A review of Spike Lee's "Bamboozled"

Essay by NoTTiNzZzJunior High, 9th gradeA+, February 2006

download word file, 2 pages 3.0

Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" was a tremendously good movie to show that our society really hasn't improved all that much in depicting African Americans on the same level as whites. In the beginning of the movie, Delacroix was under a lot of pressure to produce a new hit TV show. At first, he wanted to do some shows that were soft, feel good, happy shows but that only led him to being criticized by his white boss, Dunwitty. Delacroix then came up with the idea of creating a ridiculous controversial modern day minstrel show that he thought nobody would accept because it was so outrageous. He wanted to prove a point that blacks have came a long way and society would not accept this kind of blue humor, but in the end he was wrong. The show was a huge hit because of all this controversy.

Spike Lee is trying to show people that a lot of African Americans in power, like rappers, actors, directors, etc.

are only encouraging the notion of the stereotypical black person. Spike Lee shows this through the ads that he puts in throughout the movie like the gangster rap, the 40oz beers, and the Tommy Hillnigger. Black people know deep down inside that these things are only hurting their images, but they do it anyway because of the money. Even when Delacroix thought he knew what he was doing, he still got mixed up in all the confusion that he lost sight of what his goal originally was. Money and ratings were pouring in and that was way more important to him than his motivation for creating this show. Although at the end of the movie, where the gangster rappers kill Mantan because they disapprove of him degrading blacks, they fail to realize...