We’ll never know if Vivian Banks (portrayed by Janet Hubert) was happy her mischievous nephew, William, came to live in their ritzy Bel-Air home. The son of her older sister Vy, Vivian welcomed Will because he’s family.
That didn’t mean she liked him.
A product of West Philly, Will frequented a local playground afterschool. He’d go there to play basketball, highly likely to shoot his mouth off, too. One day he had a run-in with a couple of supposed troublemakers. A minor altercation occurred which apparently freighted Vy enough to schedule Will’s exodus from the East Coast to Viv’s sunny California residence.
Vivian and her husband, Philip, tried to make Will as comfortable as possible. Will’s actions, on the other hand, often made the couple uneasy. This was harder on Vivian as she would have to play middle defender between her nephew and her husband.
She also had three children of her own – Carlton, Hillary, and Ashley. All three of them were products of their Bel-Air environment. Will wasted no time undermining house rules to street-influence young Ash and belittling Hillary and Carlton because of the way the dressed and spoke wasn’t “black” enough.
While the siblings returned insulting, sometimes stereotypical barbs in kind, Will was the outsider in their home, school, and everywhere else in their privileged community. And when his classy, well-dressed, upper crust Aunt Viv came to their aide (and sometimes his, depending on the situation), she did so with the kind of neck rolling, urban-American attitude Will was accustomed to.
Viv was considerably as “black” as they come.
The darker-complexed, more aggressive Vivian Banks was part of NBC’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for its first three seasons. She was replaced in season 4 by a milder, reimagined version of the character portrayed by actress Daphne Maxwell Reid.
According to reports, Hubert had real life issues with star Will Smith’s behavior, leaving Bel-Air for her real life without him.
To most, though, she’ll always be the realest Vivian Banks. |THIS.
[By Mr. Joe Walker]
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