|
As a black-oriented soap opera set against the backdrop of an ivy league school with that underlying theme of fitting into your designated role, it's great. The characters are interesting, they're relatable, and the dialogue and banter between them is top notch. As a biting satire of race relations, which is what it's advertised as, it totally falls flat. There's very little actual satire and very little interaction between the races at all. You've obviously got exaggerated people and situations, but the characters play everything completely straight, as if these things are commonplace and need to be acknowledged by the audience. Namely the blackface party and the campus cop pulling his gun immediately. I remember it feeling more natural in Higher Learning a couple decades back. That's not to say it's never happened of course, but these incidents only seemed to interrupt the interpersonal drama among the students, the same way a major hurricane or pregnancy might on Days of Our Lives. I guess it felt like there was a lot more to the idea of infighting and doubt among African Americans than how they actually interact with white people, and vice versa. As stated, there are only two prominent white characters. Obviously the leader of the Pastiche frat is an overblown cartoon villain who shows up at just the right time to annoy Sam, and is the biggest example of satire in the show based on how goofy he is. And her boyfriend is a cliche of the well-meaning hipster tagging on Instagram and such. But neither of them really lends well to the idea of race relations and what they are or what they could/should be. They're more dramatic foil to progress the story. All of the characters have an interesting inner struggle, and their flaws are on display as a result, but the moral at the end of the season seems to be that white people are still the devil and black people still have to be united against them. Just didn't feel very astute to me, especially when 98% of the season was more about how these characters have personal problems and responsibilities that go beyond what people assume of them, including white people. The idea of forced segregation and plot point of integrating the black housing felt pretty hamfisted in this respect, just to give a conflict to conclude the season. All in all, it's a great show, definitely worth a watch despite the controversial title, but I don't think it had very much to say in the way of how the races actually interact. The perspective was very narrow for the sake of the plot, which makes it a fine drama but not a great satire. Also, I found it funny they introduced an Asian girl in episode 5, one of her only lines is about how she has even less representation in media as an Asian, and then she got only a single line in the back half of the season.
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2017 03:44
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 15:16 |
|