[VIDEO] Dear White People (DWP)
If I didn't know better it was a comedy to me. It's been described as more a dramatic satire than anything else. It's very easy to compare this movie to Spike Lee's School Daze (SD).
Fact is it's an inverted version of Lee's classic. DWP is set at a fictitious Ivy League university and we see how the Black students in this movie cope with life at this predominantly white institution.
SD is basically about life at a fictitious historically black college. In fact that film had been shot at the various universities of the Atlanta University Center (AUC). Although those schools took umbrage at Lee's production and ultimately ordered them away from the respective campuses of the AUC.
Regardless, this film takes a look at the racial things college students engage themselves in. In the news we've seen stories of how white students may try to mock Blacks. We see it nakedly in this movie as if the point was they want to be like "us". Certainly Blacks are a lot more than the stereotypes we run into on the news.
Of course there are plenty of other issues in the movie than the simple conflicts between Blacks & whites and how they interact in an academic environment. We see some internal and interpersonal conflict. For example, a mixed race woman has to come to terms with her white father. A Black male who's had issues with other Blacks because of his sexual orientation. An aspiring Black politician who is still under the thumb of his father who had recently been appointed to a major position at this Ivy League University.
There's a lot of drama and funny moments in this movie to hold your attention. You should give it a chance before it eventually leaves your local cinemas.
