Women in Bamboozled

Our team chose to focus on representations of women in Spike Lee’s latest joint,

“Bamboozled”. This theme was attractive to us because we felt the filmmaker had a powerful message to send his audience after viewing the trailer in class.

Despite the fact that there is only one woman in a starring role, a multitude of specific and acute ideas are presented by Spike Lee through the film. We were also eager to take advantage of the opportunity to apply what we have learned in class to the thought-provoking and controversial nature of his work.

When reflecting upon representations of women, we felt that a continuous motif of women as puppets is present. The lead female character, Sloan

Hopkins, is played by Jada Pinkett Smith. She comes across as being under

Pierre Delacroix, or his puppet, from her first appearance in the film. The opening scene of the movie emphasizes this as he is yelling at her for not informing him of a staff meeting. Sloan continually apologizes but, not knowing about the meeting, has no reason to do so. Regardless of this fact, she is put down and silenced by Delacroix. He dismisses everything she says and acts as the voice of authority with no consideration of the actual circumstances. She is merely his puppet who has failed. When Delacroix comes up with the “Mantan

Show” idea, Sloan feels strongly against it. However, she is the one who has to research and come up with historical portfolios for the show. She tries to

educat...