According to an interview with Simon Thompson for Forbes, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” was the furthest thing from his mind when Kenya Barris got to work on the script with Jonah Hill — though he understands why people are so quick to compare the two movies. Still, he thinks their aims and framing are entirely different. As Barris told Thompson:
“The rules are so reversed. That was race-based, and this is culture-based. ‘You People’ was based upon seeing characters that we haven’t seen who are the Black guy who doesn’t want his Black daughter to marry a white guy because he feels like he raised a princess. There’s the liberal woke mom who really wants this because she secretly fetishizes it in a different kind of way.”
Barris viewed “You People” as a wedding movie, so he looked to one of the most beloved comedies from this subgenre. “If I watched anything …” he said, “Something I watched was ‘Father of the Bride,’ but when I’m writing things, I try to stay away from things that inspire me because they often will rub off and dilute your own personal freedom.”