MovieChat Forums > Bamboozled (2000) Discussion > My Issue With This Movie

My Issue With This Movie

posted 11 years ago by thomas1412-739-282403
6 replies | jump to latest

There is something that I don't think Spike Lee realized. There is a massive- MASSIVE- and important difference between satirizing something and exploiting it for shock value. This movie is exploitation- exploitation on the same level as the many vintage blackface films it samples clips from. Spike Lee is trying to shock us, almost as if he's saying, "Oh yeah, I went there. I used blackface. I was willing to go there because I had such a serious point to make."

But the problem here is that he didn't have a serious point to make here. "Do the Right Thing" had a point to make. "Jungle Fever" had a point to make. "Clockers" had a point to make. This? This thing is a thinly-veiled excuse for Spike Lee to bitch about the entertainment world and make a historical comparison (Modern black entertainment is comparable to outmoded blackface stereotypes) which is, in all honesty, far more obvious and a lot less clever than he probably thinks it is.

[–] franzkabuki 11 years ago

Is it Lee`s fault though that anything less than politically ultracorrect is considered so terribly shocking these days? And that`s hyperbole one way or another as I find it hard to believe anyone but some backwards fundamentalist is literally "shocked" by any such thing. Personally, I liked these blackfaces as they ultimately came across as fittingly pathetic, embarrassing & miserable.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] thomas1412-739-282403 11 years ago

I don't care whether it's politically correct or not, and I wasn't shocked or offended on a personal level. And yes, I realize that the blackface came across as a pathetic and off-putting. And yes, I realize that within the plot, the blackface is looked at in a negative light. But I just feel that the point Lee was trying to get across here wasn't a particularly strong one, and that the immediate, literal comparison between modern black entertainment and old-fashioned blackface stereotyping comes across as less clever an more as clumsy and obvious.

Political correctness is largely unimportant to the quality of any film, especially a satirical one. But this isn't a good satire. Good satire doesn't bash its audience over the head with its message- a message which, in this film, is rather thin and simplistic to begin with.

And don't try to pretend that Spike Lee didn't know the blackface scenes would shock people. He wanted this to shock the audience. Hell, half of the movie's effect is riding on the hope that it'll shock and offend its audience.

[–] info-12388 11 years ago

I have to agree. It's not good satire when *everyone* in a film is so offensive that you just dont care anymore, and — aside from the assistant and the hoofer — there was no one in this thing I felt one iota of sympathy for. By the time we got to the networks getting a court order to run the execution, I was throwing my hands up in disgust: how could Lee do it so incomprehensibly wrong and think it was still making a point?

[–] stevenackerman69 9 years ago

I agree. America has changed and is no longer accepting blackface. Smart people know blackface is offensive so what is he trying to say? Maybe he should've dealt with what really upset him, the fact that blacks seem to be relegated to ghetto sitcom roles and that the minstrel shows of today are not blackface, but gangsta rap videos.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]