Higher Learning

Lets be honest

The 90s were a weird set of years. I don't really know what totally set it apart from the 80s but suddenly everything became a big deal. Homosexual characters started showing up on TV shows, even having a TV show surrounding the idea of a gay man and a sassy woman became huge entertainment. Also people were willing to talk about issues of race. I'll be it in the most awkward way possible but still, race became an issue, gay rights became an issue, war was no longer popular, it was just a different time.

But again, it was awkward. Not only the fact that it was the 90s and everything was awkward but it also had to do with these issues never really being addressed on a global scale. And in keeping with the theme of awkward mediums of entertainment, there came the movie Higher Learning.

I watched this movie as part of a class called Revolution, Resistance and Liberation. You can probably guess what that class is about. We watched the movie with the purpose of finding the different faces of oppression and seeing how those stages evolve into one another.

But I'm more interested in looking at this movie from a straight up movie stand point. I will keep the purpose of the movie in mind and actually use the elements of the movie as ways to show whether or not it fulfills that purpose or if its just... awkward.

The movie focuses on a small handful of college students at a college. They all come from different walks of life, walks of life you'll really only know from their appearance. For example: Kristen (played by Kristy Swanson) is a white woman. Malik (played by Omar Eeps) is a black man. Remy (played by Michael Rapaport) is a socially awkward... just overall strange guy... whos also white.

The movie mainly focuses around these three along with the people they interact with and the circles they join in order to feel accepted in a new environment.

An environment that is fucking insane.

Seriously, imagine the most dramatized college party you can imagine, like something from animal house. Apparently those happen every day in this strange universe. The university openly calls out students who don't have the financial aid to pay for college in class and kick them out. The campus safety is like Officer Krupke from West Side Story, openly favoring white students and busting black students for lesser offenses. I know college campus security probably weren't the most culturally aware people in the 90s but these guys are just ridiculous... oh and they're fully armed.

Anyway, Kristen, Malik and Remy really immerse themselves in college life but find it difficult. Malik has trouble running track and getting good grades, Remy finds it hard making friends and ends up being a social outcast, and Kristen is raped... Now you may be saying that escalated quickly, and you'd be right. That happens a lot in this movie.

Let's start with Kristen's story. She goes to a party and is raped. When she goes home from the rape, she's crying and her roommate (played by Regina King). When the boy who did it calls her, Regina tells her she doesn't want to talk to him and then he calls her a "Black bitch". Then Regina King calls in Ice Cube... I wish I was kidding and he beats the crap out of the guy who raped Kristen. But Kristen's friends don't look too highly on that and turn their backs on her... And I get what the movie is trying to do, its trying to point out how victim blaming happens, but if you watch the scene and see Kristen, you'd either have to be stupid or heartless not to see that she is the victim here. Which makes the scene somewhat effective but at the same time obnoxious. From there she gets involved with a group of activists on campus led by a very young, lesbian Jennifer Connelly. She spends a lot of the movie questioning her sexuality and develops a kind of "We are the World" mentality. I don't want to say it gets this far... but it gets this far.

Her storyline kind of gets overshadowed halfway through and in the end her character doesn't really amount to anything. I won't say she's pointless but her storyline ends kind of anticlimactically.

The story of Remy and Malik kind of connect so I'll describe their plots as interconnected as I can. Malik runs track. He spends the majority of the movie riding a line between being a good college student, improving his writing and eventually getting involved with Tyra Banks (yeah she's in this movie) and developing a mentor/student relationship with his professor (played by Laurence Fishburne). Fishburne's character in this movie is really good. He's by far the most sensible of the entire cast but unfortunately this movie isn't about him so his screen time is limited, which is a bummer.

On the other hand you have Remy.

And I'd like to say that Remy is more of a tragic character and what happens with him is just a series of unfortunate twists and turns and while what he eventually becomes is awful, its sad because he was a nice guy at the beginning.

But no. Remy is a douche this entire movie. He's a douche when he can't find friends, he's a douche when he joins up with a neo nazi group, and he's a douche when he perches on top of the school with a sniper rifle for the "good of the Arian nation"

Again... that escalated quickly.

Yes Michael Rapaport gives a performance of a lonely boy who finds companionship with neo nazis. This causes troubles between him and Malik eventually, going as far as Remy just going on a slew of racial slurs and pointing a gun at Malik. But does he get in trouble? No that would assume people were smart at these colleges.

I'm going to talk about the campus security again. Again, I realize that they're suppose to represent how racism and prejudice can seep into law enforcement but there's a scene where Remy points a gun, not only at Malik but at his roommate, A WHITE GUY! I don't care if he's jewish or not, I don't care if Remy drops out of school, there is absolutely not repercussions for Remy pulling out a Glock on two students. None at all.

In which I say... bullshit!

Well Remy and Malik's paths cross and it really incites what I can only call, a race war.

I may joke, but that's really how its described in the movie. Remy calls up his Neo nazi group, filled with probably the most obnoxious white guys spouting calls for "White Power" (I'm not fucking kidding) and Malik goes back to his group of Black Panthers headed up by Ice Cube and... Busta Rhymes (I Wish I was kidding) and the two groups are just at odds with each other. 

The climax of the movie is actually Remy going on top of a school building and opening fire into a crowd of people at a rally celebrating diversity. 

And its a really dark scene. People are freaking out, people get shot, you see a bunch of college

students panicking, and people die.

I won't say who but it is a very dark scene. Its interesting because the movie came out in 1995, four years later Colombine would happen. I'm not really sure if this scene would fly in today's society.

Which it really makes me question if this scene is jumping the shark a little bit. Its obviously trying to show the calamity of the violence stage of oppression, but its just so intense and so over the top that you start to think about the circumstances that led up to this scenario and you just think, how the fuck did this happen? And maybe that's the point. Maybe I'm suppose to say what the hell would bring someone to this point, but that's kind of the problem. Its not subtle at all.

I do not claim that shit like this doesn't happen. It does. And maybe the fact that I think that a college campus isn't really a great setting for a story like this is exactly the point, that we need to stop this oppression so it doesn't effect the places we feel are safe. But at the same time, I have the feeling that over exaggerating a problem doesn't raise awareness, it just raises fear and exacerbates divides. So overall, I'm torn on whether or not I think Remy going on a shooting spree was a good choice for the movie in an attempt to get a message across.

However, I will say. The scene to the right. Was a great scene. Without giving too much away, Malik is just overcome with grief and Laurence Fishburne just holds him. As much as Malik tries to struggle, Fishburne just holds him as he loses his shit.

This was a great scene.

And in the end, this movie really comes down to individual performances. Laurence Fishburne of course was awesome. Omar Eeps was good but at some points was a little over the top. Kristy Swenson on the other hand was pretty bland. Michael Rapaport was incredibly over-the-top but parts of it worked. His nazi brothers, obnoxious.

Ice Cube was funny but never really had much development throughout the movie. Busta Rhymes and the rest of the Black Panthers, obnoxious. Jennifer Connelly, kind of bland. Tyra Banks... hilarious and not in a good way.  Any other characters really didn't have a purpose in the movie and therefore were kind of bland and didn't really stand out.

Overall I wasn't really impressed with the acting in the movie. It's a lot of actors before they got big but they're all very strange actors that, with the exception of Fishburne, aren't really known for being great actors even now.

So I think the consensus for this movie is that its just awkward. It has a great message to send but just beats you over the head with it. The movie does raise some really interesting questions but its just over the top and obnoxious at times.

You're going to have to suspend a lot of disbelief in not just the structure and integrity, but also the existence of any kind of authority at this school. Cause a lot of shit goes down and it may be a little hard to believe if you're looking for believability.

So that's my thoughts on Higher Learning. Have you seen it? What do you think? Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. I know I wrote this review with a lot of South Park clips. And out of context, they probably seem offensive. But that's what I love about South Park, Family Guy and the way issues of race and other controversial issues are dealt with these days. Its very satirical and pokes fun at issues while still putting the mirror up and showing that these issues are issues. But then you just get funny scenes like this. Enjoy!

Now that I think about it, a more appropriate ending video would have been this one... so you get two.

Damn that was an awful commercial.