To a world as sick of reading about the escapades of the social elite as it is of the Yankees, the Wayans brothers—director Keenan Ivory, and actors Shawn and Marlon—bring this ridiculous premise to life in their unrated and uncut DVD edition of White Chicks. It’s debatable which is meant to be scarier, the Wayans’ successful Scary Movie franchise, or Shawn Wayans strutting down a catwalk wearing what looks like an ostrich.

Down-on-their-luck FBI agents, Kevin (Shawn Wayans) and Marcus (Marlon Wayans) Copeland bungle an easy assignment escorting kidnapping targets Brittany and Tiffany Wilson (Maitland Ward and Anne Dudek). In a car accident, Brittany and Tiffany receive the tiniest of scratches to their faces, the greatest imaginable travesty, and refuse to go out in public. To keep up appearances, Kevin and Marcus must, obviously, transform themselves with a team of makeup artists and pose as “white chicks” during the biggest days of the social season, Labor Day Weekend.

Masquerading in the backstabbing world of the blonde, the rich and the famous, Kevin and Marcus alternately fend off unwanted attentions from men and battle it out on the dance floor with the Wilsons’ archrivals, the Vandergeld sisters (Jaime King, Brittany Daniel). They unabashedly spoof hotel heiresses Paris and Nicky Hilton, complete with miniature pet dog and sex video, in a hilarious but utterly contrived plot.

Particularly memorable is the shopping expedition scene where Marlon Wayans needs assistance zipping up a pair of uber-tight leather pants. His facial expressions, clearly visible beneath all of the prosthetics, are priceless. In fact, it is a feat unto itself at how Shawn and Marlon Wayans are transformed into looking like strangely normal, but utterly grotesque women.

Don’t expect any high comedy or biting social satire. Instead, the humor plays with ever-crass, but laugh-worthy, gags involving farting, racial stereotypes, and collagen. Think of enhanced breasts so large as to knock over card stands.

Special features on the DVD include an audio commentary by the Wayans Brothers, a behind-the-scenes look at the make-up transformation and two behind-the-scenes-making-of featurettes. While it’s interesting to find that their make-up took a total of five hours of preparation, the features are mostly repetitive and reuse interviews.

White Chicks is certainly not a clever spoof, like Scary Movie, but is a worthwhile watch, if only to see grown men struggle with head tosses and g-strings. The most annoying aspect of the movie is the near impossibility in distinguishing the leads from another when in full makeup. But then again, our homogenized white society is the entire basis for this send-up.

—-Emily G.W. Chau