Dear White People:
‘Moonlight’ Director Barry Jenkins on His Game-Changing ‘Dear White People’ Episode
Jenkins spoke to The Daily Beast about directing ‘Dear White People,’ his own streaming series ‘Underground Railroad,’ and how he’s feeling about the Oscars these days.
[Matt Wilson]
“Chapter V” of Dear White People opens with a quote from James Baldwin: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Each episode of Simien’s series, based on his 2014 film of the same name, focuses its attention on a different student at the fictional Ivy League school. This one tells the story of Reggie Green, beautifully portrayed by Marque Richardson, who played the same role in the film.
We get a glimpse of the micro—and not so micro—aggressions Reggie has to endure on campus on a daily basis. The white woman running away from the ATM when she sees he’s next in line, the football coach mistaking him for a member of the team.
As a filmmaker, Jenkins realized it was his job to “solve problems,” which in this case meant finding the “transitions between comedy, romance, and ultimately this tense act of emotional violence that almost becomes actual violence.”
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