The Netflix adaptation is a perfectly entertaining show that often feels corny and outdated
With more space than the original 2014 film afforded, the Dear White People series does an excellent job of thrusting viewers into the hostile world of Winchester University, a fictional Ivy League college. The school is both generic and recognizable enough to be modeled after nearly any elite, predominantly white American university. Each of the campus-wide issues raised in the series — underfunded programs for students of color, rampant racism in campus publications, even a blackface party — reflects long-simmering tensions at schools just like it. But the overwhelming whiteness of Winchester — and its antagonistic effect on black students — is perhaps the only fully realized character in the show. Dear White People overwhelmingly sacrifices character development in service of its mission to “start a conversation,” and isn’t self-aware enough to recognize where it fits within that dialogue. The result is a perfectly entertaining show that frequently feels corny and outdated — and sometimes even tiptoes into caricature.
Overt parody on the show functions surprisingly well — riffs on Scandal and Iyanla, Fix My Life are particularly delightful — but too often Dear White People stumbles when trying to capture any sort of modern zeitgeist. The show is rife with cultural references that feel anywhere from two to 15 years too late. We are expected to believe black college students still use “woke” unironically enough to create an app called “Woke or Not?” and then actually use it and care about the rankings. Reggie tells Sam he’s going to oust her from the no. 1 spot, and it’s clear he doesn’t mean the entire shtick as an elaborate joke. (Relatedly, Sam is never properly taken to task for being simply insufferable.) It’s not unthinkable that modern college students would extend yet another facet of their self-identification to technology, but the awkward app idea is emblematic of the show’s overarching pitfall: Dear White People leans so heavily on its commitment to being Message Art(™) that it neglects the details of how younger black people actually communicate with one another. The larger issue the app’s creation points to — the desire to be seen as smart and socially conscious by our peers — is understandable, noble even. But “woke” hasn’t been strictly ours since … 2015? Wouldn’t young black people, creators and innovators and shapers of culture that they are, know that viscerally?
