>The "Black people killing black people" movie genre of the
>'90s.
>The reason Spike Lee's U.S. box office didn't grow with each
>of his films - he was competing against this.

Or maybe Spike's movies of the 1990s were just not as good?

I remember when Malcolm X came out, I got the sense that Spike was peaking and it worried me... I hoped it would not be the case. But look at what he followed up with:

Crooklyn was wild uneven.
Girl 6 was a disaster (even though I kinda liked it)
Clockers (Spike's attempt to simultaneously essay and lambast the BPKBP genre) was too stilted and didactic.

I think the problem Spike faced was not so much as the competition from another genre, but competition from a market full of black films, period.

Spike was basically allowed to rule the late 80s and early 90s because he was essentially the only game in town (or rather, the great white shark in a pond full of goldfish like Charles Lane, Charles Burnett, James Bond III, etc.)

Most of Spike's films were viewed as problematic as any number of reasons but he was allowed to pass because really, what other options were there?

Once you had a surfeit of black filmmakers out there, Spike had to find a way to tighten his game... and I don't think he did. Instead, he seemed to grow resentful of the audience for not paying him unconditional loyalty.

>One part empowering ("We're making a movie!") to two parts
>shameful ("And we do what?"), most of this genre is a
>disgrace. Proving the lessons of the '70s blaxploitation era
>were only partly understood. Was it good for growth? A
>cinematic version of "crawl before you can walk"? A necessary
>step before going on to make better (in quality and
>responsibility) films?

I think you need to view it as a reflection of the times. The LA riots had cast a light on the west coast gang scene... hip-hop music had gone "that way," too... we had the hysteria about metal detectors being installed in high schools... there was a general fascination with the reality of black-on-black violence after a decade in which the primary media avatar of the Black community was The Huxtables.

It just seemed like something fresh and new.

>Well, if you think so, take a moment to look at the leaps and
>bounds of that genre's "stars."
>...Yeah. Didn't exactly change the game, did they?
>Pick five good "BPKBP" films and you're hard pressed to find
>anyone whose career has advanced. Wesley Snipes went from
>playing a mobster to going to jail like one. 2Pac went out
>like a real life Bishop. Ice-T went from playing a cop to
>playing a boring one.

This is unfair.

Wesley Snipes DID rise pretty high... unfortunately, some problems in his personal life have grounded him but you can't take away his accomplishments in the field. And you don't know what he's going to do later, either. Imagine if you had summed up Robert Downey Jr's life in the same way in 1996.

Let's look at some people from the BPKBP genre whose career advanced:

Ice-T (boring, yes... but he is a working and essentially respectable mainstream actor)
Ice Cube
Nia Long
Jada Pinkett
Cuba Gooding Jr. (yeah, he's stalling now, but he won a Oscar! IT COUNT!)
2Pac (YES! Both his acting AND musical careers advanced as a result of Juice)
Regina King
Larry Gilliard Jr.
Omar Epps
Hassan Johnson
Sticky Fingaz
Fredro Starr
Larenz Tate
Forest Whitaker (director)
Ernest Dickerson (director)

and there are more, of course.


>Now you're left with an audience and movie makers who are not
>just sick of only seeing these kinds of movies, but have
>little interest in any other kind of movie. No one's saying
>every movie has to be some great uplifting cinematic
>exaltation of joy. But does every movie starring/"for" black
>folks have to feature such levels of violence? It shouldn't
>come as a surprise that movies like PRECIOUS and HUSTLE & FLOW
>were successful - they're direct descendants of that '90s
>genre.

Is Hustle & Flow more violent than the average "white" drama of its kind?

It's been a long time since we had really violent black movies, I think... After Friday, broad comedy replaced violence as the defining feature of the "hood movie."