School Daze

Much of School Daze is based on director Spike Lee's experiences while a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Laurence Fishburne plays what amounts to Lee's alter ego: a serious, self-involved student who tilts at such windmills as an insensitive administration and a deeply entrenched, social-climbing fraternity/sorority system. An inordinate amount of tension exists between the light- and dark-skinned African-American students; the lighter blacks are nicknamed "Wannabes," a reference to their emulation of upper-class white values, while the darker ones are labelled "Jigaboos." Characteristically, Spike Lee reserves a meaty supporting role for himself. He plays Half-Pint, a mixed-up freshman who willingly endures the basest of humiliations in order to be accepted by the "Wannabe" fraternity.