Line #3 Film/DearWhitePeople


1	[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dear_white_people_2649.jpg]]
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3	''Dear White People'' is a film by Creator/JustinSimien. A satire at times, and a drama during others, the film follows four young black students as they try to find their identity while maneuvering through the complex racial politics of [[IvyLeagueForEveryone the prestigious Winchester Academy]]. A housing randomization initiative threatening to gut the Armstrong dorm, currently as a safe haven for racial minorities, causes racial tensions to rise for Sam, Lionel, Coco, and Troy as the Black Student Union tries to fight back, the school paper wants the scoop, and a smooth reality show producer seeks to reap the drama.
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5	A Creator/{{Netflix}} [[Series/DearWhitePeople series]] based on the film was released April 28th, 2017.
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7	----
8	!! ''Dear White People'' contains examples of:
9	* BatmanGambit: Sam, in the final act. After overhearing [[spoiler: the cancellation of the Blackface party]] Sam forces the invites out anyway, but that's all, banking on the members of Pastiche and their guests to do the rest.
10	* BlackAndNerdy: Sam and Lionel show shades of this, but the film implies Lionel's geekiness is yet another reason people ostracize him. Troy deliberately hides this.
11	* {{Blackface}}: The film's climax is oriented around a Blackface-themed party, where students dress up in offensive stereotypes and exhume their wildest racist fantasies. [[spoiler: This gets PlayedForDrama.]]
12	* BlackGalOnWhiteGuyDrama: Sam and Gabe. Initially Sam is in denial that they are falling in love, because of her guilt at not dating a black man. [[spoiler:She gets over this in a beautiful moment at the end of the film, when she and Gabe hold hands crossing the bridge, taking no notice of the stares from her BSU friends.]]
13	* BlackIsBiggerInBed: Sophia invokes this with Troy, somewhat to his chagrin.
14	* CampGay: All of the gay guys we see except for Lionel are quite clean-cut and campy. He doesn't identify in their crowd comfortably because of it.
15	* ChekhovsGun: Sam's handheld camera. She is seen using it in the prologue to film a news recording, and again for her film class. She eventually takes it to the blackface party to record the chaos, using the footage to make her final project for the film class and get national coverage on the school's racism.
16	* ChekhovsSkill: Programming, or rather the aptitude at which the character can use it. [[spoiler: Sam's friend Reggie boasts of his skill at hacking early on during the BSU meeting. Later Sam is called into the Dean of Students office to discuss a problem with the app that took the votes for the election. She won... then kept winning.]]
17	* ChessMotif: {{Invoked}} by Kurt, discussing his and Troy's fathers' long-running conflict.
18	* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Sofia is {{implied}} to be dating Troy for this reason. Unintentionally {{lampshaded}} by Sam almost immediately after the couple is introduced:
19	-->'''Sam''' (on the radio): "Dear white people, dating a black guy to piss off your parents is a form of racism."
20	* EverythingIsRacist: Microaggressions and the extent to which they should be taken seriously are explored as part of the film's examination of race relations.
21	* FireForgedFriends: Lionel and [[spoiler: the Black Student Union, after he takes the reigns during Sam's [[HeroicBSOD brief departure]]]].
22	* {{Foreshadowing}}: An early scene has the young gay black man Lionel sitting on the college campus observing two different groups: [[ScaryBlackMan tough-looking black guys]] and [[{{CampGay}} limp-wristed gay guys]], neither of whom he feels he identifies with. It more or less sums up exactly what the movie is about.
23	* FreudWasRight: InUniverse. Kurt brings up Pastiche’s motto, metaphorically saying that comedy and criticism should not hold back and hit raw nerves: ‘Sharpen thy sword’. One of the members thinks [[SexualEuphemism it’s a euphemism for something else]].
24	* FriendsWithBenefits: Sam and Gabe start off sleeping together casually. Sam is in denial that it is blossoming into romance.
25	-->'''Gabe''': ''[pensively]'' What are we doing?\
26	'''Sam''': ''[looking out the window]'' Fucking.
27	* GoneHorriblyRight: Kurt's Blackface Party invitations backfire after the party is cancelled when [[spoiler:Sam forces them out anyway in order to create a confrontation and bring the university's racial issues into the national news.]]
28	* HalfBreedDiscrimination: A source of angst for Sam, who is black but has a [[spoiler:white father]]. She is committed to black activism but is in a relationship with Gabe, a white guy.
29	* HowWeGotHere: The film begins with the main characters individually watching reacting to news reports of [[spoiler: the riot which breaks out at the Blackface party at the end of the film]], complete with a TitleCard that reads "Prologue."
30	* HypocriticalHumor: President Fletcher's line about racism being over in America; the only people bothered by it being Mexicans.
31	* ImportantHaircut: Sam and Lionel. Lionel finally cuts his hair down, signifying [[spoiler: his newfound confidence in approaching the members of the BSU]]. At the same time Sam lets hers down, signifying that she now won't spend the bulk of her time trying to force an outward appearance of "blackness" and instead [[spoiler: prioritizes who she is over what everyone sees her for]].
32	%%* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle
33	* InternalizedCategorism: A major theme of the film is how several of the black students repress their identity or try to distance themselves from it due to their primarily-white environment. Lionel notes that his worst favorite part of high school was the other black kids due to associating them with homophobic behavior, and Coco seeks out the company of white people and only plays up her black identity when it can potentially snag her some attention -- and even then, she shows signs of insecurity, such as insisting she isn't ''that'' dark-skinned. Even Sam, the most outspoken advocate for black people on campus, is revealed to be insecure about her mixed-race identity.
34	* IvyLeagueForEveryone: Every character in the film is either working for or attending Winchester Academy at some capacity. The level of ambition most of the characters display makes it pretty clear that Winchester is at the same level of prestige as an Ivy League School.
35	* JiveTurkey: Mitch is constantly trying to embody black stereotypes, and looking ridiculous doing it.
36	* KarmaHoudini: Kurt assaults Lionel in front of witnesses, but isn't expelled or prosecuted (the fact that [[{{Nepotism}} his father is the university president]] helps with the latter, but the former is left unexplained).
37	* LetsGetDangerous: Lionel, during his second time at the Blackface Party.
38	* MaleGaze: When Coco wears a dress with a NavelDeepNeckline to a party, the camera lingers. It's also subverted in that when she approaches Kurt at the end of the party, the camera frames the back of his head such that the audience cannot tell if he's looking.
39	* {{Misblamed}}: Sam and the BSU voice their discontent with the American film industry's treatment of black characters, with Tyler Perry being named in particular as producing offensive movies. But rather than a producer or a writer, they complain to the poor man behind the ticket booth at a local movie theater
40	* NWordPrivileges: {{Invoked}} by Troy: "You guys get country clubs. We get to say nigga."
41	* NotNowKiddo: Troy's father, the Dean, brushes him off when he tries to inform him of the escalating situation on campus.
42	* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: BlackFace parties have occurred. Right before the credits roll, a montage shows numerous pictures of real life white college students donning BlackFace as part of their (culturally insensitive) costume.
43	* PlayingUpTheStereotype: Sam uses the term "oofta" to describe black people who modulate their blackness around their white friends, dating it back to the Jazz Age when "bojango-types" would "black it up" for white audiences. Troy is depicted as one example -- he's highly academic and fluent, but when hanging out with his white friends at a party, he cracks jokes about being black and [[WhereDaWhiteWomenAt his affinity for white women]] so he can make them laugh.
44	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Kurt is a {{jerkass}} who frequently and proudly makes racist and homophobic statements.
45	* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: One of the major themes of the movies (if not ''the'' major theme) is white people who are obsessed with emulating black stereotypes while having no respect for actual black people.
46	%%* StylisticSuck: Sam's films. [[spoiler:At least, the first one.]]
47	* TakeThat: When Sam leads a cadre of her friends to a movie theater to protest the lack of quality films targeted toward African-Americans, they call out Creator/TylerPerry's films as essentially being minstrel shows draped in Christian dogma.
48	* TakeThatKiss: Lionel delivers a long and hard one to Kurt on the mouth to humiliate him in front of his friends.
49	* WellDoneSonGuy: Troy structures his life around his father's approval. [[spoiler: He's still not free of it by the end of the film.]]
50	* WhereDaWhiteWomenAt:
51	** Gender-inverted and subverted with Coco, a black girl who specifically seeks out white guys to date (she's looking for "the Olivier to [her] Halle Berry). However, [[spoiler:she ends up hooking up with Troy, a black guy]].
52	** When Kurt and his gang call out black guys for dating all the white girls, including Troy and his white (ex-)girlfriend Sofia, Troy jokes that it's a form of reparations -- "Forty white bitches and a mule!"
53	* YouHaveNoIdeaWhoYoureDealingWith: Kurt tries this on Sam when she kicks his gang out of the house. She says she does know, and it makes no difference.

Context Film / DearWhitePeople