• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Special Offers
Business Intelligence Info
  • Business Intelligence
    • BI News and Info
    • Big Data
    • Mobile and Cloud
    • Self-Service BI
  • CRM
    • CRM News and Info
    • InfusionSoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • NetSuite
    • OnContact
    • Salesforce
    • Workbooks
  • Data Mining
    • Pentaho
    • Sisense
    • Tableau
    • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Data Warehousing
    • DWH News and Info
    • IBM DB2
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Oracle
    • Teradata
  • Predictive Analytics
    • FICO
    • KNIME
    • Mathematica
    • Matlab
    • Minitab
    • RapidMiner
    • Revolution
    • SAP
    • SAS/SPSS
  • Humor

On This Day In Comedy… In 1988 ‘School Daze’ Was Released By Columbia Pictures!

February 19, 2018   Humor
SchoolDaze On This Day In Comedy… In 1988 ‘School Daze’ Was Released By Columbia Pictures!

On this day in comedy on February 12, 1988, School Daze was released by Columbia Pictures

This is Spike Lee’s second major motion picture following his debut, She’s Gotta Have It.   In School Daze the issue is not sexual promiscuity and social morality, but racial identity and division.  Its Dark-Skinned Blacks VS Light Skinned Blacks set in the backdrop of a fictional Historically Black College and its fraternity / sorority culture.   It’s part comedy, part drama and part musical (but not the corny kind).  

Written, directed and featuring Lee, the story is semi-autobiographical from his own college experiences.   In the film all his character, “Half-Pint”, wants to do is pledge a fraternity and get some girls.  Simple, but crossing the burning sands and being made a Gamma Phi Gamma man is not.   He must not only go through the usual hazing, but he’s at a Black college and there’s discrimination; from one frat to the next based on skin pigment, eye color and hair texture.  Then he’s got his older cousin who is a militant and fraternally a GDI (Go**amn Independent) played by Laurence Fishburne (back when he was Larry) giving him a hard time about going through that nonsense to be with a group of guys he doesn’t even like (led by Giancarlo Esposito, who Fishburne doesn’t like).   There’s conflict and tensions between the local blue collar Black youth and the “spoiled college boys”, jealousy amongst the sisters on both sides of the color line and a faculty that’s more clueless than Stacy Dash.  But there’s nothing to worry about – it’s a movie and all this dramedy comes to a head Homecoming weekend when the two rival frats clash and WAKE UP!     

School Daze boasts an impressive cast.   Tisha Campbell is Esposito’s girlfriend.   Samuel L. Jackson plays a local homeboy, who doesn’t like the college homeboys.  Joe Seneca is the President of the college, Ossie Davis the coach and Art Evans an administrator.   The rest of the cast is rounded out with Bill Nunn, Jasmine Guy, Darryl M. Bell, Branford Marsalis, Kadeem Hardison, Phyllis Hyman and of course, Joie Lee.  

The usually controversial Spike Lee was on his artistic and polarizing ascension during this period and School Daze helped fuel his reputation.   Behind the scenes he’d housed the light skinned Blacks in better accommodations than the dark-skinned Blacks to add to the tension on the set.   It did.   The animosity was so great that an actual fight broke out between the two groups of ‘actors” and Lee told his crew to keep filming.   That fight was in the movie.   It vividly demonstrated the realistic relationship dynamics that were themed in School Daze and the purity translated, as well as stirred up opposing viewpoints.  Whereas mainstream critics found the film frank, honest and revealing; exposing a slice of society they were unfamiliar.  The Black colleges on the other hand took exception to Lee’s use of real life language used in those colleges to describe language used in those colleges.   They resented his portrayal of racial separatism and during filming Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta University kicked him off their campuses.  Filming had to be completed at nearby Morris Brown College.  

School Daze was the inspiration for the NBC sitcom, A Different World.  It also spawned a number one hit on Billboard’s R&B chart (Da Butt) and featured the Phyllis Hyman song, Be One.    On a budget of $ 6.5 million School Daze grossed $ 14,545,844.

By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton

www.darryllittleton.lol

Check out this clip:

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading…

On This Day In Comedy… In 1956 Comedian And Talk Show Host Arsenio Hall Born

‘Den Of Thieves’ Gets A Sequel!

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The Humor Mill

1988, Columbia, Comedy, Daze’, pictures, Released, School, This
  • Recent Posts

    • AI Weekly: Biden calls for $37 billion to address chip shortage
    • NOT WHAT THEY MEANT BY “BUILDING ON THE BACKS OF….”
    • Why Healthcare Needs New Data and Analytics Solutions Before the Next Pandemic
    • Siemens and IBM extend alliance to IoT for manufacturing
    • Kevin Hart Joins John Hamburg For New Netflix Comedy Film Titled ‘Me Time’
  • Categories

  • Archives

    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
© 2021 Business Intelligence Info
Power BI Training | G Com Solutions Limited