The fictional storylines of HBCU culture have been cherished throughout nearly four decades of Black-led film and television. 1980s sitcom A Different World kicked the door down with a hilarious and endearing look into the fictional Hillman College. Spike Lee’s second full-length film, the musical School Daze, leaned into colorism, social bias, and Greek life, among other universal themes that affect Black viewers. Historical drama The Great Debaters revisited an earlier era of HBCUs, when marginalized students at Texas institution Wiley College fought racism through the power of constructive dialogue.
While HBCU representation continues to be limited in entertainment, that representation has strengthened with necessary watches like 2000s teen flicks Drumline and Stomp The Yard, shows All-American: Homecoming, and even a more controversial depiction in drama Burning Sands. Meanwhile, more PWI-oriented, Grown-ish and Dear White People (both the movie and series adaptation) also fit the primer of Black students being incorporated into college settings. For some HBCU alums who majored in film, television, and media studies, these HBCU portrayals created a path for them to seek more wide-ranging stories that involved their educational backgrounds.
Auteur and Howard University graduate Tevin Scott plans for his proof of concept short film The Mecca to become a scripted TV series, and he was previously a screenwriter for late 2010s BET drama The Quad. Reflecting on the now-canceled show, Scott admits that he found its plot inauthentic in comparison to the more comedic classics he grew up on, including A Different World, School Daze and Drumline. All three are referenced in The Mecca, which depicts the humorous side of the Howard University experience.
“That show didn’t really highlight what was great about HBCUs,” Scott tells Uproxx. “It was kind of just trying to put a whole lot of drama together, and the season two finale ended on a mass shooting on campus, which is not necessarily something that happens.”
He continues, “HBCUs are safe spaces for Black students, and I just think that they were leaning a little bit too much into being dramatic and not trying to tell an authentic story to uplift the HBCU experience. I think that’s what led to our demise.”
In The Mecca, Scott cast members of Divine Nine orgs Omega Psi Phi, Kappa Alpha Psi, and Delta Sigma Theta, but shares that entertainment still doesn’t know how to appropriately represent Black Greeks. Although not an HBCU show, former HBO hit comedy Insecure controversially depicted supporting character Tiffany wearing Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority colors.
“As far as HBCUs go, as far as doing that, it can get corny when you make up orgs, [or when] you’re showing a real org, but you’re dressing them up in different colors — that can kind of get a little messy,” Scott says. “Unless creators have a connection to the org, I don’t think you should try to go too much into that, because it’s always touchy.”
Pledging Delta during her time at Delaware State University was production expert and creative director, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago before coming to the United States for college. It was A Different World that set the tone for the communal and educational standards that molded Kara Barnett’s pre-grad impression. For her, A Different World “was not just about them learning about Blackness in the class–the show was about the experience of Blackness in their community.”
“I took African-American history courses as a freshman because I was like, ‘My high school experience did not teach me the depths of the Civil Rights Movement.’ So I went to learn about that stuff,” Barnett says. “When you watch A Different World, and they’re having these conversations in the cafeteria or there’s a moment where there’s some kind of issue of racism, that’s how you understand that education goes beyond the classroom.”
Comedy continues to be present in shows and films that center HBCUs, but as restrictions on African-American studies and even book banning have ramped up, the aforementioned forms of entertainment have taken on cynical narratives. Barnett hopes that this growing tradition shifts back to the amusement that A Different World paved.
“I enjoy a mix, I enjoy the dramedy. We defer to –- and this might just be college content in general, because you think about stuff like Grown-ish it gets kind of heavy –- it gets kind of dramatic,” Barnett says. “And not saying that people don’t go through it; financial aid is very real. But at the end of the day, the levity of college and the fun and the transformation and the opportunities — and especially in a time when HBCUs constantly get questioned — I would love to see more of that.”
Funny potential storylines are extensive, from rushing cross-campus to catch a probate to maintaining lifelong friends that met as undergrads to struggling to make 8 AM classes because college early mornings aren’t the same as high school. While scenes like these were lightly touched upon in Homecoming, Burning Sands, and formerly, Dear White People, they’re overtaken by heavy dramatic elements.
Barnett continues, “I feel like sometimes we focus on the dramatic because that’s what tends to sell in media, but you think about Abbott [Elementary] and its really well-written banter[-heavy], ensemble moments. I would love to see that on HBCU campus; that doesn’t feel heavy.”
Attending Howard as a graduate student, filmmaker Quan Lateef-Hill says that coming to the D.C. campus was less of a “culture shock” after spending her undergrad at Western Michigan University. HBCU representation to Lateef-Hill wasn’t exclusive to entertainment based around education, as school names also made cameos in hit comedies in the 1990s.
“As a kid of the ‘90s, it was so many like Black sitcoms or shows that through fashion or [would feature] fraternities and sororities,” she says. “Living Single, Martin, Fresh Prince [of Bel-Air], all of those shows had these moments where you’re like, ‘Wait, what’s Howard?’ or ‘What’s Morehouse?’ You can take that deep dive just because the right people were in that room.”
Coming from a PWI where she felt tokenized, Lateef believes the options are limitless for all HBCU student backgrounds to be recognized in entertainment. If these institutions are where Black students can build community, it can also reshape our fictional characterizations.
“Oftentimes, when we talk about inclusivity or diversity, we’re talking about specific stuff like color of skin. But there’s so much more in terms of diversity, like region or dialects or accents. Neurodiversity, even,” Lateff-Hill says. “As we continue being the storytellers and can create our own stories and messages independently, there’s still a lot more to see.”