Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Colin In Black & White’ on Netflix, An Unexpected Look at the Life of NFL Quarterback-Turned-Activist Colin Kaepernick

More than almost any other athlete in a generation, Colin Kaepernick has stood at the center of America’s culture war. A starting quarterback in the NFL, he led his team to the Super Bowl, only to become a pariah in the league after taking a knee before games to protest racial inequality. Despite his centrality in the cultural conversation, though, we rarely hear the story of Colin Kaepernick from Colin Kaepernick himself. That’s the goal of Colin in Black and White, a unique biographical miniseries created for Netflix by Kaepernick and award-winning director Ava DuVernay.

COLIN IN BLACK & WHITE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Kaepernick addresses the screen, as scenes of an NFL scouting combine play behind him, then slowly morph to scenes from a slave auction. It sets the viewers’ expectations early—if there was any doubt on the uncompromising tone Kaepernick and DuVernay might take in telling this story.

The Gist: The story of Colin Kaepernick is well-known; NFL quarterback, outspoken civil rights activist, flashpoint in the culture war. There’s very few people familiar with the name who don’t have a strong opinion on the man, but likely just as few who are familiar with the details of his early life. Colin In Black & White isn’t a documentary about Kaepernick’s football career, but rather a look at his young life, growing up a biracial teenager with white adoptive parents, struggling to find his own cultural identity. It’s a fresh look at a story many of us think we already know, but probably don’t.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Kaepernick and DuVernay eschew a traditional documentary filmmaking approach for a humorous, dramatized reenactment that bears more than a passing resemblance to Chris Rock’s work in Everybody Hates Chris.

Our Take: Going into a documentary miniseries about Colin Kaepernick, you might expect that it would focus on the familiar notes: His successful career as a star quarterback, first in college at Nevada and later with the San Francisco 49ers. His activism, including taking a knee during the national anthem, an act he first did with little fanfare, before it was noticed and pilloried by politicians and large swaths of the public. His de facto blackballing from the NFL, left unsigned and unconsidered even by teams in desperate need of a quarterback with skills and on-field results like his.

You might not expect the first episode to focus primarily on hair, then, but it makes perfect sense in the hands of star director Ava DuVernay.

We meet a teenage Kaepernick—played by Jaeden Michael—desperate as any teenager is to show some style and swagger at school. On the recommendation of a friend, he gets his hair braided by an amateur stylist to look like his idol, Allen Iverson—much to the consternation of his adoptive white parents, Rick and Teresa. They bristle at the hairstyle, deeming it a “thug” look, but eventually come around, and Teresa steps outside her comfort zone to take Colin to a barbershop and have the messy braids professionally re-done. He’s thrilled, until a baseball coach forces him to trim it to stay on the team, a crushing defeat after his initial victory.

This focus on hairstyles isn’t a diversion; it’s key to telling the story Kaepernick and DuVernay want to tell, about a biracial, Black-presenting young man struggling to define himself in white-dominated structures, whether those be a JV football team or society at large. It’s an unexpected approach, but highly effective; we’re meeting the young Kaepernick as a fresh character in a story, not a familiar face in archival footage.

The storytelling can be a bit heavy-handed at times, with obvious villains and loaded dialogue, but it doesn’t diminish the overall impact of what they’re trying to do with this show. The cast is fleshed out with terrific character actors including Nick Offerman and Mary-Louise Parker as Kaepernick’s parents, and it plays out like a well-done teen drama rather than a documentary.

Sex and Skin: None; this is a strictly PG story.

Parting Shot: The young Kaepernick is forced to cut his much-desired braids in order to comply with a high school baseball coach’s rules; the present-day Kaepernick notes that it would be another 14 years before he was able to have braids again. Now unapologetically wearing his signature Afro hairstyle, Kaepernick sits in a barber’s chair, finally in control of his own story.

Sleeper Star: Jaeden Michael is tasked with embodying the teenage Kaepernick—a difficult challenge, making a character that’s both a realistic portrayal of a real person and an endearing figure of his own—and does a superb job at it, showing real promise for an as-yet little-known actor.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I did what you said,” Colin notes to a fellow player at quarterback camp, “I shut up and listened.” “I didn’t say to shut up. I just said to listen,” the player notes, a bit of foreshadowing for the outspoken athlete-activist’s future.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Colin In Black & White is a biographical story with a social message to tell, but it’s also a genuinely entertaining series, and it’s worth your time.

Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and internet user who lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, two young children, and a small, loud dog.

Watch Colin In Black & White on Netflix