“You’re more Banksy than Barack!” Justin Simien’s satirical portrait of identity crises in “post-racial” America took around $4.5m at the US box office (no mean feat for such a low-budget film), but struggled to secure UK theatrical distribution until the New Black Film Collective stepped in to give it a much-deserved cinema release.
The story unfolds on the fictional campus of Winchester University, where activist Samantha White (Tessa Thompson) hosts the eponymous radio show. When Sam is elected head of Armstrong Parker House, she attempts to prevent the college from diversifying (“randomising”) the hall’s cultural profile, putting her at loggerheads with an administration who believe that racism is a thing of the past and “the only people talking about it are Mexicans”.
Meanwhile, a Halloween party in which revellers are invited to “unleash your inner negro” threatens to put a match to the tinderbox of tensions. Echoing such jaw-dropping real-life events as UC San Diego’s scandalous, ghetto-themed “Compton Cookout” party in 2010, writer/director Simien’s film is surprisingly gentle in its humour, portraying each of its characters (white, black, gay, straight) as tied up by stereotypes and hiding behind role-play. Although the tone is uneven, there are plenty of sharp one-liners (“We live in a world where there is a Big Momma’s House 3 – I don’t have a chance in hell!”) and snappy cineliterate swipes at everyone from Tyler Perry to Robert Altman.
