Reggae Music News

‘Dear White People’ a provocative satire about race, identity, sexuality

By Nick Patch

THE CANADIAN PRESS

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TORONTO _ Justin Simien had a background in marketing before he became a filmmaker, so he knew the value in the attention-hooking title of his long-gestating dream project: “Dear White People.”

The film began as an after-hours writing project, evolved into a viral trailer and finally, when finished, a critical favourite on the festival circuit. At one point, it lived on Tumblr and Twitter, with Simien issuing acerbic tweets in the voice of one of his characters.

That experiment certainly helped confirm to him he was touching a nerve.

“People were mostly into it … I think most white people frankly really got it and thought it was funny and retweeted it,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “There were of course people who just felt a ‘Dear White People’ marginalized all white people and what if there’s a ‘Dear Black People’?

“What I found mostly from people who reacted negatively to the film … (they were) people who saw the title and were offended and railed against it, without necessarily even checking out what it might be.

“The title works for me in so many ways artistically. And I think even in terms of the marketing, the title helps a lot. Because you know controversy with a title at least keeps you in the cultural conversation, which is often not the case with an independent black film.”

Not that “Dear White People” _ which opens Friday in Toronto _ was intended merely to push hot buttons, or simply to inspire difficult conversations.

Revolving around four black students navigating a mostly white Ivy League college, “Dear White People” is more than anything else about self-identity, Simien explains.

Tessa Thompson plays Sam White, who runs the titular video blog as a way of shedding light on macro injustices and micro grievances, giving equal attention to institutional imbalances and the smaller indignities faced by people of colour surrounded by mostly white people. Her incisive wit paired with her persuasive charisma make her a natural fit for a student-leadership role at the fictional Ivy League college Winchester University, but she’s secretly gnawed by doubt over her suitability.

Her political rival (and ex) is Brandon Bell’s Troy, the chiselled, clean-cut son of the dean who’s destined for big things he’s not sure he wants. Teyonah Parris’s Coco, meanwhile, has somehow focused her considerable ambition on reality TV. And Kyle Gallner plays the (white) editor of the campus humour magazine, and though he’s the son of the university’s president, sees himself as a provocative voice of the apparently marginalized majority.

Then there’s Tyler James Williams’ Lionel Higgins, the character with whom Simien says he shares the most in common. Gawky with an unruly plume of curls piled atop his head, Lionel is witty, nerdy and gay, and feels out of place both among the campus’s white and black cliques.

“With Lionel, I wanted to try and articulate the experience of what it feels like when you just don’t see yourself at all in the popular culture that you’re surrounded by,” Simien explained. “You can oftentimes feel like you just don’t belong there.

“There are very, very, very few positive images of gay black men in popular black culture, really even in popular white culture. And so Lionel feels like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Within the film, Simien’s characters offer tart criticism of the state of black cinema, arguing that most offerings lie on one end of two extremes: clownish Tyler Perry populism or heavy tragedy depicting black people in peril.

Obviously, “Dear White People” exists in that sizable grey area, and given that it’s also focused on an ensemble rather than an easy-to-peddle star, Simien wasn’t surprised at the lack of major studio interest in the project.

“I think tragedy is easy for an audience to process,” he said. “You have black moviegoers who are having a cathartic experience and you also have people who are not part of that group having a cathartic experience and maybe feeling good about themselves for understanding the suffering of a minority group. It’s an easier sell, I think frankly, to an audience of all races: ‘This is a tragic thing we should all feel bad about.’ There’s certainly some great films in that genre.

“I just feel there’s probably something a little dangerous in the idea that the films that are considered the ‘good’ black films almost inevitability deal specifically with the tragic and usually failed experience of being black,” he added. “This is a film that has an artful ambition at least and shows stories of people of colour that aren’t tragic.

“It isn’t about us dying because we’re black or being marginalized because we’re black. It’s just about the experience.”

_ Follow (at)CP_Patch on Twitter.

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