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Then came the Compton Cookout at the University of California, San Diego, in 2010. The invitation promised chicken, watermelon and purple drank. Students showed up in heavy gold chains, oversized T-shirts and, yes, blackface.
Simien quickly revived the party in Dear White People, and it's one of many pieces that makes this satire so smart, gutsy and relevant. From the opening scenes to the end credits—the latter are cut with photos of blackface parties at other U.S. colleges—Simien blasts apart the notion that we live in a post-racial society. He explores questions of appropriation, conformity and political strategy, and he does this while filling his story with vibrant characters and maintaining a tone that's as playful as it is biting. He has no qualms making his viewers—including this one—uncomfortable. As a directorial debut, it's all the more impressive.
The film is set on a fictional Ivy League university called Winchester, a bastion of liberal self-congratulation—and of the micro-aggressions, systemic racism and segregation that so often accompany such complacency. It revolves primarily around four black students. There's Troy (Brandon P. Bell), the handsome and conciliatory son of the college dean. He's just lost his seat as head of his predominantly black dorm to Sam (Tessa Thompson), a self-styled militant—Simien has said he sees her as a mix of Lisa Bonet and Angela Davis—whose film project, Rebirth of a Nation, features actors in whiteface turning violent after Obama's re-election. Sam hosts the campus radio show that gives the film its name, on which she broadcasts nuggets of advice for her classmates: "Dear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man, Tyrone, does not count." Or: "Dear white people, please stop touching my hair. Does this look like a petting zoo to you?" (The hair confusions and controversies, which don't stop there, are among many delightful running gags.)
Rounding out the quartet of main characters are Coco (Teyonah Parris, best known for playing Dawn on Mad Men), née Colandrea, a name the blue contact lens-wearing assimilationist rejects as too 'hood, and Lionel (Tyler James Williams), a shy, gay Trekkie with a beachball-sized Afro who fits in nowhere. Meanwhile, the buffoons in charge of campus humor magazine Pastiche (a stand-in for the Harvard Lampoon) blaze ahead in planning the aforementioned party, which they've themed "unleash your inner Negro." Whether they're cluelessly or maliciously racist—or if the Halloween bash is some heinous perversion of their collective white guilt—remains ambiguous.
It's a potentially unwieldy tangle of people and plot, but one of Simien's chief achievements is to do his four main characters justice. Not only do they not slot easily into stereotypes, but Simien actively interrogates narrow definitions of blackness. We watch these four characters perform or minimize aspects of their racial identities: Sam tells everyone her favorite filmmaker is Spike Lee, even though it's actually Ingmar Bergman. Coco won't admit she's from the South Side of Chicago. Lionel attempts to reject labels entirely, which results in his near-universal ostracism and allows Simien to ask probing questions about internalized racism. What is it to be black âenoughâ? Can you be too black?
It helps that Simien has such able performers, who bring complexity and nuance to their roles even when contradicting themselves or switching allegiances. And his screenplay is a marvel, despite some overwritten moments. It hurtles from quick-hit Tyler Perry and Kanye West references to piercing banter about contemporary race relations. One exchange between Sam and her white T.A. (and occasional partner in the sheets) covers minstrelsy, the black diaspora, commodification of black culture and postmodern filmmaking—in about two minutes. It can be hard to keep up, and there's occasionally the feeling these characters are reciting bulleted lists. But given their hyper-intellectual environment, that's forgivable, even fitting.
Many have likened Simien to Spike Lee, and in terms of both subject and style, it's not an off-base comparison. But Simien's voice is his own, and it's vital. His next missive can't arrive soon enough.
Critic's Grade: A-
SEE IT: Dear White People is rated R. It opens Friday at Cinema 21, Clackamas, Lloyd Center.
WWeek 2015
