Color Coded
Ashley Segura
Katelyn Moore
Jagroop Ghuman
Mariah Smith
Katelyn Moore
Jagroop Ghuman
Mariah Smith
In the city of Los Angeles, citizens are divided into four sectors: white, white-passing, mixed, and dark. In order to be placed, citizens must be evaluated once they reach coming of age. Yet when four teenage friends go through their own evaluations, they unravel the lies a racist society hides. They come to the realization that the sector qualifications are not based on things like GPA or skills, but rather what’s on the outside: their skin, their eyes, their hair.
The film was inspired to shed light onto the bitter truth of white supremacy. What does it look like to live in a society where the whiter you are, the more opportunities you’ll have? The novel’s protagonist, Iola, is a daughter of a African American mother and white father, and must constantly confront her society as they judge her by her light complexion and blue eyes. When Dr. Gresham, a white suitor, asks Iola to marry him with the implied condition of hiding her race, Iola rejects his proposal, refuting the idea that her African American heritage is a hindrance. Instead, she claims her identity as beautiful, and sets out to locate her family.
The film was inspired to shed light onto the bitter truth of white supremacy. What does it look like to live in a society where the whiter you are, the more opportunities you’ll have? The novel’s protagonist, Iola, is a daughter of a African American mother and white father, and must constantly confront her society as they judge her by her light complexion and blue eyes. When Dr. Gresham, a white suitor, asks Iola to marry him with the implied condition of hiding her race, Iola rejects his proposal, refuting the idea that her African American heritage is a hindrance. Instead, she claims her identity as beautiful, and sets out to locate her family.
Color Coded would like to thank Karandeep Singh for appearing in our film, The soundtrack of Color Coded samples from “Train Wreck” by James Arthur and “Mi Gente” by JBalvin Willy William, and “West world: Runaway” by Kanye West.
"’Iola, I see no use in your persisting that you are colored when your eyes are as blue and complexion as white as mine.’
‘Doctor, were I your wife, are there not people who would caress me as a white woman who would shrink from me in scorn if they knew I had one drop of negro blood in my veins? When mistaken for a white woman, I should hear things alleged against the race at which my blood would boil. No, Doctor, I am not willing to live under a shadow of concealment which I thoroughly hate as if the blood in my veins were an undetected crime of my soul.’
‘Iola, dear, surely you paint the picture too darkly.’”
