Justin Simien
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Connections, in both directions
But in terms of an authorial voice, Simien is like a composite of the best of early Spike Lee; Dear White People has the insider’s view of campus and interracial politics of School Daze, crossed with the tension of Do The Right Thing (and its satire is thankfully free of the dictionary-definition underlining of Bamboozled).
It works because — like Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing and even Jean-Luc Godard back in the 1960s — he knows to playfully challenge his characters’ stridency.
And while Simien also frequently draws upon the confrontational mise en scene of Spike Lee – especially with groups of people facing the camera while voicing a communal complaint – Dear White People is distinct from something like Do the Right Thing in that you never sense its primary aim is to provoke outrage.
Throughout the movie, he steals from the best: Shots are taken from The Shining, Persona, Network, Barry Lyndon, The Warriors, Do the Right Thing; everywhere.
Spike Lee 's "School Daze" may have been one of the filmmaker's influences, but the shape of the movie is broader, more akin to "Do the Right Thing."
If Dear White People is Simien’s School Daze, complete with academic setting and DIY scrappiness, does that mean he has a Do The Right Thing in him, too?
The notion of shifting identities is reflected in the onscreen textual information (reminiscent of Rushmore ) that reveals certain details about the characters.
The story is split into chapters with playful title cards reminiscent of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.
In a scene reminiscent of last year’s similarly themed “ Dear White People ,” a white hipster receives an amusingly on-point tutorial on the don’ts and don’ts of using the n-word .
The movie opens with a burst of smart comic energy, suggesting it might be a worthy counterpart to 2014’s Dear White People , which also used humor to explore ideas of self-image and black identity.
Yet “Dope, ” a big talker at Sundance that often feels like it should be sharper and funnier, isn’t consistently about race—at least not like “Dear White People,” which was about nothing but that subject and was a bit better than “Dope.”
A popular and critical hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Dope” would make a fitting double feature with last year’s “Dear White People,” another witty and well-made movie about aspirational, countercultural young African-Americans.
It’s not as sharp as the superficially similar “Dear White People,” but that’s because it trades some edge for populist thrills — but only some edge.
There’s a raft of reasons behind this, but it’s no coincidence that Selma and Dear White People and 12 Years a Slave and Fruitvale Station have all been made while a black man is in the White House.
(Hulu’s trailer for the film, backed by a haunting rendition of Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison,” does exude strong Us vibes, which didn’t help).
Jordan Peele’s Get Out is essentially Dear White People for sadists; it’s a therapeutic horror comedy with a shotgun barrel aimed at the racial tension that’s echoing through America.
There's room for a broad spectrum of comedy dealing with black identity, but the bar has been seriously raised in recent years with razor-sharp television like Atlanta (which launched Stanfield), Dear White People (adapted from the hilarious indie movie that provided Thompson with her breakout role) and Insecure, which weighs the struggle between professional achievement and personal fulfillment with peerless finesse.
Rapper Boots Riley, the picture’s Chicago-born African-American director and screenwriter, unfolds his freshman feature with a focus on Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), an out-of-work dude who gets along just great with his significant other, Detroit (Tessa Thompson—who you’ll remember for her role as Samantha White in Justin Simeon’s “Dear White People”).
Rapper-activist Boots Riley makes a startlingly ambitious if occasionally uneven debut with this absurdist social satire, which mates Office Space with Dear White People to dizzying effect.
In the end, Sorry to Bother You —like Get Out and Dear White People before it—carves out a unique, well-earned spot in today’s urgent discourse around race and social class amidst real-life worries and frightening politics.
The directorial debut of hip-hop artist Boots Riley reaches into the stratosphere of creative inspiration with utterly bonkers results that are nonetheless crystal clear in their intentions: “Putney Swope” by way of “Dear White People,” Riley’s wacky odyssey fires a zillion different wacky ideas at once, and more often than not, hits its targets.