Dear White People

Sometimes you come across something on Netflix that seems perfectly aimed at you.  This is how I felt when I was first served Dear White People via their unfathomable algorithm (probably based on the fact I had watched Friends From College and The Get Down).  Surely, this was a show for me, as I am definitely a white people.  But, you know what?  I’ve got a careful line to tread here using the snarky and irreverent tone that regular readers of this blog are used to.  I’m still going to be flippant when taking apart its style and pace, but its head-on tackling of racial sensitivity will not be coming in for that sort of treatment.  Firstly, because that would be whack, and secondly, because this part of the show is absolutely banging.  From a cynical perspective, we can view this purely as a plot device and state that the black/white friction throughout each episode generates gripping drama.  But as a human (from one of the least diverse villages in one of the least diverse counties of England) it prompts constant questions and internal discussions, ladling surprises on disappointments on confusion on outrage in an endless cycle of much-needed re-evaluation.  Sometimes, we all need to be challenged.

Welcome to the fictional Ivy League college of Winchester.  Here, the USA’s brightest (and wealthiest) young minds pursue further education among the leafy quads and historic traditions.  One of these traditions is that a particular hall of residence’s residing residents are African-Americans, leaving the campus segregated.  Each episode focuses on an individual student’s experience of this situation.  Not only are they navigating their own transition into adulthood by way of the pretend adult world of university life, but most of our characters are also coping with being minorities in a historically white-dominated environment.  Romantic relationships, friendships and academic stress, along with a lot of extra-curriculars, are par for the course, but, for our black and dual heritage characters, they must also cope with the prejudice, fetishisation, enthusiasm and guilt of their fellow students of all skin tones (but with heavy emphasis on liberal white students getting it totally wrong – white readers will cringe hard each time they recognise themselves).

Don’t worry, though, almost everyone is beautiful, and each episode is tantalisingly shot as if this is fodder for a boutique cinema showing European arthouse flicks.  But it’s not; it’s really good telly.  Even the colour palette of the lighting, the wardrobe and the interiors carries a stylised theme, with warm autumnal hues circling the storylines.  You will, however, stop and wonder how so much garishly patterned wallpaper needs to adorn the walls of Winchester’s dorms.  This crafting calls to mind shows like Girls, and the thirty-minute run time drives the likeness further.  In fact, it hoodwinked me into quite a run of allowing myself just one more episode (as each was only an extra half hour before I got off the sofa) and I got through the current two seasons in two days.

So how does each episode unfold?  Well, there’s a clever formula.  An omniscient narrator sardonically eases us into each instalment before revealing who’ll be our focus.  There’s Samantha, the host of Winchester student radio’s eponymous phone-in, Dear White People, in whom it’s easy to recognise the idealistic student activist.  Far more interesting is her best friend, Joelle, who combines a wicked sense of humour with being top of the class in everything.  On the boys’ side, there’s Troy, the dean’s son struggling under the weight of expectation, but still finding time to do all the sit ups so you’ll feel like a blob each time his clothes come off (which is all the time).  There’s also Reggie, whose unrequited love for Samantha is matched only by the unrequited-ness of Joelle’s love for him, but I was forced to question the latter because he makes some really dodgy choices with his sweaters, and then let’s not forget Lionel, the unassuming, aspiring journalist coming to terms with his sexuality.  At first, the cast seems like a standard run-through of generic college tropes, but their depth and originality is uncovered as we journey through the racist-infested water with them.  They all also have a fair bit of sex, as all students do, so be prepared to look like a perv if your viewing is ever interrupted.

At each episode’s conclusion, the focus character makes eye contact directly through the camera with you, the viewer.  It took me a while to notice this and then it became all I thought about.  Is it a knowing glance to acknowledge the overall artificiality of the whole production or is it in the spirit of being caught red-handed as a voyeur feasting on other people’s (racial) dramas from a (safe, judgment-free) distance?  Either way, the soundtrack cranks back up with an epic song selection that leaves you sitting there letting it all sink in.  Until Netflix’s autoplay kicks in and you’re back in to find out what happens next.

And I genuinely wanted to know.  The thing about young people, whatever their skin colour, is that they are idealists.  Their passions burn brighter than those of people who’ve been chained to office desks for the last eleven years (hiya!), so I defy anyone not to connect with all the dear different people of Dear White People.  Series one deals with the fallout of a black-face Halloween party, before building to an altercation with a white, gun-happy college security guard and climaxing with a sham town hall meeting to iron out racial tensions on campus.  The second series doesn’t feel as tightly packed: the characters cope with the rise of anonymous alt-right social media accounts and prepare for controversial public figures to descend on Winchester.  Throughout both, our intelligent and articulate heroes broadcast their responses in the student paper or on the student radio station.  If anything, this was the least credible part.  Based on my university experience, nobody listened to student radio, and we only looked in the newspaper to see whose pictures had appeared in the Fit College section.  But series two offers some explanations, showing that the radio is broadcast over speakers into the quads.  It also shows for the first time that these students actually go to class.

We don’t have dorm segregation in the UK, but Dear White People should be essential viewing everywhere.  I laughed out loud, I did myself mischief through excessive cringing and I cared deeply about the human drama.  I was entertained, but not in a way that was intended to distract me from realising that discussion about race, and specifically the experience of black people in America at the hands (and patronising comments) of white people, is not something to shy away from.  IMDB claims a third series is coming and I can’t wait.  Not because I’m taking pains to sound woke in my writing here, but because Dear White People is Netflix at its best.  More please.