After seeing Spike Lee on Howard's campus at the First Annual "Black Face" Awards, we started talking on the differnces between the movie Malcolm X and Bamboozled.

When asked his favorite movies that he'd done Spike replied Bambooozled and Crooklyn and Summer of Sam. Also when talking about blacks' position in the media, he said we need to be more in control of the "behind the scene" positions and not the "dancers,singers,comedians etc. "Lord knows we have enough rappers," he said. He also commented on the "cooning" done in modern cinema and tv. *side note* i almost cried when he mentioned the coonery done in Double Take, because this was the trailer i saw when Bamboozled was coming on, and i was like, WTF!!! don't they know what movie is about to come on? plus there were white people beside me laughing at that shit and i know how images in the media impact the watchers.

ANYWAYS... from this i came to the conclusion(based on Spike's responses and what i got out of the movies) that Spike's Bamboozled was more revolutionar in scope than malcolm X was intended to be. It seemed from speaking with him and watching his movies progress that he was getting wiser and tired of the same shit happening and getting recycled. the stroy /characters in Malcolm X (with creative liscence) were fictionalized or combined to make a historical event more "popular/entertaining", almost as if he were playing to the emotions of the masses of black people who needed a "taste" of something conscious. We all saw the X caps that followed. my queen said that, it was necessary to waterdown or "fictionalize" the events because the autobiography was so long, but i didn't buy it. When telling a story based on true events, why cater to the whims of the public?, UNLESS, of course, it is intended to get a certain response from them? i.e. get the masses to wake up. To me there is no excuse for distorting history like that. And because she's in the field, she was defending it. Only in america could te distortion of truth become so easily accepted "to sell tickets." to give it a term like "creative license" is pitiful to me. *in her defense, she mentioned her reasons for not gravitating towards the journalistic field, were because the words printed would be those of the editor, not her.*

Bamboozled on the other hand was meant to directly confront the fakers/selouts/bootlickers/black westerners/ whatever! One reason why i don't think it did well. ruffled too many feathers. Spike, at the awards ceremony, said it was because of the promoting. but after talking to some black southerners hear, they'd like to see the movie banned. The concept of the MauMau and the ending were on some drop squad/handle your own problems tip to me. Much like how internal threats to villiages in the carribean are being handled by the community instead of letting the police force regulate the well-being of said community. Spike's perspective, as he said, "has changed drastically" towards the "industry" and "gatekeepers" of the media, to the point where i feel he was giving a big FINGER to those bootlickers and people he must certainly confront on the daily.


(((((PEACE)))))