Justin Simien’s 2014 movie Dear White People was about the politics, activism, and social scene at Winchester, a racially divided Ivy League college. In the movie version of DWP, everything was rushed—the story and issues were too big to cram into 100 minutes.
But as I’d hoped, the premise works much better on TV. The Black Caucus (aka the black clubs on campus) meets up regularly to talk smack and discuss their fellow students’ troubling racism. And when it gets to be too much, the students get together to “hate watch” their favorite drama, Defamation, a ridiculous parody of Scandal. Simien’s new Dear White People Netflix series allows for thorough character development, giving each character their own episode.