School Daze
| School Daze | |
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| Directed by | Spike Lee |
| Produced by | Monty Ross Loretha C. Jones Spike Lee Grace Blake |
| Written by | Spike Lee |
| Starring | Laurence Fishburne Giancarlo Esposito Tisha Campbell |
| Music by | Bill Lee |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | February 12, 1988 |
| Running time | 121 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6.5 million |
| Gross revenue | $14.5 million |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
School Daze is a 1988 musical-drama film, written and directed by Spike Lee, and starring Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tisha Campbell. Based in part on Spike Lee's experiences at Atlanta's Morehouse College, it is a story about fraternity and sorority members clashing with other students at a historically black college during homecoming weekend. School Daze was the second feature film directed by Spike Lee, and was released on February 12, 1988 by Columbia Pictures.
Plot summary
Vaughn "Dap" Dunlap (Laurence Fishburne) is a politically conscious African American student who leads anti-apartheid demonstrations encouraging students and school administrators to completely divest from South Africa. He also eschews the buffoonery and social climbing of the Greek fraternal system. Dap's craven younger cousin, Half-Pint (Spike Lee), is pledging Gamma Phi Gamma (also known as G-Phi-G or simply G-Phi) fraternity and is willing to endure any humiliation to join the fraternity. While Half-Pint tries unsuccessfully to impress the Gammas with his inept womanizing, Dap engages in philosophical debates with Rachel (Kyme), his girlfriend, as well as other Mission students.
Half-Pint eventually survives the pledge initiation and joins G-Phi. Shortly afterwards, his house president Julian, aka Big
Brother Almighty (Giancarlo Esposito), manipulated his girlfriend Jane
(Tisha Campbell) to prove her love to him. He brings Jane to Half-Pint (whom he
discovered was a
Throughout the film, light-skinned African American women of the Gamma Rays (a women's auxiliary to the Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity) battle it out with their, Afro-headed fellow co-eds. The students at Mission College also battle with the local unemployed and uneducated people living around the campus, who resent the Mission students for taking all of the good jobs.
Musical performances are throughout, including the production "Straight and Nappy", a fantasy dis-fest between the Wannabes and Jigaboos, and "Be Alone Tonight" performed by Campbell (as Jane Toussaint and her Royal Court) at a talent competition. The go-go anthem "Da Butt" is performed by the group E.U. during the after-party for the Gammites.
Cast
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Vanessa Williams was originally considered for the role of "Jane Toussaint," and Phyllis Yvonne Stickney for the role of "Rachel Meadows." However, Spike Lee was so impressed by Tisha Campbell's singing performance in Little Shop of Horrors (1986) that she got the part; Stickney left the production over "artistic differences."[citation needed]
Production
Spike Lee had the actors stay in separate hotels during filming. The actors playing the "wannabes" had better accommodations than the ones playing the "jigaboos", which contributed to the on-camera animosity between the two camps.[1] (A similar tactic was employed in the making of Animal House with similar results.) In School Daze, the method approach yielded strong results - the fight that occurs at the step show between Dap's crew and the Gammas was not in the script; on the day of the shooting of the scene, the fight broke out, and Lee ordered that the cameras keep rolling.[1]
Spike Lee was asked to stop production on the campuses of Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark Atlanta University during filming because the colleges' Boards of Directors had concerns on how historically black colleges were being portrayed in the film. [1] Lee had to finish filming at the neighboring Morris Brown College. [1]
Three members of the School Daze cast - Kadeem Hardison, Darryl M. Bell, and Jasmine Guy - became principal cast members for a TV series about historically black college life, the Cosby Show spin-off A Different World. [1]
See also
- School Daze (soundtrack) — Original soundtrack to this film.
- Historically Black colleges and universities
- Colorism
- Stepping
References
External links
| Films directed by Spike Lee |
|---|
| Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads • She's Gotta Have It • School Daze • Do the Right Thing • Mo' Better Blues • Jungle Fever • Malcolm X • Crooklyn • Clockers • Girl 6 • Get on the Bus • 4 Little Girls • He Got Game • Freak • Summer of Sam • The Original Kings of Comedy • Bamboozled • A Huey P. Newton Story • Jim Brown: All-American • Sucker Free City • 25th Hour • She Hate Me • Inside Man • When the Levees Broke |
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