School Daze is director Spike Lee’s second film after his directorial debut with She’s Gotta Have It, and what a cinematic piece it is. The film, a musical-drama, was written and directed by Spike and is based on his experiences at Atlanta’s Moorehouse College, and was released on February 12, 1988 by Columbia Pictures.
School Daze movie poster.
The film revolves around the homecoming weekend at an historically Black college, in this case, Mission College, and the embittered animosities between sororities and fraternities coming to blows with other students and those pledging to get into those oganizations. The film also tackles the relevance of HBCUs and sororities and fraternities, the social and economic divide between poor local Blacks and the students who attend Mission College as well as shining a light on the ever-divisive issue of colorism in the Black community.
The principal stars are Lawrence Fishburne, a black consciousness student (Vaughn “Dap” Dunlap), who leads protest marches for the school to divest itself from South Africa and its apartheid policies. Dap hates the pledging and hazing initiation rites of the Greek organizations and he has very little respect for light-skinned Blacks.
His cousin, Darrell, aka “Half Pint” (Spike Lee), wants badly to be a Gamma Phi Gamma (G-Phi-G) “dog” and is willing to suffer anything at the hands of Julian Eaves, Dean “Big Brother Al-Mighty” (Giancarlo Esposito), who is the head of G-Phi-G. Julian stoops to very low-level behaviour in having his girlfriend Jane Toussaint (Tisha Campbell), sleep with Darrell to prove her love to him and to have Darrell show what he is prepared to do to be a real G-Phi-G man. For Julian, this is just the right impetus to spurn Jane and accuse her of infidelity and leave her.
Rachel Meadows (Kyme) Dap’s girlfriend is also politically conscious but she sees too much rigidness in Dap’s approach to the Greeks and light-skinned Blacks. When she tells Dap she has decided to pledge a sorority, Dap literally goes through the roof.
Rounding out the conflict are the Gamma Rays, who (headed by Jane), are a women’s auxiliary to the Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity: light-skinned sorority girls who have their own conflict brewing with the dark-skinned girls on campus. There are confrontations that occur with one leading up to a musical number entitled “Straight and Nappy (Good and Bad Hair)” dis-fest between the Jigaboos and the Wannabees that adresses the issue of so-called “good” and “bad” hair in the Black community.
It is stated that director Lee, to instill a negative divide between the dark-skinned and light-skinned actresses, gave better trailers and accomodations to the light-skinned actresses, and shabby ones to the dark-skinned actresses to build up escalating anger and intense performances from the stars. If true, then that certainly explains the sparks that fly on screen when the two groups of girls cross paths. It also did not help that Lee had the dark-skinned girls looking unkempt with their hair shown tousled and going in all directions (with the exception of Rachel), but with the light-skinned girls their hair was shown perfectly coiffed and combed. This image of natural black hair as something to be denigrated also projected negativity on natural, non-wavy/straight hair texture.
All of the above culminates to a monumental showdown between these various personalities and the need for everyone to “Wake up!” and release themselves from the constricting forms of self-hatred, colorism, and status-seeking of acceptance for the wrong reasons.
The movie meshes interesting dialogue, beautiful cinematography, and the music is definitely no slouch in the entertainment department, with songs that to this day still resonate:
-“I’m Building Me a Home” (sung by the Moorehouse College Glee Club)
-“One Little Acorn” (Piano Solo)”
-“Wake Up Suite”
-“We’ve Already Said Goodbye (Before We Said Hello)”
Incidentally, much of the music was written by Spike Lee’s father, Bill Lee, and he shows his talent in wonderful lyrics and music.
School Daze is a movie that is ambitious in the many levels it addresses, and on some levels it does succeed. But, for just pure enjoyment you will love the movie and you will acknowledge the many issues that still resonate in the Black community that continue to need overhauling and eradicating.
(My favourite scene is during the step-dancing that weekend at a campus party, when the “fellas” (Dap and his friends) show how they really feel about G-Phi-G and their dancing off the stage to their “Daddy Long Stroke” refrain. The signifying is downright hilarious and will have you splitting your sides with laughter.)
School Daze is a movie that gives a poignant slice of life of the Black community that is so often neglected in the movies and it is worth a look to see the many up-and-coming young actors (Lawrence Fishburne, Tisha Campbell and Giancarlo Esposito) who will make their mark through the years on the public’s conscious.
So, I now present to you School Daze.
Enjoy!
Ann
Great movie and a great post.