GERMANY: SPIKE LEE RELEASES "BAMBOOZLED" AT BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL ABOUT THE PORTRAYAL OF AFRO-AMERICANS ON TV AND FILM

Record ID: 390943

  • Title: GERMANY: SPIKE LEE RELEASES "BAMBOOZLED" AT BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL ABOUT THE PORTRAYAL OF AFRO-AMERICANS ON TV AND FILM
  • Date: 13th February 2001
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 13, 2001 (REUTERS -ACCESS ALL) SCU (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) LEE SAYING " I can give you examples of films where you would think that there has been no progress at all. If you look at the black characters in the "Green Mile", "the Legend of Bagger Vance" ,"Family Man", -these are films that are being made today." (ON BEING ASKED ABOUT TELEVISION) "Tele
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2001 12:00
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  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA9KES0BYGTQ2KVLQDNBGGTCQRK
  • Story Text: Spike Lee`s latest film had audiences screaming with laughter and becoming silent with uneasiness and disgust at the Berlin Film Festival. "Bamboozled" is a powerful account of the past, present and future of TV and film according to Spike Lee.
    Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" tells of a black television executive who dreams up the most offensive TV show he can imagine, a revival of old-time black-faced minstrel shows, in a bid to get himself fired.
    The executive, played as a pretentious Harvard graduate with an affected accent by Damon Wayans, borrows all the racial stereotypes he can think of, setting the show in a Deep South watermelon patch manned by slow-witted blacks.
    What he never expected, was that the show became an instant success, hence posing the question whether film and television are simply "repackaging" old stereotypes.
    "I want to say this straight to the camera. Spike Lee is not saying that there has not been any change for the better in film and television since the days of "Gone with the Wind"
    and whatever but what I will say is that we can`t get tricked because we can`t think that across the board we`ve arrived and I want to use your word "repackaging". What they`ve done is they`ve taken the black face off and they`ve dressed up these stereotypical roles from the past and maybe just put on some clothes, Prada or Gucci it`s still the same thing", says Lee.
    "Bamboozled" features scenes of the fictional minstrel show, andwith four minutes of cartoons and film clips of various performers, including Judy Garland, in black face.
    When Lee showed the clips to his cast, they were shocked.
    "I tell you a story. We had 2 week rehearsal periods and a lot of that time was spent looking at those clips because even much more than myself, a lot of my cast members had never seen none of this stuff...never... They had the same response, I mean their mouths went like...(open). They couldn`t believe it. The best was when I showed them the Bugs Bunny with black face. They were like oh no it can`t be. Not Bugs Bunny, but yes, Bugs Bunny."
    Lee, who shot the film in digital video to cut costs, said that that the offensive black-face images and other stereotypes he shows are still being repackaged in today's American film and television. He says most people take their ideas about black people from popular sitcoms like The Jeffersons.
    "When I grew up I watched The Jeffersons, The Good Times...Also, when we showed those clips in the film we were not making a judgement on those shows. They were just used as a reference because those white writers who were cowriting the show how they knew black people, they ain`t had any black friends and they didn`t grow up with black people so all they knew about black people was from The Jeffersons...and you know shows like that."
    Spike Lee argued his point at the Berlin press conference, suggesting that there was no decent black TV show on American television or big screen.
    "There are a lot of remnants of those images still today in the film and the television industries," he said, citing the portrayal of black characters in recent movies such as "The Green Mile" and "The Legend of Bagger Vance."
    "Bamboozled" has been out in America since October and is hitting European screens this spring and summer.
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