An Analysis of Bamboozled, a Film by Spike Lee Essay

The days of blackface minstrel troupes may seem like ancient history to most Americans, but Spike Lee wants to refresh our memory. Spike Lee is onto something when he looks to the days of blackface minstrel troupes to help us understand race in today's America. With Bamboozled, Hollywood's most reliable provocateur is saying we haven't come as far as we think. In Bamboozled, Damon Wayans plays well-mannered Harvard alum Pierre Delacroix, a black TV writer whose ratings-hungry boss (Michael Rapaport) delivers an ultimatum give me a hit show or clean out your desk. His response "Mantan," a revival one of the most popular and most degrading forms of entertainment in nineteenth-century America blackface minstrelsy. Delacroix developed the program as a rage-driven stunt but it turns into an unexpected hit, apparently able to indulge a racist format largely because the actors using burnt cork to blacken their faces happen to be African Americans.In the movie, Pierre Delacroix is late for a meeting he wasn't told about. He reprimands his assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett-Smith), who hadn't received any info about the meeting to begin with. This scene makes clear that if one wants to succeed in that company, one can't count on simple procedures like memos, but has to run after the info -- that is if one happens to be black. Delacroix is the only person of color in the creative team of that TV station - unless one would count the Caucasian boss Dunwitty, who says, "brother man, I'm blacker than you". Dunwitty thinks that his African-American wife and two biracial kids earn him the ability to be viewed as either white or black, depending on what is the most advantageous for him at any given moment. He talks the talk, he knows the names of African American celebrities, and he's decorated his office with pictures of black athletes. Shouldn't that grant him "honorary blackness"? He wants to be black when...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Character Analysis of Annie Wilkes in Misery by Stephen King Essay

What does it take to frighten an author of best-selling horror novels? In Misery, Stephen King embodies a writer's fears about himself as a writer and about the continuation of his creativity in a richly elaborated and horrifi-cally psychotic woman, Annie Wilkes. In the novel, Annie represents a mother figure, a goddess, and a "constant reader". In reality, however, An-nie merely represents a creative part of King's mind.Annie Wilkes is a proud mother of two children--a historical-romance novelist, Paul Sheldon, and his extremely popular heroine Misery Chastain. Annie must nurse and educate Paul. Gottschalk elaborates, "Annie views Paul in a madly maternal way. Early in her custody of Paul, she brings him pills for his excruciating pain, but he must suck them off her fingers in a grotesque parody of a nursing child" (125). If she leaves him untended too long, Paul wets his bed, and she must change his sheets and clothes. When he is tired or frustrated, he we...
Read more

An Analysis of the Character of Chichikov in the Poem, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol Essay

Dead Souls takes place in the Russia of the late 1800s, where, unlike in America, one must be born into a prosperous family in order to have opportunities. The main character, Chichikov, is clever enough to develop a scheme in which he can rise from being a petty clerk to a respected landowner. In order to do this, Chichikov moves into a new town, pretending to already be a landowner, and begins a quest to buy the names of dead serfs who have not yet been officially reported dead. Each person that Chichkov presents this offer to has a different reaction, starting with the shy and introverted Manilov. Though he does not understand Chichikov's need for the names of these dead serfs, Manilov is a character that is so desperate for company that it does not take any effort to trick him into selling his dead souls cheaply. However, as Chichikov continues his journey, he starts to deal with more clever landowners who become suspicious of his scheme. Chichikov finds that the townsmen know...
Read more

Religious Symbolism in The Blessed Damozel, a Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Essay

Dante Gabriel Rossettis poem The Blessed Damozel is full of religious symbolism. There is talk of saints, and the poem itself takes place in heaven. But underneath the religious symbolism is a deep sensuality, that makes one wonder if the white rose of Marys gift referred to in line nine is the gift of Mary the Virgin, or the somewhat less virginal Mary Magdalene. While the Damozel is in heaven, her appearance in heaven, her behaviors in life, and what happens when she and her lover are reunited suggest some less than virginal dealings, yet the damozel is blessed and resides in heaven. Rossetti was the child of liberals kicked out of Italy a heavily catholic country for their extreme political views. While Rossetti himself was not political, he may have espoused similar views regarding politics and religion as his parents. In the poem The Blessed Damozel, Rossetti was given the chance to essentially create his own heaven. Most everything he wrote seems to show that Rossetti espoused ...
Read more