Pop Culture's Greatest Interracial College Roommates

Studies show that having a college roommate of a different race is awesome. Too bad Hollywood totally already knew that!

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

roomies
From the Department of Obvious, a new study is touting that having a college roommate of a different race can reduce prejudice and diversify friendships (of course, it also claims that having a white roommate can "boost black students' academic performance," but let's leave that bit of fuckery alone).

But how does that bear out in real life (and by "real life," we of course mean "television and movies")? Hollywood clearly loves a good interracial buddy story, and nothing assuages its liberal guilt like an academic rainbow coalition. We took a look back over the past 20 years and came up with five movies and five TV shows that knew the value of educational diversity...

TELEVISION SHOWS:

diffworld

A DIFFERENT WORLD
• Lisa Bonet + Marisa Tomei = Top-ranked threesome fantasy of the late '80s. (They beat out Jo and Natalie from Facts of Life by a nose).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

greek

GREEK
• Not only are frat brothers Calvin and Grant interracial, but they're both gay--and have the hots for each other. Double taboo! Plus a healthy dose of pause!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bigbang

THE BIG BANG THEORY
• Let's not quibble about whether they're actually still in college (they're not), but if you think a show about high-IQ physicists isn't going to include a South Asian brother, then you clearly aren't up on the latest stereotypes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

saved

SAVED BY THE BELL: THE COLLEGE YEARS
• Zack and Slater are finally roommates in the spinoff (to the delight of slash-fic writers everywhere). What's that? A.C. Slater isn't supposed to be Latino? So Mario Lopez is a white dude now? Don't give us that Vin-Diesel-in-Boiler-Room shit, we beg you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

scrubs

SCRUBS
• Turk and J.D. are in their own twisted way the most realistic interracial roommate buddies possible: They recognize their differences, they make fun of it, and the ceaseless racist propaganda of our society has instilled in them secret massive man-crushes on each other. As a bonus, here's how they met on the first day of college:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CLICK NEXT TO SEE MOVIES' GREATEST INTERRACIAL COLLEGE ROOMATES

 
MOVIES:

drumline

DRUMLINE
• Forgot about li'l white dude with the bass drum, didn't you? Doing his little push-ups and whatnot. He just LOVES THE MUSIC, man--that's why he attended a HBCU institution! It has nothing to do with the proud majesty of Nubian princesses and their genetic superiority over cave bitches. Seriously.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

houseparty

HOUSE PARTY 2
• A pajama jammie jam just isn't the same without the original Kamron (tap the bottle and twist the wack raps cap!). He and Kid made quite the photogenic pair. How are they not huge matinee idols today?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

howhigh

HOW HIGH
• As bad as this movie is, the token Asian roommate made the shit even worse. And let's not even get into what happened with that TV show they tried to do... Sorry, Reggie. We don't blame you for this one.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

scream2

SCREAM 2
• Neve Campbell & Elise Neal didn't quite measure up to Neve Campell & Denise Richards (holla at us!), but it was something...at least until they killed off Elise Neal. SMH.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

vanwilder

VAN WILDER
• Ryan Reynolds and Tek from The Real World, you are interracial party animals the likes of which we'd never seen and might never have seen again...until the straight-to-DVD sequel took Kumar to England and gave him a house full of zany white fla—zzzzzzzz. Sorry, what? The last thing we remember, someone asked us about Van Wilder.

Latest in Pop Culture