Waters1

Tiauni Waters

Ms.Nataraj

AP Lit/Comp

10 May 2017

Dear White People

Dear White People is a drama/comedy or satirical film made January 18, 2014 by Justin

Simien. Justin Simien is an American filmmaker, actor, and author. His first feature film, Dear

White People, won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at the 2014

Sundance Film Festival. This screenplay was completely original and was not adopted from

another work.

This movie is about a group of intelligent, strong minded and witty black collegiate

students, who are living out what seems to be a dream of integration and equality. The movie is

set at Winchester University, a fictional Ivy League campus in which, racial tension is extremely

high, leading to conflicts, rivalries and cultural differences that evolved into a conflict over power.

The trifling ignorance and flat-out racism that they face, including the constant petting of natural

hair (as if they were fascinating dogs) and frat parties where blackface was encouraged all

support the title of the movie. Dear White People was the name of a radio station in which one

of the main characters Sam White, a beautiful, strong-minded media-arts major, talks to her

listeners about prejudices they didn't know they had. This title sums up the essence of the

movie and makes it clear on which the audience is or was suppose to be , when watching the

film you will realize that these characters also had some self reflection to do.

The film starts off showing some stereotypical broadcast about African Americans and it talks

about the blackface party that has yet, to be seen by viewers at this point. Then this leads into a

commercial style overview of what Winchester looks like highlighting the fact that it is majority

white and has very few blacks. One of Sams gut punching introductory lines "Dear white

people," one of her scathing editorials begins, "the minimum number of black friends needed to
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not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed dealer, Tyrone, doesn't count."

Introduces us to her witty character and already establishes a leadership or influential role for

her character. This is satirizing white students who collect black friends. Sam, has a mission to

bring everyone within earshot round to the notion that the Obama Era (in which the film calls this

era) is not a post-racial society but, rather, a place with veiled new forms of hatred and

oppression. This film starts off this way to introduce the personalities of the major characters

and to set the satirical and bold elements in which, the movie was based on such as racial

conflicts that still exit in the collegiate world and America as a whole.

Dear White people is the most repeated line throughout the movie not only because it is

title but, because it is Sams escape line when a conflict presents itself in her life. She always

finds away to connect this line with any issue such as, when she used the radio broadcast to

mend an interracial relationship she was having. This revealed how contradicting she was and

majority of the major characters were in regarding to their adamant stands on racial inequality

and their personal lives. Sam was a biracial female in a interracial relationship while, also being

a diehard pro-black activist in which , people assumed would be reflected in her personal

relationships. Other characters such as Sams roommate Coco Conners, displayed

contradicting traits such as , talking about whites culture appropriating blacks while, she

appropriates white culture. The repetition of Dear white people empathizes their issues and

who they thought those issues stemmed from but, in reality it opened up some self- realization

within some of the characters

If feel as if the most important three scenes in this movie are Sams residency hall presidency

campaign, Coco Connerss breakdown when filmed at the blackface party (which was the

climax of the movie) by Sam and the Blackface party as a whole. Sam runs for president of the

all-black residence hall Armstrong-Parker House, going up against Troy Fairbanks. A dining-

hall face-off between her and Kurt, the editor of the college magazine, who parades his white-

boy privilege by portraying himself as a victim of reverse racism, is a sequence of verbal

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combat. This conflict leads the biggest conflict of all being the blackface party. Coco Conners

was an unapologetic social climber from a poor background. With her blonde weaves and

upscale vocabulary, Coco wants to be just like the rich white kids and when accused of that very

thing, she asks, in essence Don't I have the right to? This opens the viewers eyes to not only

the problem blacks have with whites but, what blacks have with themselves. For a moment at

the blackface party, the light is not only on whites, it is on the people that constantly use Dear

White People. The Black face party was an important issue within itself, in which the

radiobroadcast Dear White People is framed by this event. The event was organized as a

'satirical' fraternity bash by the editors of the schools magazine (that Sam had just had a tense

encounter with), who invite students to come and liberate their inner Negro. The black

students that we follow throughout the movie crash the party and it becomes a large riot tying

the beginning of the movie together.

As stated previously, The Black face party was the climax of the movie. This scene pulls

all of the internal conflicts of the characters out such as, Cocos self-hatred, Lionels sexuality,

Cultural appropriation, racial tensions and Sams first raw film. The movie has hinted on all of

these conflicts through the movie but, the party is when everything comes to the light including

anger. This event caused Winchesters racial tensions to be publicized causing the Board to

address the problem. It also brought a sense of unison to the campus and started a road to

repair in a sense.

The film ends with true representations of a black party happening and credits to the film

makers and designers. This ties the topics discussed in this movie but, to real life, these things

are actually taking place on collegiate campuses and in America in general. The ending also,

makes the movie more relatable by putting real incidents in the movie.