Dear White People, the first full length film release by Justin Simien is well worth the watch for anyone who cares about the state of race relations and identity politics in this complex nation of ours (assuming here that as I have exactly one person following this blog - thank you Paul T. - I'm not leaving out any international readers). As a first time effort Simien exhibits the common rookie mistake of stuffing too much into a crowded frame (sub-plots, back-stories, references and self-references) but the overall treatment of the interface between race/minority status and 1)power, 2)academia,3)pop culture, 4)commerce is spot on and very relevant. Think an early Spike Lee film done with a little less talent and a lot less angst. Also funny in a way that Lee can never deliver, as his work is always deliberately and understandably too heavy on message to let the humorous elements he mixes in come to the surface and breathe. Overall the acting performances are credible across the mostly twentysomething cast, with a less believable pair of deliberately parodied presentations of two older characters that still serve the story well. Go see this. (Paul, if you don't like it I'll refund your ticket and Judy's too- as I remember a contentious conversation we once had in SF over brunch about Lani Guinier and cumulative voting - same issues haunt this film sorry to say.)
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AuthorJon Amsterdam is a Lawyer, Educator, Community Organizer and National Service Innovator who directs Communities Without Borders, a non profit organization he founded in 1996. Archives
January 2021
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