November 5, 2014
w $Iortlanò (Dhscruer
Alberta
North. Portland
The Cast o f ‘Dear White People. ’ (Courtesy Liongate and Roadside Attractions)
Right Kind of Discomfort
“Dear White People’
takes on privilege,
identity and race
When was the last time you saw a film that
challenged your assumptions about iden
tity? Or one that depicted anything like the
variety and complexity of identity struggles
and m icro-aggressions experienced by
people outside the dominant culture(s)? Or
one that managed both to make you feel
understood and to make you squirm?
"Dear White People," the first feature film
of writer-director Justin Simien, manages all
o f those things and more, which is to say that
it is quite an achievement. That is not to sav
that it is exactly fun to watch or even wholly
successful - but even as I write that, I ques
tion whether my discomfort with some as
pects of the film says more about me than it
does about the film. To pitch a film at this
level of complexity and to manage to sustain
it there is more than most films even aspire to.
Please don't stop reading or decide that
this film is not for you. It is for you. No matter
who you are, "Dear White People" will repay
your investment of time and discomfort, will
plant fruitful questions in your brain that
deserve your attention, and will sharpen
your awareness o f things happening all
around you. And, as I like to remind myself,
what's true is true. The only question is
whether you deal with it or it deals with you.
And the truth will deal with you, even when
the privileges you enjoy insulate you from
perceiving it.
The truth in a predom inantly white, Ivy
League university like the fictional Win-
Chester University -- like most places hous
ing access to privilege - is a lot more
com plicated than is depicted in popular
culture or even popular parlance. The rov
ing vantage points o f the film involve
m ostly the A frican-A m erican m em bers o f
a m ixed cast, and the variety among those
characters is considerably more than we
usually see in films (including in the sort
o f rom antic com edies and rom antic thrill
ers that seem to predom inate among the
few films with majority-black casts). Chief
am ong the characters here is Sam, whose
cam pus radio program shares the m ovie's
title and who dispenses pitiless jib es at
the hypocrisies and m icro-aggressions
that African-Americans experience in their
daily interactions with clueless C auca
sians. ("D ear W hite People, stop touch
ing our hair. Does this look like a petting
zoo to you? ') Sam 's perceptions are sharp
continued
on page IS