''Zebrahead'' is a 1992 American

romantic drama Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...

film produced by

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born ) is an American filmmaker. Stone is an acclaimed director, tackling subjects ranging from the Vietnam War and American politics to musical film, musical Biographical film, biopics and Crime film, crime dramas. He has ...

, written and directed by

Anthony Drazan Anthony Drazan is an American film director and screenwriter. He grew up in Rockville Centre, New York. He is best known for writing and directing the 1992 film ''Zebrahead (film), Zebrahead'', his film writing and directing debut. The film was ...

and starring

Michael Rapaport Michael David Rapaport (born March 20, 1970) is an American actor, comedian, and podcast host. Beginning his career in the early 1990s, he has made over 100 appearances in film and television. His film roles include ''Zebrahead'' (1992), '' ...

and

N'Bushe Wright N'Bushe Wright ( ; born September 7, 1969) is an American actress and dancer. She attended and trained as a dancer at the Alvin Ailey Dance Center and the Martha Graham School of Dance. She is known mainly for her role as Dr. Karen Jenson in th ...

. The film also stars

Kevin Corrigan Kevin Corrigan (born March 27, 1969) is an American character actor. He has appeared mostly in independent films and television since the 1990s, including as Uncle Eddie on the sitcom '' Grounded for Life'' (2001–2005). His film appearances i ...

Ray Sharkey Raymond Sharkey Jr. (November 14, 1952 – June 11, 1993) was an American stage, film and television actor. His most notable film role was Vincent Vacarri in the 1980 film '' The Idolmaker'', for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best A ...

, and Lois Bendler. Set in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, the film is about an

interracial Interracial topics include: * Interracial marriage, marriage between two people of different races ** Interracial marriage in the United States *** 2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident * Interracial adoption, placing a child of one raci ...

romance between a

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

teenage boy and a

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

teenage girl and the resulting tensions among the characters. The film was Drazan's writing and

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many filmmakers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

and Rapaport and Wright's acting debut.

Plot

Eighteen-year-old white Jewish DJ and rapper Zack lives with his single father, who runs a record store. Zack records music with his best friend, black rapper Dee. Zack quarrels at school with his girlfriend Michelle, and they separate. He sees a new black student, Nikki, who turns out to be Dee's cousin. Zack becomes infatuated with Nikki. Zack confides in Dee that he is attracted to Nikki, but is scared to proceed as a white man to a black woman. While Dee says Zack shouldn't be concerned over that, Dee's father warns Zack that he might receive negativity. Zack introduces himself to Nikki without disclosing his feelings toward her. Zack's grandfather Saul tells him to woo Nikki with his DJ skills. Zack brings his turntable set to the school gymnasium and starts to DJ urban music. Nikki and other students enjoy dancing to the music, but some of the black students, including Larry, who is into

Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is a nationalist movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atla ...

, and Calvin "Nut", a delinquent bully, believe he's culturally appropriating. Zack and Nikki become close. When he picks her up from her home for a date, they are subjected to harassment and racial epithets from Nut and his friends. Zack takes Nikki to his father's record store where they have their first kiss. One day after school, Zack brings Nikki to his house where they make love, with Zack's father secretly watching in amusement. Zack introduces Nikki to his father, who doesn't care that Nikki is black. Zack invites Nikki to a house party with some of his extended friends where she is the only black person. Nikki meets Michelle, who is happy that Zack and Nikki are together. Nikki encounters Zack and some of his friends making friendly, yet disrespectful racist sexual jokes about Nikki. She runs out of the party and breaks up with Zack. She tells Dee what happened and they both distance themselves from Zack. Nut and other black classmates tell Nikki to stay away from Zack, and that he had been playing a sick game with her. Nikki initially accepts Nut's advances before rejecting him. After making amends and apologizing to Dee, Zack goes to Nikki's house and apologizes to her on her front porch. She invites him to a

roller rink A roller rink is a hard surface usually consisting of hardwood or concrete, used for roller skating or inline skating. This includes roller hockey, speed skating, roller derby, and individual recreational skating. Roller rinks can be located in ...

later that night. Nut was eavesdropping and, at the roller rink, he sexually harasses Nikki. Zack arrives and tells him to stop. As they fight Dee intervenes and pushes Nut to the ground, whereupon Nut fatally shoots Dee and runs from the rink. At Dee's funeral, Zack recites the Mourner's Kaddish in Aramaic to Dee. Walking home from the funeral, Nikki is attacked by Nut who threatens to kill her before running away. At school, Zack and Nikki's classmates talk about what happened at the roller rink, with some suggesting that Dee would never have been shot if Zack and Nikki had never got together. Nikki dismisses that and runs from the classroom. Zack watches silently before also running out of the classroom. The school principal Mr. Cimino tells Zack to stick with his own race when it comes to relationships. He ignores him and notices Nikki crying in the hall. He goes over to comfort her and they hug.

Cast

as Zack *

as Nikki *

as Dominic *

Dan Ziskie Dan Ziskie is an American actor and photographer. Ziskie portrayed the character Frank Niggar on a popular sketch on ''Chappelle's Show''. He was on '' Treme'', where he played a politically connected banker in Post-Katrina New Orleans. He had a ...

as Mr. Cimino *DeShonn Castle as Dee *Lois Bendler as Dominic's Mother *Shula Van Buren as Michelle *

Jason Willinger Jason Willinger is an American actor, who is known for providing the voice of Robbie Sinclair in the television sitcom ''Dinosaurs''. He also provided additional voices for the film ''A Goofy Movie''.

as Bobby *Shirley Bunyas as Helen *Martin Priest as Saul *

LZ Granderson Elzie Lee "LZ" Granderson (born March 11, 1972) is an American journalist and former actor, currently writing for the ''Los Angeles Times'' as a sports and culture columnist. He was a senior writer and columnist for ''ESPN The Magazine'', a co-ho ...

as Larry *Ron Johnson as Nut *

as Richard *

Jon Seda Jon Seda (born October 14, 1970) is an American actor. Seda was an amateur boxer who auditioned for and was given a role in the 1992 boxing film ''Gladiator''. He played the role of Chris Pérez alongside Jennifer Lopez in the movie ''Selena'', ...

as Vinnie *Marsha Florence as Mrs. Wilson

Reception

''Zebrahead'' has an overall approval rating of 71% based on 16 reviews on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

. At the 1992

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, director Anthony Drazan won the Filmmaker Trophy and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. At the 1992

Locarno Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

, Drazan won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and was nominated for the Golden Leopard. Rapaport and Mahal were nominated at the 1993 Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and Best Original Song. Drazan was nominated for the Critics Award at the

Deauville Film Festival The Deauville American Film Festival () is a yearly film festival devoted to American cinema, which has taken place since 1975 in Deauville, France. It was established by Lionel Chouchan, André Halimi, and then Mayor of Deauville Michel d ...

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

gave the film two out of four stars and said,

Soundtrack

The

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

was released on October 13, 1992, by

Ruffhouse Records Ruffhouse Records is an American record label founded in 1989 by Chris Schwartz and Joe Nicolo as a joint venture with Columbia Records. In 1999, Schwartz and Nicolo closed the label, and Schwartz and Kevon Glickman continued with RuffNation ...

and

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...

. The soundtrack was produced and supervised by

MC Serch Michael Berrin (born May 6, 1967), better known by his stage name MC Serch, is an American rapper and record executive. He gained fame as part of the hip hop group 3rd Bass, who were active in the late 1980s and early 1990s and released three s ...

, who contributes the track "Puff the Head". The album also features

Nas Nas (born 1973) is the stage name of American rapper Nasir Jones. Nas, NaS, or NAS may also refer to: Aviation * Nasair, a low-cost airline carrier and subsidiary based in Eritrea * National Air Services, an airline in Saudi Arabia ** Nas Air (S ...

Boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, ...

Kool Moe Dee Mohandas Dewese (born August 8, 1962), better known by his stage name Kool Moe Dee, is an American rapper, songwriter and actor. Considered one of the forerunners of the new jack swing sound in hip hop, he gained fame in the 1980s as a member of ...

and

the Goats The Goats were an American alternative hip hop trio from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. History The group (whose name, according to Swayzack, was chosen to join the word "scapegoats" and the saying "Don't get my goat," concluding that they felt t ...

among others.

References

External links