Retro Review by Will Carr
Many filmmakers spent the year 2000 celebrating the achievements of cinema’s first century, but Spike Lee decided to tackle its failures. Bamboozled, Lee’s fourteenth feature film, is a direct criticism of how Black people and people of color have been consistently degraded and relegated to the sidelines from the beginning.
He tells this story through the rise and fall of Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans), a high-level TV executive at the fictional CNS network. Disillusioned by his inability to put dignified Black people on television and under constant pressure from his white boss, Mr. Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport), to bring him something “hip,” Pierre devises a plan. In an attempt to weasel out of his contract by getting himself fired, Pierre and his assistant, Sloan (Jada Pinkett Smith), decide to create the most offensive show possible. They recruit two street performers—Manray (Savion Glover) and Womack (Tommy Davidson)—for the lead roles and successfully pitch their show: The New Millennium Minstrel Show. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a not-so-fresh take on the 19th century variety show that features Black actors in blackface as they perform skits, dance routines, and musical numbers depicting antiquated racial stereotypes. Something this blatantly offensive is sure to get Pierre canned. Sadly, the show is not the racist flop he had hoped for; it is instead a runaway commercial and critical success.
At first glance, Bamboozled might appear as a simple commentary on the presence of white actors in non-white roles, but its messaging is much more complex. Lee’s frustration is directed less at individuals who take roles, and more at institutions who assign them. The film understands that from day one, the film industry stacked the deck to make success harder to come by for non-white actors. While it would be easy to solely blame Scarlett Johansson and Johnny Depp for taking the roles of non-white characters in Ghost in the Shell and The Lone Ranger, Lee focuses on the institutions that empowered white actors to steal these roles in the first place. One of the ways he does this is through his depiction of CNS.
Pierre is the only Black executive at CNS. When pressure comes from the network to produce a show with a more “urban” flair, responsibility to do so falls onto Pierre’s shoulders. This is not because of any show he has spearheaded in his past, but simply because he is Black. His pleas to make shows that appeal to middle class Black audiences go unheard, as all his bosses want are shows that feed into their warped perception of African-American culture and prey on easy to manipulate stereotypes.
Mr. Dunwitty is one of the most frighteningly racist characters Spike Lee has ever written. Dunwitty would say that he can’t be racist because he’s married to a Black woman and has two biracial children; he might also follow that up by saying the n-word a few dozen times. What makes Dunwitty all the scarier is the power that he has over what CNS produces. He greenlights The New Millennium Minstrel Show. He assigns the show an all-white writing staff and a Swedish director. The criticism is obvious: it does not matter what the creator’s intention is when executives are doing all the gatekeeping. It is not enough to put Black actors on screen or hire Black directors when the executives hold all the cards. They have final cut, they control casting, and they manage the marketing that hooks viewers. If things are really going to change in entertainment, the focus cannot be just on putting actors of color on and behind the camera; there must also be a focus on getting them into board meetings – and ultimately changing the structure of the institution itself.
Lee does not just target studio executives; he also aims to skewer media consumers. Bamboozled is as blisteringly funny as it is painfully uncomfortable. The scene in which Pierre is auditioning acts for the show is the perfect encapsulation of this dichotomy. Are we supposed to laugh at the man singing about “smacking his hoes”? Do we laugh at the comedian who misquotes Shakespeare? Do we laugh at the rap group that jumps off stage and begins performing inches from Pierre? As the scene goes on, the viewer is forced to question why they have laughed. It forces the audience to question their own expectations and reevaluate what they think of comedy.
The film ends with a montage that traces the history of misrepresentation of Black people in entertainment. The three minute segment features clips from throughout film history, and pulls from racist animation, white actors performing blackface, and Black actors forced to play humiliating caricatures. Anchored by Terence Blanchard’s gentle, mournful score, the short montage is among the most difficult things to watch in the film. The viewer is bombarded with offensive image after offensive image, but they can’t look away – Lee does not want them to. The montage is not a call to forget these images or shame white viewers, but to remind them why they are so harmful. Bamboozled is not about blackface being a problem in modern media; it is about Hollywood being set-up from day one to disadvantage people of color. It is a cry for people to hold entertainment to a higher standard than they do.
Related: Cinematary reviews of Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and She’s Gotta Have It