.