Bamboozled

We watched Bamboozled in our last class session this monday. In the film Spike Lee takes us on a psychedelic mind trip illustrating the complexities of Black-White interactions. Pierre Delacroix is a creative writer for a cable TV station managed by Dunwitty. Dunwitty is looking for material that will shock audiences to improve ratings. Delacroix initially comes with an idea for a show, Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show, where Blacks dress up in Black Face and satirise racism, but the audience appear to miss the point and the humour generated makes Delacroix and his show famous. Driven by greed for fame and fortune, he ignores the racist implications resulting in disastrous consequences.

The message the movie appears to be telling us is that almost all Black entertainment today is made to satisfy the White majority. The movie also directly implies that the mostly-White executives who control the Entertainment channels support Black entertainment mostly in a condescending manner, one that isn't that much different from Slave-era treatment of Blacks. These are all powerful statements to make and Spike Lee argues for their truth through this role-reversal story where economics, class, and race intermingle in a complex manner.

I recommend checking Bamboozled out if you have the patience for dialogue. It is a entertaining movie with some good messages in it. At first I was hesitant about whether or not I would like it, but in the end it turned out to be a pretty interesting film.