So the 2014 hit indie movie Dear White People has received a series adaptation that is currently up on Netflix. It takes place after the events of the movie which centered around the events that lead up to a bunch of white students at an Ivy League school throwing a blackface party. It stars Logan Browning media studies major who hosts the school radio show called Dear White People, Marque Richardson, and Deron Horton who you might have recognized as Square from Burning Sands.
The first season consists of 10 30 minute episodes. I’ve watched the first episode last night and that was some good shit. I thought the movie was okay, had some great cinematography, but felt the dialogue could’ve been more natural. My qualms from the movie are mostly solved in this and the storytelling and writing are really good. I also love how they threw shade at Game of Thrones.
I’ve seen some of the reaction online from butthurt folks. I could care less about them.
Spoilers for episode 1 and 2
Episode 1
[details=Spoiler]Episode 1 is a great introduction for getting into the premise. We get a very short and to the point recap of the movie. From there we explore Sam’s journey of being a member of black caucus on campus, doing her radio show, and trying to hide the fact that she has a white boyfriend because she feels it will hurt her pro black image. White students on campus are still offended by her show despite bringing to surface the racists on campus who threw the blackface party. She’s often mocked for it and even faces some backlash from her fellow black students for being overly black which plays into her keeping her white boyfriend a secret. He’s not satisfied with their situation and thus asks to join her and her friends when they hang out and watch a show. Now she brings him and everyone is watching Defemation (which is a hilarious parody of Scandal) and everything seems cool that is until one of her friends also on the black caucus has an altercation with Sam’s boyfriend. Now, I agree with Sam that shit was uncalled for. The man didn’t say anything stupid or offensive. It seemed like he just had a problem with him because he was white. After that Sam does one last radio show and reveals that she was the one who sent out the invites for the blackface party on campus. It is a powerful moment in terms of shots and editing and it made for a perfect close to a wonderful episode.
Episode 2 centers around Lynol who is a young black student who is still trying to figure out his sexuality and writing for the school paper. His coworker at the paper invites him to a paper where Lynol shows up alone and meets a white boy who seems obviously into him, but Lynol is still shy as heck. He follows the white guy to his place along with the white guy’s roommate/friend with benefits and a threesome looks like it’s coming. Things get heated, sweaty and intense and you think Lynol is about to get into the shit when he busts out laughing and calls out the guy for only being into guys and that the girl really isn’t into it. This tone shift keeps you at edge and shows you another side of Lynol. After leaving there he goes back to work for the newspaper and discovers that Sam was the one who sent out the invites to the blackface party. His coworker pushes him to write a piece about it, but his own morality prevents him from doing such as was shown briefly in episode 1. Now there was also the jacking off to the roommate part, but I don’t want to talk about that.[/details]
Really, the trailers for this show don’t describe the tone of the show accurately. It comes off being memeish in the trailers, but within context with different music, sound, and editing the tone is completely different. Just did two episodes so far and I can’t wait to finish the rest.
