{"id":9538,"date":"2014-12-12T20:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-13T02:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=9538"},"modified":"2014-12-10T16:17:03","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T22:17:03","slug":"dear-white-people-2014-justin-simien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/9538","title":{"rendered":"Dear White People (2014, Justin Simien)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agreeing with J. Rocchi:<\/p>\n

Dear White People pulls off a surprising number of things with startling ability. It’s an American film that talks about race with strong feeling, common sense and good humor; it’s an indie screenwriting-directing debut as polished as it is provocative; it’s a satire that also lets its characters be people; it’s a showcase of clever craft and direction as well as whip-smart comedic writing brought to life by a dedicated, charismatic cast that also conveys real ideas and emotion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Set at an ivy-league school (but shot at the University of Minnesota – Katy recognized the buildings). Sam (Tessa Thompson of Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls<\/em>) runs the titular radio show, semi-accidentally becomes head of her residence house after giving a provocative speech, defeating her ex-boyfriend Troy (soap actor Brandon Bell).<\/p>\n

Troy is son of college dean Dennis Haysbert (last seen in Far From Heaven<\/em>), starts kissing up to president of a different house, Kurt (Kyle Gallner of Red State<\/a><\/em>), who is son of the college president (Haysbert’s boss). Troy is also dating Kurt’s sister \/ the president’s daughter, which gives Haysbert a certain racial\/sexual-power satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Other leads: Lionel is a nerdy gay writer (Tyler James Williams, title star of Everybody Hates Chris<\/em>), Coco is a fame-hungry student (Teyonah Parris of Mad Men<\/em> and They Came Together<\/em>) and Reggie is Sam’s hanger-on at the black student union (Marque Richardson). Climax is Troy’s all-white house throwing a race-reversal\/mocking party (blackface rap-video atmosphere with watermelon, etc). Probably the whole mystery surrounding the ending was unnecessary – Coco and Troy are both desperate enough to fit in that they get involved in the party, but it turns out to have been Sam’s brainchild as an anarchist racism-exposure idea. But the twists matter less than they might have, because the movie is so sharply shot and written, and remains warmly character-based instead of leaning too hard on story. Then it shows mind-melting photos of real college race parties over the closing credits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agreeing with J. Rocchi: Dear White People pulls off a surprising number of things with startling ability. It’s an American film that talks about race with strong feeling, common sense and good humor; it’s an indie screenwriting-directing debut as polished as it is provocative; it’s a satire that also lets its characters be people; it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1049,1900,1899,926],"class_list":["post-9538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-2010s","tag-college","tag-justin-simien","tag-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9589,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions\/9589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}