Yuli Wang
Yuli Wang Professor McLaughlin Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric 25 February 2016
Others’ Impacts On Discovery and Building of Identity: A Film Analysis of Dear White People Justin Simien’s provoking film Dear White People talks about the racial issue in a fictional Ivy League college as a miniature of the current society. The film is basically about four black students, Troy, Lionel, Sam and Coco’s school life in a white-centered place. Though all of them have been labeled as black, they hold completely different attitudes toward white and as a result, live differently. Troy fits himself well into the white people by being like them. Lionel is bullied by any side, either the “enemy” white or “supposed ally” black. Sam is a firm racial revolutionary leader who is against any white. Coco tries hard to win attention from white to achieve the goal of being famous. Though all of their cases are totally different from each other’s, one point they share together is that all of them are either purposefully or subconsciously fighting for the group of black as minority in the world of white. However, this is only what the film includes on surface. If we dig a little bit deeper into the story, we will see that the discussion about identity all through the film. An entirely distinct narrative of what happens in the college is presented for us. Troy’s seemingly success on integration into white and figure of
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poster hero is only shown to his controlling father. The real him is not so ambitious at being a leader but only feeling the responsibility for solving problems. Suppressed by his father, Troy only shows the true him behind the bathroom door by taking drug and has a white girlfriend as a way against his father’s will. Showing nearly none of his characteristics except being a poor boy, Lionel is taking negative attitude toward anything he faces at the campus and chooses to bear all those he is suffering because of his hard time in middle school with nobody’s back up. Opposite to what she looks like, Sam hesitates a lot before taking some radical actions. More likely, she is a leader pushed by her black friends. Wearing as a rich white girl with straight black hair that is abnormal for black, Coco dresses herself like this in order to keep the shameful secret that she grows up in a black habitat area in Chicago. Almost all of the characters in the film are struggling with their identity in some degree. Some know who they are and what they want but fail to do as they hope because of the pressure from others. Some are still figuring out who they really are. The film Dear White People brings out the argument about the discovery and building of identity with others’ impact. Through the combination of characterization, sound, lighting, dialogue and other film techniques, the film points out that no matter how hard the others or another side of yourself stop you from being who you are, you are always the person who either you want to be or supposed to be because only this is your identity. Others’ effort on changing your identity at last turns out to be catalyst for discovering your true identity. As images are produced according to social and aesthetic conventions (Practices of Looking,
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25), Justin uses this film to express his idea about building of identity in an artistic way of telling stories of students who are similar to those around us and hopes audience to hold the idea that their identities are fixed no matter what others do due to the rhetoric’s knowledge-building function (An Overview of Rhetoric, 21). The others’ inability to stop one showing his or her true identity is first discussed in the story of Troy. The very first scene of Sophie introduced Troy to Coco as her boyfriend shows us a cute boy in a suit that exactly delineates his good body. From the subtitle that tells his major of political science and the talk between Troy and Sophie about the duty of the dinning hall, we can infer that Troy is a leader or at least have the dream of becoming the next black president of the country since early age. However, as the plot develops, this seems to be the father’s dream but not the son’s. When it comes to the scene in which Troy and his father sitting in the office, after Troy tells about his idea of drawing pastiche, and pauses for several times because of anxiety, his father gives him a facial expression as he can’t imagine that his son will have such stupid thinking and rejects him on every point. Facing to such reaction, all that Troy can say is only “Yes, sir.” Troy’s fear and carefulness of saying anything that may not accord with his father’s expectation and accept and obedience to father’s negation shows us that the image of being perfect is only the side he is forced to show his father and the real Troy is the one taking drug in the bathroom, having an inconspicuous tattoo on the waist. While all the time Troy keeps that rebellious him secretly and only shows that part subconsciously through making friend with Kurt, the son of the rival of his father
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and having a white girlfriend, he finally bursts into having a stormy quarrel with his father about the insult on black at Kurt’s party after realizing that he, as the one gives the suggestion about the party to Kurt, should take part of responsibility for the problem. Such outbreak during the cocktail donor party because of the no longer bearing of saying “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” is the very beginning of Troy doing exactly as he wants rather than as his father wants. The choice of reacting against his father to do the thing Troy himself values is an example of how others’ attempt on changing one’s identity is always a failure. This reflects to the viewpoint in Introduction to Identity that identity is shaped by our personal choices and decisions, including those about social relationships and anything else we care about. (Introduction to Identity, 11) Only we ourselves can build our own identity but no one else. Though at first others’ attempt may restrain us from being who we are, at last the true identity will still take the place either eventually or after an outbreak. Sometimes, others’ effort on changing is even effective, just in the opposite way to the original goal of those interveners. As the film starts, hearing the background sound of news, right after seeing Troy, the second main character we see is Lionel. Justin uses this figure with significant wild curl-up hair as an example to explore people’s ability of using others as a stimulus for discovery of identity. Right from the beginning while Lionel sitting outside the locked dormitory hall, having his single suitcase with him, the film presents us with a boy who can be a perfect representative of people who are oppressed by everyone. As reframing shows
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viewers part of a photograph and then the whole of it to support the film’s claim (The Rhetoric of the Frame, 111), the comparison of all others having breakfast in groups while only Lionel is sitting there alone, looking poor, gives audience an image of a bullied student who is disliked by the whole world in more detail, forcing the viewer to hold pity for this lonely boy. At the moment, except Troy’s status in the bottom of the pyramid, we know nothing about him personally. Nevertheless, as the film carries forward, Lionel begins to show us part of his personality and the reason why he seems to have no characteristics. Outside the hall, before both of them headed to the parties, Lionel tells Troy his story of being bullied by anyone in the middle school just because he is black and he is gay. The attack from the classmates at last leads to his choice of being alone, being silent and being weak even though he is not such a person in nature as we can see his rage through his writings for the newspaper. After listening to the story, having never really looked at Lionel, Troy calls him and says, “If I was in your high school, I would have your back.” As Lionel leaves with his head down, the scene leaves the assumption that he is moved. The saying sheds new light for Lionel, making him believe that now, in Winchester, he can be whom he is because he has at least one person’s support. In the following scene, Lionel changes into the leader of confronting with the assault on black at the Halloween party. While in the beginning of the film, he was still the one who only dares to complain about Kurt to Dean, now he is the one fighting with Kurt outside the house for the right of black, letting out his anger. As it says in Introduction to Identity, we pick up the influences of our surroundings, (Introduction to Identity, 9)
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Lionel accepts Troy’s support and sees it as a basic for him to change to show his true identity. The last character that shows up is Sam holding a camera. More than a simple character, her appearance in the film is to make us, audience rethink about all those points on identity and put ourselves into the situation in the film. While at first, from her speech for the house election to broadcasting program “Dear White People”, Sam gives audience an impression as a radical revolutionary leader. Her following scenes of recording, such as the video presentation during the class, last recording of the Halloween party and people’s reaction toward the problem on campus and even in the nation, keep telling us that rather than an activist pushed by people like Reggie, Sam is more like a documenter. Her record of the whole story gives audience a feeling that this is a real thing happened and pushes people to put themselves into the case. As images can produce in us a wide array of emotions and responses (Practices of Looking, 10), the intro part while Sam holding a camera, recording either the news or reaction of us, audience, makes people think that if they are at the party, who are they, the ones wearing the mask or the ones calling everything to stop? Justin uses Sam, a recorder, to put us, audience into the setting and force us to think as an outsider, to take his idea about identity. More than a film about racism, Dear White People presents itself as a story about four black students experiencing different levels of struggle of finding the true identity in a white society. When others’ obstruction, depressing environment all seem to stop people from being who they are, the changes that the characters
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undergo proves us that the identity is only chosen by the people themselves but not anybody around them. All the effect of others’ interference is only to drive people into corners so that they must find out their identity and show them. With the success of the use of the combination of framing, light, sound, dialogue and other film techniques, rather than propagates its theme about identity directly to the viewers, the film makes them to get the viewpoint that nothing but audience themselves have the control of their identity through their own thinking after watching Dear White People.
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Citing Works Herrick points out rhetoric’s knowledge-building function as he says that “Rhetoric often plays a critical social role in making determinations about what is true, right, or probable”. (An Overview of Rhetoric, 21) Identity is shaped by our personal choices or decisions. … the choices we make in our daily lives – choices about our social relationships and anything else we care about. (Introduction to Identity, 11) Reframing supports the film’s claim… In reframing, filmmakers show viewers part of a photograph and then the whole of it – or the whole and then particular parts. (The Rhetoric of the Frame, 111) Images can produce in us a wide array of emotions and responses (Practices of Looking, 10)