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One of the messages some minorities are likely to get from such symbolic dramatizations is that it is best to "know your place" and not try to move beyond it. Mocking members of any group for their aspirations - whether it is a waitress like Diane Chambers working in "Cheers" who wants to pursue graduate studies or an African-American attorney living in Bel Air like Philip Banks - is serious business. They lived in a preposterously ornate mansion, spoke in oh-so-refined language and even had a liveried butler, Geoffrey (Joseph Marcell)." As Brooks and Marsh put it, "To groovin' Will, Uncle Philip and his stuck-up clan at first seemed like a travesty on upwardly mobile blacks. Initially, Uncle Philip was set up to to be a target for easy laughs.
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Indeed, the growth and development of the Philip Banks character is emblematic of the maturation of the show. Tomorrow night's finale has a similarly dramatic and touching moment near the end of the hour dealing with the notion of fatherhood and the bond that has formed between Will and his uncle, Philip (James Avery). She cites an episode in which Will's biological father (played by Ben Vereen) came back into Will's life only to abandon him again just as Will started to trust the man. The Banks' family - the uncle, aunt and cousins Will went to live with in Bel Air - is one of the "last happy families from that era left on network television," Parks says, noting that some of the show's best moments involved explorations of family relationships. For example, Parks points out that prime-time network television was filled with "happy families" in the 1980s and into the 1990s - the Keatons on "Family Ties," the Huxtables on "The Cosby Show," the Tanners on "Full House."