Bamboozled (2000)

Director Spike Lee has never shied away from controversy, and with Bamboozled he tackles a thorny mix of racism and how images are bought and sold. A frustrated TV writer named Delacroix (Damon Wayans), unable to break his contract, tries to get fired by proposing a new minstrel show, complete with dancers in blackface. But the network loves the idea, and Delacroix hires two street performers (Savion Glover, who is truly the finest tap dancer since Fred Astaire, and Tommy Davidson) whose hunger for success and ignorance of history combine to make them accept the blackface. Despite protests, the show is a huge success--but gradually, the mental balance of everyone involved starts to crumble. As an argument, Bamboozled is incoherent--but how can racism be discussed rationally in the first place? Lee takes a much braver approach: Every time something seems to make sense or make a point, he complicates the situation. At one point, Delacroix goes to see his father, a standup comedian working at a small black club. Delacroix perceives his father as a broken failure. But his father's routine is full of articulate critiques of white hypocrisy, and the older man describes refusing to play the narrow movie roles that Hollywood had offered him, while Delacroix has convinced himself that his minstrel show is actually doing some social good. And what is the effect of the show itself? Lee obviously finds blackface abhorrent, but the minstrel routines are perversely fascinating and Glover's dancing, even when he mimics Amos and Andy-era routines, is outstanding. Most cuttingly, Lee points out parallels between minstrel and contemporary hip-hop personas. By the time it's over, Bamboozled won't have told you what to think, but you will have to think about these issues--and that alone is a remarkable accomplishment. --Bret Fetzer Amazon.com

Painful, Powerful. A Spike Lee Classic.

Angry, uneven, brilliant. . . This is not destined to be remembered as a great motion picture, but it sure is powerful. How do you even write about it? Spike Lee shoves everyone around, overturns tables, and leaves you to think about it all.

Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is a "negro" TV writer who is black enough to be upset about lack of representation of people of color in his business, but "white" enought to not understand fully the ramifications of what he does. His boss, Mr. Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport) is a white guy who thinks he's tuned into the black experience. Pierre decides, in protest, to revive an old time blackface minstrel show for modern television thinking that by sabatoging the TV programming he'll prove a point. The station goes for the idea. Pierre's conscience, personified by assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith), protests.

And the public - enough of them at least - love the show.

What follows is a protracted (too long in my opinion), painful examination of historical racial stereotypes made modern. Savion Glover (the little kid from "Tap") and Tommy Davidson were so wonderful and sad as the minstrel show's blackfaced principals, "Mantan" and "Sleep 'n Eat." The first time the duo apply their blackface, it's revulsion toward the show itself. The second time, it's themselves they hate. Tommy's painful "it's showtime!" in the mirror to himself is a suffering for the sins of all people who would participate in such a spectacle.

For me, less would have been more with this film. Spike Lee disagrees and takes this show to the point that - in my opinion - the message gets muddied by excesses and moral high ground suffers in angry paroxysms, but it's his film and his anger.

But Lee is vindicated in the theme of the show and the general message that all of us can share in the racial difficulties in which we find ourselves and many of us are sheep. May 17, 2008

Gotta gotta see this.

This is not your typical Spike Lee film, but perhaps his most important -- so important that the film is void of the director's ego for the most part. This film speaks about race issues in America, the unique issue of descendants of slavery fitting in to the culture that enslaved them, loving the hope that the country holds, yet not being given permission to hold residual pain and residual anger. It's a film about how the cultural norm creates and defines human beings who are other than the defining majority through objectification. It's a film about the stunning power of image and the media, especially when its creations are forwarded as politically neutral. Nothing I can write would be clearer than Lee's own words:

"The pain comes from looking at the images. How people of color in this case specifically African-Americans have been portrayed since the inception of film and also with radio with the Amos and Andy which was on film, radio, and television. Also we have to look at the way we portray black collectibles, when you see the dolls and the toothpaste and all the other things. You know, we're viewed as less than human, sub-human, and that stuff is painful. . . . There are certain things in this film where you want to laugh but at the same time you don't want to laugh because it's not funny. And it's . . . it's a very interesting phenomenon that happens in this film." --Spike Lee

"In doing the research [for the film] what hurt me was the depth that I saw. The hatred of us as a people. We saw the songs, when I see Bugs Bunny in blackface. I mean . . . I love Bugs Bunny. I had never seen him in blackface before. And Warner Brothers buried that, you know. And we wanted to include it in the film but they wouldn't let us. Bugs Bunny is an institution so they said hell no. But to see the depths to which America showed its hatred via radio, film, television, songs, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben. You know, Niggerhead Cornflakes, whatever you want to . . . you know. It's just amazing." -- Spike Lee
March 28, 2008

Spike Lee At His Best

Bamboozled has to be one of Lee's most shocking films yet.The plot about sterotyped minorities is shocking because it's true. Damon Wayans is great in his first dramatic role as are Tommy Davidson & Savion Glover. Spike Lee chose to shoot this film on digital camera and you get the feel of a real life news cast with Mr. Lee's cinematography .The film "Bamboozled" caught a lot of heat for it's portrayal of blackface (an issue that wasn't really talked about until the release of "Bamboozled") Writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) sees his pitches for TV shows being rejected one after another. He is upset with his job and his boss Thomas Dunwitty (Mike Rappaport) He is under contract, he cannot quit because he will be sued. So he decides to get himself fired. He plans on reviving blackface and hopes that it'll be so controversial that CNS will be under fire and he'll get fired. He recruits two street performers Manray (Savion Glover) and Womack (Tommy Davidson) and pitches the show to his boss. The show gets green lighted, but unfortunately it becomes a big hit and destroys his whole plan. Spike got some heat for this (mainly because he criticized previous films for the way blacks are shown, then he made a film with blackface) But what people don't understand is that this is a satire. The images of rappers and "Timmi Hillnigger" are all poking fun at today's society. "Bamboozled" is clever and one of Spike's most explosive films next to "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X". This film has Tommy Davidson performing in blackface, in a very funny routine. I wanted to laugh but at the same time it made me think. This sketch was making me laugh at every stereotype about my people that I hated. That was the smart thing about "Bamboozled", it caught you in the act of doing something and made you think. "Bamboozled" is a well thought, mentally challenging film that'll change your life March 25, 2008

The Divine Comedy

This is the most provocative film Spike Lee made about racism & how the american entertainment industry has treated the image of Africans in america. I love to watch old movies from the early years in black & white even until today; the pattern is still the same. There is no major difference between Stepin Fetchit, Dolemite, Martin Lawrence, Cedric the Entertainer or the most recent incarnation of buffonery, Katt Williams.

This is not an indictment on those individuals or their talent, but an example of how a lack of serious roles for Black males in Hollywood, in roles other than urban movies has pigeon-holed us to the comedic role; which leads to what is basically an overflow of clowns.

These negative images of Africans in american movies, television, & print have not really changed much since then; the method in which the sterotypical images are presented have only been fine tuned and updated for the times, like Aunt Jemima getting a perm instead of keeping the mammy rag around her head.

Spike will probably go down in cinema history as the one of the few great Black filmmakers that directly addressed our issues in his films more than any other director. Denzel is breaking into it slowly with Antwone Fisher & his most recent film, The Great Debaters, a beautiful intelligent film, which was all but ignored by the general public this past holiday at the box office, just as Bamboozled was when it was released.

Is there no audience for an intelligent Black film in cinema anymore? This reaction to serious drama about the black experience is the direct result of a people getting accustomed to seeing themselves as clowns and criminals; images that portray us as intelligent & dignified has become foreign to us.

Bamboozled is in my top ten of any black film that has ever been made, it is one of the few films that speaks to Black frustration in a racist society with such honest & clarity, even with its flaws; and how having to cope with this bi-polar nation has affected us. January 4, 2008

Spike shows he's no Paddy

Strange that Spike Lee would write an homage to Paddy Chayefsky's satirical masterpiece, but not "get it." He starts the film as a wonderfully bizarre fantasy like "Network" but then asks us to take the events seriously, forcing his actors to play heavy dramatic scenes in which they question their part in a completely unreal minstrel show. A fascinating farce degrades into embarrassing angst and finally into downright melodrama. Note to Spike: farce is meant to be fantasy, not reality. October 9, 2007

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