Spoilers herein.
I find Spike Lee uninteresting. He is not clever with the camera: his trademarked shot is the subject and camera on separate dolleys -- blunt. His storytelling skills are similarly heavihanded, and if it weren't for the fact that American audiences treat race issues gingerly, he would be ignored altogether.
But this film had me wondering. Maybe he isn't just a dull sermonizer. Maybe he does have a deep understanding of the ironies involved here, and is actually engineering his use versus exposure of stereotypes. What made me think this was the juxtaposition of this film with his `Kings of Comedy.'
The central dynamic of this film was how the black audience was the pull for the (fictional) show, exploiting narrow stereotypes. The central dynamic of `Kings' was the pull of black audiences for a real show, also exploiting narrow stereotypes. The old stereotypes relied on blacks as stupid, lazy, sex-obsessed, lawbreaking, and fundamentally different. But check out the Kings, and see essentially the same characteristics. Both then and now have demeaning visuals, just the minstrel ones are rejected by today's society, and the `urban' ones are embraced. This film seems to skirt with the fact that all entertainment is pornographic and it is hard to tease out who is the exploiter and who the exploited.
So I actually thought there was something brilliant at work here, something at the level of what I think the other Waylons do.... but then I saw the `making of..' feature, and realized that the intent behind this project was more more lowbrow -- a vapid morality play. It is as much a slave and exploiter of stereotypes as it condemns.
A Spike Lee `joint' is not stereotypical? If Lee was willing to examine the extent to which he wears blackface, we'd have something important. Lacking that, we have simple fundamentalism.
I find Spike Lee uninteresting. He is not clever with the camera: his trademarked shot is the subject and camera on separate dolleys -- blunt. His storytelling skills are similarly heavihanded, and if it weren't for the fact that American audiences treat race issues gingerly, he would be ignored altogether.
But this film had me wondering. Maybe he isn't just a dull sermonizer. Maybe he does have a deep understanding of the ironies involved here, and is actually engineering his use versus exposure of stereotypes. What made me think this was the juxtaposition of this film with his `Kings of Comedy.'
The central dynamic of this film was how the black audience was the pull for the (fictional) show, exploiting narrow stereotypes. The central dynamic of `Kings' was the pull of black audiences for a real show, also exploiting narrow stereotypes. The old stereotypes relied on blacks as stupid, lazy, sex-obsessed, lawbreaking, and fundamentally different. But check out the Kings, and see essentially the same characteristics. Both then and now have demeaning visuals, just the minstrel ones are rejected by today's society, and the `urban' ones are embraced. This film seems to skirt with the fact that all entertainment is pornographic and it is hard to tease out who is the exploiter and who the exploited.
So I actually thought there was something brilliant at work here, something at the level of what I think the other Waylons do.... but then I saw the `making of..' feature, and realized that the intent behind this project was more more lowbrow -- a vapid morality play. It is as much a slave and exploiter of stereotypes as it condemns.
A Spike Lee `joint' is not stereotypical? If Lee was willing to examine the extent to which he wears blackface, we'd have something important. Lacking that, we have simple fundamentalism.