Soul Man
Plot
Controversy
The plot concerns a young, white man who is accepted by Harvard Law School but can't come up with the sky-high tuition until he hits on the idea of pretending to be black. After turning his skin dark with an overdose of tanning pills, Mark Watson (C. Thomas Howell) applies for and gets a scholarship that should be open only to black students. The filmmakers simply don't understand (or, at any rate, know how to dramatize) anything about being black, and that limits their ability to find the humor in the situation they've established. You'd think, for instance, that a movie about a white disguised as a black would have fun with the guy's ignorance. He might misinterpret a slang expression or misunderstand a reference to a black historical figure or cultural hero. But no, the closest the film comes to this sort of gambit is when Mark expresses embarrassment about his Beach Boys record collection.