Jonah Hill Tries to Convince Eddie Murphy He’s Not Like Other White People in ‘You People’ Trailer
Jonah Hill’s fumbling You People character Ezra Cohen really needs his first time meeting his girlfriend’s parents to go well. Before he met Amira Mohammed (Lauren London), he found himself relating a little too much to the lowest lows of hip-hop’s most perpetual bachelor. “I feel like Views Drake,” he says in the Netflix film’s latest trailer. “Alone on a building, dangling my legs off, wondering what it’s like to feel companionship.”
But, admittedly, maybe Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles wasn’t the best choice of location for Cohen to ask her parents for permission to propose to her. Face to face with Eddie Murphy and Nia Long in the film’s first trailer, the increasingly red-faced fiancé-to-be is tasked with convincing the couple that he isn’t like other white people.
“So do you hang out in the hood all the time, or do you just come here for our food and women,” Murphy asks. Long adds that it’s a valid question, and Hill agrees, though the interrogation doesn’t end there.
In under a minute, Hill stumbles his way through explaining what parenthood with his girlfriend would be like, nervously offering: “It would be a very nice baby, mixed race people are really awesome.” He cites Mariah Carey, Derek Jeter, and the GOAT to back up his argument – no, not Drake, but Malcolm X.
Raised by two progressive Jewish parents, portrayed in You People by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny, Cohen is desperate for the approval of Mohammed’s skeptical Muslim parents, whose only response to his declaration that he loves their daughter and would make a good husband is: “Ain’t this about a bitch?”
Mohammed is having an easier time winning over Cohen’s parents, but even they’re trying to convince her that they’re the other kind of white people. “I think the police,” Louis-Dreyfus begins, causing Cohen to panic almost immediately. “Are fucked up towards Black people.” As well intentioned as they seem – even as Duchovny compares his could-be-daughter-in-law’s braids to Xhbiit’s – Cohen’s parents couldn’t possibly be ready for their eventual face-off with the Mohammeds.
“We were technically OG slaves,” Cuchovny suggests over a joint-family dinner. Murphy counters: “Are you trying to compare the holocaust to slavery?” Meanwhile, Cohen is begging and pleading for someone to simply pass him the potatoes. No one, not even Drake or the Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles waiter, can’t save him from the forthcoming chaos that is sure to ensue as the two sets of parents push their children to prove that their relationship is more than an accidental meet-cute sparked by a rideshare mix-up.
Kenya Barris’ feature-length directorial debut arrives on Netflix on Jan. 27. The film also features appearances from Sam Jay, Molly Gordon, La La Anthony, Mike Epps, and more.