Dear White People (2017)

Identity is a prominent theme in the story of college kids struggling to discover who they are and what they stand for, and the series’ first two episodes feel deeply unifying. The premiere episode is a streamlined effort with an impressively strong voice; the next half-hour is equally affecting and vocal, an ideal split between entertaining and illuminating.

DWP does want to be provocative, just not too provocative. Mostly it just wants to keep an open mind and open heart. Mostly, it succeeds.

Maybe Dear White People isn't sure yet how to also be a generation-spanning mystery. Watching the show built over two seasons leaves me with little doubt that Dear White People can grow into that genre as well. In a Too Much TV landscape, Dear White People is a show I didn't write about at all in its first season, but it has become one of the best things on TV and deserves to be discussed as such.

Season 1 Review: As it relaxes into the students’ lives, and explores their feelings about lovers of other races, the semi-compromised state of student journalism on campus, and the mental cost of always bracing for the next round of idiotic statements from aggrieved white bros, Dear White People does an increasingly assured job of depicting the amused frustration and disillusioned exhaustion of these students.

Dear White People works perfectly as a half-hour series, providing a sharp look at African-American students at a predominantly white Ivy League university while creating an assortment of appealing, well-defined personalities. Making the jump from 2014 movie to TV show, the Netflix show passes the test of juggling relevance and entertainment with flying colors.

In the balance, Dear White People continues to be a show well worth seeking out and that's especially true if you haven't even started it. But the third season still stands as a minor disappointment.

Dear White People has never had a problem with an availability of interesting, solid characters, and this season is no exception. The breakdown lies in the show’s ability to push forward their individual journeys in a manner that doesn’t come off like a free-for-all, but rather like an actual development.

It's an amazing portrait of society. A must-see series, especially, for fear white people!

The title of the show is racist, you can't justify it at all. If it was called Dear Black People you can imagine the fuss people would create. Don't just lump people into race, judge an individual by her or his actions.

Truly awful. Even if this weren't laced with a sledgehammer and an overtly sanctimonious approach towards racism, it's just poorly done. Every single character feels one-dimensional if not a full-blown caricature, and the dialogue is utterly cringe. It reminds me of a less talented Aaron Sorkin (whom I can't stand), writing argument after argument to win against themselves. All the while, snarkily gloating about being able to defeat their own straw men. And regarding the black-face party that is the rather convoluted seedling for the plot... Not to suggest black face doesn't happen, it still does. But it's frankly overrepresented. I have been to countless Halloween/Frat/Costume parties over the years. Not once, ever, has a even a single person donned blackface in my experience. Let alone a whole coordinated and themed event take place. "It's a thing white people do. Google it", the show tells us. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of explaining how stupid college students ignorantly engaging in (literally) surface-level racism is so not an equivalent as to when, say, lynchings were normality, but I will say such occurrences are still atypical. Speaking of convolution, the classical/operatic score only compounded the pretentiousness and sanctimoniousness of the entire experience. Hearing Carmen while being spoon-fed wokeness is just a laughable approach. Kubrick you are not. Lastly, the showrunner who just resigned due to Dave Chapelle is a WHITE trans-woman! Why is that particular racial demographic ok instead of someone of color? I hate when alleged moralisms have no logical consistency.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This was very racist, I don’t get why if the black people are racist like they always are against the white, then is ok, the opposite is unacceptable. This was just a racist crap, I’ll give zero.