School Daze in my opinion was a very solid Spike Lee film. I really liked the surreal song and dance sequences throughout showing the differences between the Greek organizations and the political activist group and their viewpoints from their hair to how they dance, and even sex. Laurence Fishbourne killed his role as well as Giancarlo Esposito, which I thought their performances were the best part of the film. I still do have criticisms of the film with how the movie portrays women which I believe is an issue in most Spike Lee’s film. They mainly only care and talk about the men in the film and their disputes are mainly based on the disputes of their male partners. I also wish we were given more character development especially with Giancarlo’s character because I believe the ending was a little rushed, but I understood why he did it. I enjoyed the script, and I thought the dialogue was very well done. The rape scene with Spike Lee’s character was an extremely dark scene, but I liked that they put it in there because it showed the issues of follower mentality in society and the lengths people will go through to become accepted. Not only is this the case with Spike Lee’s character, but with Tisha Campbell’s character as well. Her unwillingness to doing this, but ultimately doing it so she can still be accepted by her lover (Esposito’s character) is truly a sad and heartbreaking moment. Also, the fact that after Esposito’s character ended things with her because “she cheated” is an extremely dark and twisted moment that made me hate his character even more. Overall, I think this movie was very well made and a classic Spike Lee film.
Interesting response. I agree with a lot of your opinions. In the future, try to add a little more context by discussing how this film fits in the bigger picture of African American cinema.