by Paul Fischer
Spike Lee
We have not censored any of the words spoken by Mr. Lee, or any of the images from his film. Some may take offense.
Spike Lee has pushed emotional buttons before, with films like Jungle Fever and Malcolm X. His latest, Bamboozled (the title taken from a statement by Malcolm X) does more than push buttons. It opens old wounds, for some. It recreates, word for word, old blackface minstrel routines that, by modern standards, are viciously racist and insulting. In doing so Bamboozled is revealed for what it is, a razor sharp satire of perceptions and stereotypes; of fads and cultural quirks and public perceptions of same throughout the last century.
But, If the discussions held between "us critics" is any indication, Lee's career may be about to go down in flames of supernova proportions. Or not. It all depends on public reaction to his observations of current culture, specifically that television and gangsta rap music puts us on a course towards material not that far out of whack from the blackface stereotypes of yore. If you have no idea of what the blackface minstrel show image above meant to generations of African-Americans or how embarrassing it is to some in the modern media that our forbears pushed the stereotype far beyond the caricatures laid on other minorities, you'll get your eyes opened far wider than what you see in some of the pictures from the film. More about where it comes from can be found over in our review of Bamboozled. (coming Friday)
For those of us that do know only pictures like the one above, actually seeing the routines in full moving color is a shock. Not only the reactions of us real people in the audience. The reactions of the "fictional" characters, from adulation to murderous promises of revenge all lay out over a script that is as sharp a satire of 20th century media as the two that influenced Spike Lee, Network and the little seen A Face In The Crowd (about a country boy corrupted by media fame, it's little seen because Richard Nixon's name is prominently featured in the script. TV couldn't play the film while Nixon was active in politics). For some of the other journalists who sat in the room with Cranky and Spike, Bamboozled was nothing less than upsetting . . .
Spike Lee: I
would have problems with you if it didn't upset you. Where is this law that every
film that we see that comes out of Hollywood has to go out all happy and stuff?
There's nothing wrong with those films but should that be the entire slate that
we see? I mean, summer is over.
CrankyCritic: Serious movie time. Not a lot of popcorn blockbusters
Spike Lee: This is not Scary Movie -- and I'm glad
they made $150 million. It's two different outlooks and two different approaches.
Each one is valid. I've never done a film saying "OK we're making a hundred million
on this one." That's not the goal. I don't think that we should be slave to the
dollar and let that dictate everything we do. That's just not the way I was raised.
I never conducted myself like that and I hope I never do.
CrankyCritic: So,
to the guy paying ten bucks a shot to see this movie - What do you want him to
come away with?
Spike Lee: I really try to stay away from answering those questions
because I don't want to try to dictate. There's so many things in this film that
they could pull from. I respect the intelligence of the audience. I don't believe
in this dumbing down theory. I think how people respond to the film really brings
on what they bring to the movie, also.
Bamboozled is about Pierre Delacroix, played by Damon Wayans, the only African-American writer on staff at a failing television network. It's inspiration was the fact that, at a major network, sitcoms being demographically targeted at Black audiences were not being written by anyone even close to tanned.
CrankyCritic: So
how do you really feel about television?
Spike Lee: Well, I like it when The Knicks are on. [laughter] I think
it's a great medium. I just think it has not been utilized. I'm not so happy about
cinema either.
Delacroix, pushed by his boss to come up with something controversial, pitches the most heinous thing he can come up with, an all-new minstrel show, starring two homeless hoofers who dance for quarters on the street outside his office. To his shock, the Mantan New Millennium Minstrel Show is a huge hit.
CrankyCritic: You've
said that the minstrel show is still with us. Can you elaborate on that?
Spike Lee: Well I think if you look at a lot of gangsta rap videos,
that's a lot of 21st century version of a minstrel show. I think there may be
some television shows that might be considered minstrel borderline. It's just
my opinion. I'm not going to name them. It doesn't do anybody any good if I name
'em but, turn on TV.
CrankyCritic: We'll
name 'em. You seemed obviously pissed at UPN's The Secret Diaries of Desmond
Pfeiffer.
Spike Lee: Pissed could not... [laughter] I just find it inconceivable.
Not that somebody wrote this show but that some gatekeeper; that UPN felt
that a sitcom about slavery, about America's holocaust would be funny. I still
can't understand that. Can't understand that. And Homeboys From Outer Space
is right behind it, too [laughter]
CrankyCritic: To
the TV networks that are so convinced that people are stupid, there is no doubt
in my mind that a step like this is entirely logical in some form.
Spike Lee: That's my point. That's the whole point. I don't think
there's anything in this film that couldn't happen. That's the point I'm trying
to make, that it's not a stretch for a show like this to be a hit. That it's not
a stretch for someone to have an idea [like] "let's have a pay TV event where
somebody gets killed." You could order it and it'll be in your home. "Reality
TV. Forget about those films. [That] blood isn't real. Our blood is real. These
are real guts, for 29.99!" That stuff is going to happen.
The film moves into hardcore satire when the audience, and we're seeing the prime 12-34 year old demographic in this film, embraces the style and starts "blacking up". White and Black. Hip Hop ideas, represented by a rap group called the Mau-Mau's take more than offense . . . especially when they've auditioned for the show (Delacroix' assistant, played by Jada Pinkett Smith is the sister of the group's leader) and failed to make the cut.
CrankyCritic: But
old time blackface? I never saw a "moving" picture with blackface until
I hit film history courses in college! Amos and Andy shows have been destroyed.
Television won't air the old Little Black Sambo cartoons or Bugs Bunny
in blackface. There are generations that don't know the history and may not see
the racist angles.
Spike Lee: Well, again, I really believe an intelligent audience.
The argument, you might say, why bring the stuff back? I think that we need to
talk about this stuff. Not just black people. This stuff, if you stayed to the
end of the movie, to the end crawl . . .
CrankyCritic: We
see toys based on the blackface stereotype.
Spike Lee: I did not go to a toy maker and say "make me up this stuff".
That is a legacy, for me, that is how we're thought of less than human beings.
If you look at those things - the alligators with the little black babies arms
-- stuff like that, it had to take some sick, twisted, cruel minds to do that.
It was acceptable. If it wasn't acceptable, you'd think they would have... why
would Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland put on blackface? It was acceptable. There
was nothing wrong with it.
CrankyCritic: What
did it feel like to go to the memorabilia shops and see those toys?
Spike Lee: It's a feeling of anger, rage, also sadness. I collect
black collectibles, black memorabilia. On my desk where I wrote this script I
had my Aunt Jemima cookie jar to my left; I had the Jolly Nigger Bank to my right
while I was writing the script.
CrankyCritic: Rock
'n' Roll blew away one set of standards forty/ fifty years ago. Hip Hop seems
to have done the same thing. Minstrel shows aside, the strongest statements made
in Bamboozled point at this cultural assimilation.
Spike Lee: It
seems that hip hop culture has taken the lead in music and style. It's used in
advertisements. Young white kids have adopted it, not just in style of dress but
manner of speaking. So, we dealt with that somewhat in this film with the inclusion
of the Mau-Mau's. They're not necessarily gangsta rappers but they're more like
a 21st century version of Public Enemy. Chuck D, Flavor Flav had the sense that
they know that no one should have the right to take another one's life. That's
where the Mau-Mau's get [it wrong]. No matter how bad you think what Mantan is
doing or he's Uncle Tom or a sellout, that doesn't give the right to take his
life. They think they're doing that on behalf of black people, which is insane
of itself.
CrankyCritic: A network bowing to Politically Correct protests wouldn't
have done it? You never considered any other ending?
Spike
Lee: We never considered any other ending. I felt that if the film stayed
in the same mode, the same tempo, then I would have been just as guilty as Pierre
Delacroix doing a 21st century minstrel show because I'm not showing the consequences
of stuff like this. I felt that we had to make a turn. That we had to make a detour.
That this film had to turn violent to end because you saw that people got
killed over some bullshit. That's why the end of the film is like that.
CrankyCritic: One
of your influences was A Face In The Crowd
Spike Lee: The big one. Paddy Chayefsky told Budd [Shulberg, credited
at the end of Bamboozled] that he got the inspiration for Network from
that film. We're just building upon what sponsors that have been done in the past.
How the power of TV can corrupt even the strongest person. Budd wrote On The
Waterfront. What Makes Sammy Run. And Budd, Bert Sugar and I will be co-writing
the Joe Louis-Max Schmelling script, which will be my next film.
CrankyCritic: It's
interesting that you mention Network. The things were shocking in 1975
aren't necessarily shocking today.
Spike Lee: Paddy Chayefsky was building upon what Budd had done before.
All that stuff they had, that stuff's on TV now. If you spoon feed people sub
par stuff, it might be dog food, feed 'em long enough and they'll think it's steak.
That's one of the great thing about Budd's script for A Face in the Crowd.
He saw this back in 1957. One of the sponsors of that show is called Vitagel,
which is viagra. He had that in the movie in 1957.
CrankyCritic: Politicians,
it being an election year, are making a stink about Hollywood and its "influence"
on young people. Your reaction?
Spike Lee: I think they have some good points but, when are they going
to start talking about the NRA? Even if Hollywood is putting out those images,
the music industry is putting out those images, to implement that stuff, where
they getting the guns from? They got to talk about that.
CrankyCritic: Do
you see Bamboozled as prophecy, perhaps?
Spike Lee: We shall see [laughter]. I hope not, or you're going to
see Sharpton and Cochran outside whatever network [does it]