themakeupgallery blog

Dans la peau d’un noir (official site & themakeupgallery feature) is a French docu-tainment TV show inspired by — or maybe franchised from — Actual Reality’s Black.White. (official site & themakeupgallery feature).

Like Black.White. it takes a black family and a white family and swaps their apparent racial identity with makeup. It then films them in ‘real-life’ situations, and examines their reactions using the standard tools of reality TV (video diaries, the hot-house environment of sharing a house, etc).

Having, at last, seen Black.White. on DVD I remain as unconvinced about its serious, investigative value and less convinced of its ‘reality’ than I was when I originally posted. How Dans la peau d’un noir shapes up remains to be seen: though not by me as I don’t get Canal+.

If anyone watches it when it shows next week, I’d be interested to hear your views (or to see better images of the makeup.). I’d also like to know if there are any other international franchised versions forthcoming.