Spinning Into Butter

“Spinning Into Butter” displays enough unintentional racism in 86 minutes to keep Al Sharpton busy for the next century. First-time director Mark Brokaw aspires to contribute to an intelligent dialogue about race, but ends up creating a misguided After School Special. Despite its pedagogical goals, the ridiculous dialogue, shallow characters, and uninteresting plot prevent the film from raising any fruitful questions.

The movie is based on the acclaimed play of the same name and was written for the screen by the original playwright, Rebecca Gilman. The play was named one of the best productions of 1999 by Time, but the exasperatingly clichéd film will not receive any such honor.

The plot centers on a series of racist threats received by a black student at the predominantly white Belmont College in Vermont. The ensuing uproar at the small liberal arts school reveals hidden prejudices, brings tension bubbling to the surface, and leads to violence. Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Sarah Daniels, the newly hired Dean of Students who strives for sensitivity yet needs to keep her job. Dean Daniels struggles to find a balance between protecting the targeted student and appeasing the administration, all while falling for Aaron Carmichael (Mykelti Williamson), a black reporter covering the story. (Not surprisingly, neither expresses familiarity with the term “conflict of interest.”)

In the movie’s first scene, a student passionately refuses to define his ethnicity in a classic “checkbox” dilemma. At stake is a $12,000 scholarship offered only to minority students, but Patrick (Victor Rasuk) does not identify with his Puerto Rican roots on principle. The desired effect is admiration for his idealism, but a low-income college student turning down thousands of dollars essentially because he “hasn’t even been to Puerto Rico” smacks of pretension. His feeble arguments against accepting the money sound especially forced when a financial aid snafu later reveals how badly he could use it.

The film relies predominantly on unfortunate stereotypes that place characters in racially charged scenarios. The out of touch, all-white administration’s only response to campus racism is to hold forums on race for the entire school. Predictably, these forums devolve into a brawl. The liberal white students feel unfairly blamed for mistreating the minority students. The minority students want to be called “students of color.” Patrick yells about having to compromise for his scholarship, but the white students yell that they don’t get any scholarships. The violence begins, like all race riots seem to, with a rousing and ill-received “You people!”

In a movie so ostensibly concerned with breaking down prejudices, it’s disturbing that so many characters have no identity outside their race. Almost every supporting character’s lines are interchangeable with those of any other member of his race. Dean Daniels and her reporter paramour break from this pattern, but only because the most incredulous lines are reserved for them alone. When asked why she would “even want to help these kids,” Daniels earnestly responds, “Because the world isn’t fair. People keep getting their asses handed to them. Why shouldn’t we try and change that?”

Many of the movie’s problems likely stem from the stage-to-screen transplant. The strictly color-coded groups of students are carelessly presented in the film, but would have more easily emerged as symbolic in a play. The coordinated yells of the supposedly riotous crowd sound more like the choreographed gangs of Bob Fosse than the visceral mobs of Spike Lee.

A twist concerning the culprit of the original threats offers an interesting initial shock, but the lack of satisfying explanation renders it irrelevant to the movie’s larger message. A student forms a new discussion group—supposedly a symbol of progress on campus—but reveals he only wants the extracurricular to pad his law school application.

The open ending of “Spinning Into Butter” does not lead to a nuanced or fresh way of discussing race relations. Instead, the loose ends result in any number of dubious conclusions. After a particularly heated argument, Carmichael reassures Daniels by reminding her that “some people don’t even know they’re racist,” but he has no thoughts on what to do after she recognizes her latent prejudices. Likewise, the film will touch a nerve with viewers, but it fails to provide meaningful commentary on the issues that it so wantonly raises.

—Staff writer Charleton A. Lamb can be reached at clamb@fas.harvard.edu.