Yall made me post on my vacation. I'm type mad, god.


Let Orbit 'splain the 'She Hate Me' hate:

You see, the problem with 'SHM' lays in an awkward double standard we all carry in regards to black directors and black films.

You see, we tend not to like when black filmmakers go "outside the box" and create work that is out of the norm, unconventional, or obtuse.

This is retarded because we routinely pardon, if not outright laud, similar work from white filmakers, all the time.

That is why Spike Lee's most respected works, all fabulous films, are all films that hit their issues SQUARELY on the nose -- 'Do The Right Thing', 'Malcom X' and a host of others. Spike Lee started to suffer with the critics the second his films started to push the envelope, the second he tried to experiment a little bit, which is a natural progression for any artist.

Among his most inconsistently and poorly reviewed films are:

'Get on the Bus' -- A film that is a metaphor for black manhood, where every instrument and individual is symbollic in some fashion. This was relatively unprecedented for black filmmakers and especially for Spike Lee, and so critics pasted it. This is despite the fact that the film is well...fucking brilliant.

'Summer of Sam' - In my top 5 Spike Lee joints ever. Absolutely brilliant. Problem was, white people and their black friends don't like the idea of Spike Lee, Mr."Race movie director" actually directing a movie where race is not the centerpiece of the film....it bugged them.

Hating ass negroes pasted 'Summer of Sam' with:

"who he think he is"

"stick to what you do best"

"What the hell is Spike doing trying to direct horror?"

And others in this brand of lame-o criticisms, criticisms that are completely unfair, given that no one says anything similar when Spielberg makes his periodic piles of shit(see:Minority Report, AI, The Flinstones...many others).

When Spielberg and company make bad films...we simply say:
"Steven, you made a bad film."

When Spike makes a film that we don't like, not only do we say:
"Spike, you made a bad film"

We say:
"Spike...what are you trying to do?....Spike has lost it....."

This explains the 'Bamboozled' debacle.

Though 'Bamboozled' attacked its race issues head on, it did so in a decidely unconvential matter...awkward plot, awkward development and storyline. I dug it, thought it was cool and profound in its own way.

White people, their friends, and toms said:

"who does Spike think he is?"

"That was too offbeat for me"


This again, despite the fact that we not only pardon, but outright laud and dickride Jim Jaramusch, Richard Linklater(who I like), Quentin Tarantino, the cat who directs those trainwreck bad movies that all y'all love like 'Happiness' and 'Palindromes(both of those movies fucking suck, thank you very much). '

Take Jaramusch and a film like...'Ghost Dog'. I thought it was dope. Its sort of cultish. Lots of people, many of them white, dug it. Problem is, if Spike Lee directed 'Ghost Dog', put out the exact same film, the same people who liked it would say:

"What was Spike's point?"

"What was Spike trying to do?"

"Spike over-stepped his boundaries with this one"


Let *ANY* black filmmaker make a film like...say...'Life Aquatic'. We'd bitch and moan about how the film was too offbeat and esoteric.


Let the Hughes Brothers have done 'A History of Violence'....it would have gotten none of the praise. It would been called, at best a "brave, but misguided attempt by the Hughes Brothers" instead of a film generating Oscar buzz(strange because it fucking sucks and was really weird, in a non cool way).


This is what 'She Hate Me' suffers from. The wrong filmmaker made it.

Hell, take a film like....'Black and White'. You remember...film "about" race...had a wild cast...Brooke Shields, Robert Downey Jr, Mike Tyson, Raekwon, Claudia Shiffer, Ben Stiller...mad people.

Remember that?

Directed by a white director(I 4get his name, but who cares). Had all sorts of sexually lurid scenes with a scattered, uncoventional sequence of events. Very racy.

My problem with 'Black and White' was that well...it really wasn't very good.

I saw it back in like 2000 when it came out at the insistence of several reviews I read that lauded it for being "radiant" and "brave" and "profound" and all sorts of dumb shit like that.

I saw it, and saw a bad Spike Lee ripoff, that had shock scenes in it just for the sake of generating shock value, not for the sake of truly communicating anything honestly interesting or telling about race.

I see 'She Hate Me' as at least as good, if not far, far, far, far, far, far, better than 'Black and White'. 'Black and White' was universally praised. 'She Hate Me' is universally shat on.

The race of the directors is the only difference.

'She Hate Me' is unconventional. 'SHM' is obtuse. 'SHM' is different. Not standard. unusual plotline. Ridden with social commentaries and messages. Sexaully suggestive.

And I dug the hell out of it, along with 3 or 4 other people on earth.


I don't quite see a solution to the problem I'm pointing out, as long as white people don't like black people. As long as those white people have a following of black people who tries to act like them(like a lot of negro film critics, and guys with Okayplayer.com accounts), this will continue.

Its a damn shame really, because black fillmakers and writers should be able to be different and obtuse just like white filmmakers. I fear they'll never get the chance.

Mang.


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O_E: Your Super-Ego's Favorite Poster.

"Any fighter that I face, I say prayers for them every night and that he and I live to fight another day."

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