From the opening scene in “Emergency,” we know we’re in for something bold and provocative—something designed to make us a bit uncomfortable and to THINK, even as we laugh at the absurd situations. This is biting social satire and racial commentary told in the style of a throwback 1980s comedy.
At the fictional and predominantly white Buchanan University, best friends and roommates Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and Sean (RJ Cyler) are attending a class where the white, British professor is discussing hate speech and peppering the air with the n-word—only she says the full word, again and again, with the word projected in large letters on the screen behind her, and she seems almost smugly righteous about it. After all, this is a “safe space”; this is Academia.
