Netflix has released the first trailer of its new series debuting this year titled “Dear White People” based on the 2014 Sundance Film Festival winner with the same name.
The first season is ten half-hour episodes long and takes place in a fictionalized predominantly white Ivy League college called Winchester University. The 30-second teaser trailer was uploaded earlier today on YouTube.
It depicts a young black woman lecturing her white counterparts on her radio show about which Halloween costumes are acceptable in today’s society. She lists off examples including “pirates, slutty nurses, and the first 43 presidents,” then ends her diatribe by staring at the camera and stating she is not one of them.
The trailer then shows gleaming, oblivious white students donning blackface and wearing dreads much to the chagrin of black students around campus. It then shows a scene where multiple black students enter a party and remove the white students’ culturally appropriating clothing while throwing the party’s stereo systems to the ground.
The series was first announced in May of 2016. The creator of the original film, Justin Siemens, produced and wrote this series as well.
He stated that the film and series mirror his own experiences as a college student, and that it “gives a voice to those often unheard in our culture.” It was funded by a campaign he started on Indiego.com, with most donations coming from followers from a Twitter account he created with the same name to promote the idea and to publish a trailer for it.
The original film, marketed as a satirical take on racial relations on college campuses, garnered a 91% positive rating on film site “Rotten Tomatoes” and gave Siemens his first Sundance Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent.
One of the actors from the film, Brandon P. Bell, will reprise his role as a student running to become the first black president of his university, while the protagonist will be played by a new actor, Logan Browning.
Despite the success of the first film, the trailer for the 2017 series has not been well-received. It currently has 25,700 “dislikes” in comparison to only 1,600 “likes” on YouTube. The comment section has also been largely negative, with many claiming this is great promotion for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign and others calling Netflix race-baiting and racist toward white people, threatening to cancel their subscriptions. One user even humorously commented the title should be, “Dear White People: We No Longer Want Money From You.”
In the Twittersphere, the hashtag for the movie is also largely negative, with many users calling on subscribers to boycott Netflix and cancel their own accounts. Some have also criticized the double standard that exists in society, claiming that riots would ensue if instead a “Dear Black People” film were produced.
Other users have praised the release of the series, poking fun at those boycotting the project and criticizing dissenting views.
The series premiers on April 28, 2017 on Netflix. Watch the trailer below:
