There's a white suburban family in Columbia's Watermelon Man—… with a daddy, mommy, and spoiled, oblivious little girl and boy—and one morning the daddy, a bigoted insurance salesman, wakes up black…. Lots of funny stuff follows; a long elaboration on the joke of his newly acquired blackness…. Watermelon Man was directed by a black, and is therefore chock-full of classic grits-'n'-chitlins gags. All very breezy—set them up, punch them home.

Then, slowly, the comedy turns dark. For a bit, it seems the initial joke is simply being extended…. But then his wife leaves him, taking his kids. His boss encourages him to turn his talents for persuasion to exploiting poor blacks; a sort of underwriting for which he has no stomach. Finally, without home, family, friends, he hangs around sleazy black bars dreaming of his white life. In the final image, he's in a cellar training for street warfare with militant brothers. He rehearses the calisthenics of guerrilla combat—in African gown, and brandishing a spear—his face contorted in wounded rage. (pp. 68, 70)

[Beneath] the running gag of Watermelon Man lies the understanding that it's too awful to think about much—unless you're black, in which case you think about it the whole time. (p. 70)