Review: W. Kamau Bell’s ‘1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed’ proves that the kids are all right

In his new documentary, the East Bay comedian and TV host interviews mixed-race kids in the Bay Area, shining a light on continued struggles and progress.

Kaylin and her Uncle Greg in “1000%: Growing Up Mixed.”

Photo: HBO

W. Kamau Bell’s latest documentary, “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed,” examines the experience of growing up mixed race in this third decade of the 21st century.

That’s a big topic, but theOakland comedian, TV host (“Totally Biased”) and documentarian (“We Need to Talk About Cosby,” “United Shades of America”), known for exploring some of the world’s toughest issues, does two things to narrow his movie’s focus: He limits his scope to the Bay Area, and he concentrates mainly on children.

The local focus means that some of the observations the documentary makes won’t necessarily apply once you get east of Solano or south of Santa Clara. Our region, alas, isn’t the rest of the country. Still, there’s something about the relaxed quality of the movie’s approach — the sense of an East Bay filmmaker exploring the people around him and within his community — that imparts an appealingly relaxed quality to the film itself.

Bell’s intent may be serious, but he’s not trying to give the last word on the subject or even the first word. Rather, he’s trying to convey the flavor of people’s lives in a specific place and time. To do so, he mostly gets out of the way and lets the kids speak for themselves.

制片人、导演、作家兼电视主持人w . n Kamaull (right), Melissa Hudson Bell and their children attend a reception for his documentary “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” as part of the San Francisco Film Festival premiere at Cornerstone Berkeley on April 22.

Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images for HBO Documentaries

Keeping the focus on children turns out to have been an inspired idea. Bell, who is Black, has three daughters with his wife, Melissa Hudson Bell, who is white, and so he starts “1000% Me” with his own family. He interviews his eldest daughter, Sami, a 10-year-old with the poise of a 30-year-old, and then talks to his 7-year-old, Juno.

More Information

3 stars“1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed”:Documentary. Directed by W. Kamau Bell. (Not rated. 60 minutes.) Debuts at 9 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, on HBO. Begins streaming on HBO Max on Wednesday, May 3.

Juno is a real charmer. In one scene, she recounts an incident in school in which some of her classmates told her that she was white. On camera, Juno says that she was upset by this, because she’s whiteandBlack.

This is a point emphasized throughout this 60-minute film by various participants. Being mixed race does not mean beingsplitraced. It does not mean being half of one thing and half of another. Rather, it means being fully both. As the 11-year-old Myles puts it, “I’m 100% Filipino, I’m 100% African American, and 1,000% a person.”

乔治·迈尔斯和他的哥哥,re interviewed in W. Kamau Bell’s HBO documentary, “1,000% Me: Growing Up Mixed.”

Photo: HBO

Bell also interviews the parents and a few of these kids’ adult siblings, and on several occasions, the adults speak of growing up in a harsher world than that of the younger generation. Indeed, just a decade ago, there were fewer mixed-race children, and more of a feeling of not belonging to any particular group.

Kaylin, a soft-spoken 16-year-old who is half Black, one quarter Korean and one quarter white, talks about not fitting in with the Black group. “I felt excluded by my own race,” she says.

Overall, there’s a sense in “1000% Me” that it’s depicting a fast-moving situation and just offering a snapshot of events hurrying by. Still, the impression it leaves is that life for mixed-race children has gotten dramatically better in recent years.

In that way, “1000% Me” is optimistic. But it’s optimistic in another way, as well — one that has little to do with race. It shows us that the kids today are more than all right; they’re brilliant. Throughout the movie, grammar-school children are shown making subtle points and expressing sophisticated ideas.

Is this a Bay Area thing, or a California thing? Or is this the product of a filmmaker’s selection process?

Let’s hope it’s global, because if such intelligence and insight is characteristic of the rising generation, “1000% Me” should give us hope for the future.

Reach Mick LaSalle: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com

  • Mick LaSalle
    Mick LaSalle

    Mick LaSalle is the film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, where he has worked since 1985. He is the author of two books on pre-censorship Hollywood, "Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood" and "Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man." Both were books of the month on Turner Classic Movies and "Complicated Women" formed the basis of a TCM documentary in 2003, narrated by Jane Fonda. He has written introductions for a number of books, including Peter Cowie's "Joan Crawford: The Enduring Star" (2009). He was a panelist at the Berlin Film Festival and has served as a panelist for eight of the last ten years at the Venice Film Festival. His latest book, a study of women in French cinema, is "The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses."