Spike Lee’s Views about African American Identity in Bamboozled

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In Bamboozled (2000) Spike Lee examines the way that mainstream America treats black people, as well as the way it makes them treat one another. The characters in this movie stand for different perceptions of the African American identity, representing different images of blackness. Some of the characters reestablish the negative stereotypes that already exist about black people, while others are seen as straying too far from the typical black experience, because they believe that the difficult black experience is something to be ashamed of. Lee discusses the beliefs and attitudes of the characters, but he never suggests that one of them is right, because the point he tries to make is about the way that the African American identity is perceived by different members of this community, meaning that a certain idea or attitude that might be a representation of racial pride for one person, can be seen as an acceptance of inferiority and buffoonery by another. Therefore, Lee condemns all characters (with the exception of the character of Sloan) by exposing their flaws and negative sides, and uses these characters to present his view of the African American identity and position. The main character of the movie is Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans), a black TV writer and Harvard graduate who identifies with whites more than blacks. Attempting to expose the racist attitude of the entertainment industry, Delacroix comes up with the idea of creating a modern minstrel show (Mantan: the New Millennium Minstrel Show), intending to get fired for ridiculing his boss’s demands. Delacroix is the type of person who, apart from trying to succeed in ‘a white man’s world’, he also tries to actually become a white man. Through this character, Lee repres... ... middle of paper ... ... Furthermore, with the shootout between the police and the Mau Maus in which all the black members of the group are quickly killed, except for the white guy, Lee sends e message to all those people proclaiming to understand the black identity better than black people, saying that no matter how strongly you might empathize with these people, you can never truly understand their experience. In addition to this, Lee condemns all those Delacroix- and Dunwitty-type characters who try to deny what they really are, suggesting that the biggest crime is to pretend to be something you are not, and trying to be more ‘other’ than the other. This film is so full of complex symbolic satire that it challenges every aspect of how black identity is construed on ‘the idiot box’ and stereotyped in reality, thus becoming one of the strongest satirical pieces ever created by Spike Lee.

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