School Daze (1988)

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School Daze is a 1988 American musical comedy-drama film, written and directed by Spike Lee, and starring Larry Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tisha Campbell-Martin. Based in part on Spike Lee's experiences as a Morehouse student in the Atlanta University Center during the 1970s, it is a story about undergraduates in a fraternity and sorority clashing with some of their classmates at a historically black college during homecoming weekend. It also touches upon issues of colorism, elitism, classism, political activism, hazing, groupthink, female self-esteem, social mobility, and hair texture bias within the African-American community. The second feature film by Spike Lee, School Daze was released on February 12, 1988 by Columbia Pictures.[1]

School Daze film poster


Plot

On Friday of homecoming weekend at the historical African-American college, Mission College in Georgia, senior Vaughn "Dap" Dunlap (Laurence Fishburne) leads a protest rally regarding the school's involvement with apartheid in South Africa. However, the fraternity Gamma Phi Gamma and their pledge class, the Gammites, arrive to interrupt the demonstration. Julian "Big Brother Almighty" Eaves (Giancarlo Esposito), Gamma leader and Dap's former friend, informs Dap he does not agree with his protest. Upset, Dap and Julian began to fight, but Student Government Association president Virgil Cloyd breaks up the rally.

At the administration building, Board of Trustees Chairman "Cedar Cloud" (Art Evans) orders College President Harold McPherson (Joe Seneca) to stop Dap from protesting. Later, Julian taunts Gammites pledge Darrell "Half-Pint," (Spike Lee) saying he will drop out of pledging just as his cousin Dap did years earlier.

In the evening, Dap asks his activist friends, Grady (Bill Nunn), Monroe (James Bond III), Jordan (Branford Marsalis), Edge (Kadeem Hardison), and Booker T. (Eric A. Payne), to return with him to the administration building to protest. Although supporters of Dap's cause, they want to complete their college education and get good jobs in the future.

The following day, Dap is called into President McPherson's office and informed by Cedar Cloud that if he continues with his protests he will be expelled.

That evening, Half-Pint and the Gammites complete their pledging and become fraternity brothers. During the celebration with the Gamma Ray sorority, Julian becomes annoyed with his girl friend, Jane Toussaint (Tisha Campbell). Singling out Half-Pint, Julian orders him to sleep with Jane as a final test. Although Half-Pint is uncomfortable with Julian's request, Jane insists she would do anything for Julian. Afterward, Julian accuses Jane of loving the fraternity and his position as leader "Big Brother Almighty" instead of him, and breaks up with her.

Meanwhile, Half-Pint brags to Dap that he slept with Jane by Julian's orders. Seeing his cousin turned into an entitled Gamma, Dap runs to the center of the campus quad. Ringing a bell, Dap awakens the student body and administration. As they gather, Julian, remorseful of his treatment of Half-Pint and Jane, joins Dap. Looking out to the gathered crowd, Dap tells them, "Wake up!"[2]

Controversy

At one sequences, a black fraternity pledge master expresses concern that Half-Pint is still a virgin which none of the brothers in this house should be virgins. And he supplies his own girlfriend to initiate the freshman. She actually goes through with it, tearfully, and even though the scene was so painful watch, not for the kind of smutty comedy expected in a movie about undergraduates.[3]

Rachel notes that she has always suspected he was with her because she was one of the darker-skinned women on campus. Associating darker-skinned women with a pro-Black image and lighter-skinned women with glamour, status, and upper-middle-class aspirationalism is a form of cultural branding, based in part by the way black men evaluate the skin tones of black women in the media and their personal lives. Black women then are forced to internalize that messaging, lending to an internalized misogynoir that remains rampant to this day.[4]

There is a scene where two gangs confronting each other in front of KFC arguing about “consciousness” that, college or not, he’s still “always going to be a nigger” as far as white society is concerned.[5]

Leeds: Now I bet you niggers do think y'all white. College don't mean shit. Y'all niggers, and you gonna be niggers forever... just like us. Niggers.

Dap: You're not niggers.

Reference