Afro culture on Tour with Pippo

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Appearing without major announcements in the Disney+ catalog on December 28, the fourth season of Atlanta concludes one of the best TV series ever, as brilliant as it is little known in Italy and not enough awarded in the USA.

After the European tour that had occupied the previous season, the four protagonists returned home to Atlanta, and the first episode is one of the few that brings them all together. In the following nine, as already in the third season, the narrative lines are more individual: Earn (Donald Glover), now established as a manager and PR, is looking for emotional stability; Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) begins to see the downturn in his career and has to think about what to do next; Darius navigates his absurd exploits. Vanessa also has a dedicated episode and a consistent screen presence, but as in the past, her developmental arc is poorly defined outside of her role as mother and companion to Earn.

There is only one standalone episode, of those set in alternate realities, in which no cast member appears, which instead had abounded in the third season. It’s only one but it’s among the highest and craziest points of the whole series: a fake documentary about a black cartoonist who in 1992 becomes CEO of Disney and invests everything in the production of a film about Goofy. Showing numerous clips from Traveling with Goofya Disney film that actually exists, the documentary argues how Mickey’s best friend actually represents African Americans, and how the film that sees him as the protagonist is a very high expression of black culture. All in a series that goes on FX, then owned by Disney!

Faithful to his commitment to represent the black experience, Atlanta he ends his journey without ever having lost inventiveness, and delivers to the future a work of enormous value that ranges between the surreal, the grotesque, the comic and the dramatic with infinite grace. An Italian viewer may feel a certain cultural distance, which does not always make the genius of the series immediately perceptible, but by arming yourself with google and a little curiosity, it is really worth entering this crazy world of rappers, family hysteria and legends subways come true.

atlanta 4, Donald Glover, Disney+