I’ll get to Dear White People in a second, but in honor of Halloween, please peep what is quite possibly the greatest Twitter exchange EVER (read from the bottom up):
Okay, back to what I was saying.
Dear White People was supposed to be a brilliantly biting satire that held a mirror up to White America to let them know they could be kind of ugly at times. I really wanted to seek out the first white person in the theater, sit beside him, and cast knowing glances in their direction after each resonating scene. The movie was supposed to end with me standing directly in front of the screen at its conclusion and yelling ‘see?!? Do you get it now?’ with my arms crossed to everyone and no one at…the…same…damn…time. This was supposed to be a film that was ingenious in its creation and flawless in its presentation. Dear White People was supposed to be writer Justin Simien’s Tour de Force, and it is…in the previews. It’s not that Dear White People missed its mark; I’m just not sure what the hell they were even aiming at.
Without giving too much away, the story centers around a group of college students at a majority-white Ivy League school. The focus is on four in particular: Coco, a woman from the South Side of Chicago that eschews Black culture and has a myopic view on what it actually MEANS to be Black; Sam, a rebellious Mulatto woman entrenched in Pro-Black idealism; Troy, a well-to-do son of the school’s Dean of Students; and Lionel, who is just gay. Because gay is the new Black (insert blank stare emoji here). There are obviously white people as well, but we’ll get to them in a few.
Now that you know the characters, let’s look into their internal conflicts. Of course Sam has a white man on the side while dating a Black co-ed to maintain her ‘All Black Everything’ illusion. Of Course Troy has a white girlfriend. And OF COURSE Lionel and his struggle with being homosexual is the primary storyline. Because gay is the new Black and TOTALLY relevant when discussing race relations (insert blank stare emoji here). CoCo just doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of them because…Black. That’s all I gathered. Nobody ever explored what led to these feelings so…yeah. That’s all I got.
In what I thought was an excellent piece of character development by Mr. Simien, it becomes apparent that Sam, the Rebel and Troy, the Company Man, share an inherent understanding of Black culture while being at either extreme in regards to their personalities and interactions. Kudos for that. Even a trashcan gets a steak sometimes, apparently.
Maybe attending a Historically Black University sapped my understanding of on-campus race relations- I admit my base of knowledge is limited here- but each of these four characters has some romantic connection with someone outside of their race. I just wonder if this is realistic and question why every character needs to have this connection, either closeted or public. Addressing inter-race relations is all well and good, but why make it such a conflict with EVERY major character? But again, maybe that’s just me.
As I said before, the primary storyline is about Lionel and his struggle to find an identity and his place on campus. Lionel is gay and his sexual identity supersedes all of the other storylines that I thought the movie was SUPPOSED to be about. This post is neither the time nor the place to speak on why Gay Rights is important; the same is true about a film entitled Dear White People. Because white people can be gay; they can’t…do I really have to expl…man…moving on…
Now let’s get to those white people. I wanted ‘These White Folk Crazy’; instead I got ‘These Black Folk Really Want To Love These White Folks But We Have Trouble Loving Each Other’. Where were the figurative taps on their collective shoulders to remind them that some of the things they do need not be done? What are white moviegoers learning about their behavior? They damn sure learned about OUR behavior. Honestly, the only thing I imagine white people took away from Dear White People is ‘Dear White People…you might not want to wear Blackface on Halloween’. And that’s a shame.
I wanted so much more from Dear White People. I expected edge. I never got my ‘see, White People? See?!?’ moment. The writing suffers from tending to the wrong audience: Black people. It becomes apparent halfway through that Dear White People is for white people in title only. It’s much safer to point out Our collective identity crisis; God forbid tilting the conversation towards the white audience. We can’t risk having THEM in disillusionment and self-contemplation. This was supposed to be Our moment, solely because Our moment finally wouldn’t be about Us. Damn shame Justin and his team weren’t brave enough to fully follow through with it.
F–k ‘Dear White People’. I hope they make a re-boot like they did with ‘The Incredible Hulk’. Matter fact, I’ll do it. Let’s call it ‘Dear White People: For Real This Time’. A.J. Armstrong is the writer of ‘Dear White People: For Real This Time’. He is also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities
The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities 