MovieChat Forums > Bamboozled (2000) Discussion > So awful for so many reasons

So awful for so many reasons

posted 15 years ago by Rupert__Pupkin
16 replies | jump to latest

I gave this movie a 2/10 only because I find the history of minstrel shows both fascinating and tragic. However, Spike Lee's execution of this idea was horrendous. The movie was so bad I started taking notes half way through it and came up with 21 reasons why this movie is embarrassingly bad.

1) The rationale for creating a minstrel TV show was silly and convoluted. It's obvious that Spike Lee had an idea for a movie, but had a hard time coming up with a rationale for why someone would make a TV show in the tradition of minstrel shows. According to the movie, Pierre said that he wanted to make the point that the TV executives only wanted blacks on TV if they were portrayed as buffoons. So he was going to to make the ultimate buffoon show, and show the executives how wrong they were. Talk about a stupid idea. Right off the bat, the premise for the movie is absurd.

2) I know it's been mentioned, but Wayans' accent was cartoonish. His accent was completely made up and does not reflect any group of people in any geographic region in the United States. It sounded like a leftover accent from "In Living Color."

3) Let me get this straight. The network agreed to hire two homeless guys with no acting experience to be the leading characters in their new prime time show. Riiiiiiiiight.

4) One of the homeless guys tap danced. What did the other guy do, other than collect the money? What made him qualified to star in a TV show? But of course both homeless guys end up being terrific performers. Riiiiiiight.

5) Michael Rapaport as the executive. His character was so 1-dimensional and silly. He was overtly offensive and racist. That would not fly at a NYC TV station.

6) The racist portrayal of white people in general was over the top. You have the room of all white executives (not one black, latino, asian, etc.). And of course the whites are all chiming in about why it's fair that no blacks write for the station. And they all agree that blacks must not want the jobs and they wouldn't work for the pay. Then you have the guy from Iowa talking about Weezy from The Jeffersons, and the other whites cite their favorite racist TV shows from the past. Then Pierre gets the whole room riled up by mentioning the O.J. verdict, as if all white people were outraged by the O.J. case. Give me a break. Then you have all the whites at the taping of the pilot that want to laugh at the show, but are afraid to. Then they see the black people laughing and then decide it's okay. Has Spike Lee ever met a white person?

7) The movie was so predictable. You knew that Sloan's brother was going to kill someone at the end. Her brother kept coming into the movie but had no clear purpose. It was obvious that he was going to kill either Pierre or the actors. I knew 30 minutes into the movie that he was going to kill someone. Predictability equals boring.

8) The TV show should never have been made. Pierre said that he wanted to prove to the executives that their portrayal of blacks was offensive by creating the most offensive show ever. When the executive liked Pierre's pitch, the idea should've ended there. The executive called Pierre's bluff and liked the show idea. Pierre's half-brained idea was a failure. So he decided to take it even further? Preposterous.

9) There were no serious actors in this film: Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, and Michael Rapaport? Hardly Denzel Washington, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Spike Lee has used serious actors in the past. It was obvious that no big names would star in this offensive turd. If you're relying on the Damon Wayans name to carry your movie, you're in trouble.

10) This might be my biggest point. The TV show they created was boring. No one would tune in to watch a guy tap dance for 30 minutes. The show was interesting as a novelty piece, but no one would watch it more than once. It wasn't funny. The humor used was over the top silly and extremely outdated. This show would have no repeat viewers.

11) Maybe you could get some homeless black guys to star in this kind of show, but I can't imagine black actors and performers accepting this kind of work. Suggesting that black people would demean themselves in such a way for a paycheck is offensive.

12) The executives at CNS agreed to make 12 episodes without even seeing the pilot, simply because they were so blown away by a single scene they saw. Riiiiiiiiight.

13) I get that Pierre created the show to make a point. The premise is absurd, but I get the general idea. But about half way through the movie, he seems to love the idea of his own show. He even shucks and jives at an awards show. Ridiculous.

14) The Timmy Hillni.g.g.er ad. Another one of Spike Lee's 1-dimensional portrayal of the nerdiest whitest man ever to walk the face of the Earth. Yawn.

15) I just don't buy the notion that American society would accept this kind of show. Yes, I know that racism still exists. I live in the South, and I encounter it from time to time. It's ugly, but it's there. I'm not saying that racism is dead. But that's a lot different than white people filling a studio audience every night with their faces painted black and shouting the N word repeatedly. Again, this premise is so unbelievable that I couldn't buy into the rest of the movie. Think about it this way: If a TV minstrel show would be even remotely successful (i.e. if it could make money), it would have been done by now. The fact remains that no corporation would want it's name attached to that offensive of a show. With no ad revenue, there's no show. End of story.

16) What was with Pierre's office and Mantan's home being filled with every piece of minstrel show paraphernalia known to man? Mantan was ashamed of what he was doing (as evidenced by his tears when he put on his makeup), but then he filled his home with blackface artifacts? Riiiiiight. And Pierre created the show as a sick joke to make a point, but then allowed his office to be decorated with the offensive artifacts that represent his joke? Riiiiiiight.

17) The side story of the developing love between Mantan and Sloan was ridiculous. She was a college-educated professional woman that was romantically interested in a homeless man that looked to have been illiterate. Riiiiiight. And he was willing to throw the relationship away because she wasn't a virgin. Riiiiiight.

18) The scene at the end where the group of black guys all get shot by the cops. What a ridiculous scene. I'm sure Spike Lee was doing his best to show how racist cops are, and how they shoot at black people for fun. According to the scene, a group of cops drive up and shoot a bunch of black people, who are not even brandishing weapons. Riiiiight. Police of course have shot people mistakenly, but this scene was too silly. There wasn't even an attempt to communicate with them or arrest them. There was no attempt to have the potential perps drop their weapons, etc. The cops just drove up and started shooting. Because that's how it works in the real world. Riiiiiiight.

But wait, they didn't kill the sole white guy. In the midst of a dozen cops shooting at random people in the darkness, they managed to kill every black person, but no one shot the white guy, even on accident. Riiiiight. This was another stupid plot device used by Spike Lee to push his ridiculous farce forward.

19) In the final scene, Pierre is wearing blackface. Hey, why not? That makes so much sense.

20) And Sloan shoots Pierre to death at the end. Riiiiiight. This fits her personality so well.

21) A sign of terrible writing is when the writer changes the personality of the characters to move the plot forward. In this movie, we saw everyone completely change. Pierre went from a kind and thoughtful man to a malicious, driven, selfish TV producer. Sloan went from a young, intellectual, ambitious assistant with a soft heart to a gun slinging murderer. Mantan went from a lovable homeless man without much brains to an arrogant dictatorial leading man with no concern for others. And on and on.

I'm sure fans of this movie will take issue with some of my points. But surely you can't defend all 21 accusations.

This movie was an excuse for Spike Lee to bring the old minstrel shows to the public's attention. His awful writing and cheap plot devices did not serve him well in that goal.

[–] PatchworkPoltergeist 15 years ago

With the exception of numbers 19, 17, 16, 9, and 7 almost every complaint you listed was more than likely there on purpose. There are two things to remember with this movie: this is a satire and this is a Spike Lee movie. Both tend to have a reputation for being more than a little heavy handed, so both together puts it over the top. That's mainly why everything is so over the top and rediculous and unrealistic. (I think that's also why the filming of the show and the actual events of the movie are shot with different cameras)

Reason 7: I actually more saw this as foreshadowing than predictability, myself.

Reason 9: I don't see how that makes it a bad movies. They weren't A-list actors, but they certainly aren't bad actors. Besides, olenty of good actors are cast in turds of movies all the time, so I fail to see much a point here.

Reason 16: Symbolism, mostly. He gets just one black face figure, and it snowballs into hundreds that he doesn't have any control over because he's lost control over the situation. Plus, the image of a wall of blackface is unsettling, and accusitory of the path Pierre has taken. It's best summed up in the Jolly *beep* Bank moving by itself. (Also, there's half a chance that all of that paraphenalia was imagined or something, since due to the aforementioned bank incident Pierre's possibly not in his right mind, and nobody else seems to notice the figures.)

Reason 17: While I admit that the relationship is kind of rushed and a tad contrite, your reasoning seems off. It's not implausable for people of different educational backgrounds to be attracted to each other, you know. And Manray didn't seem illiterate to me at all, he seemed average as far as smarts go. If anything, he's naiive.
Also,Manray did not break up with her not because she wasn't a virgin, but because she had sex with Pierre, implying that she only had sex with him to get a higher position. Manray was worried that her relationship with him was more of the same.

Reason 19: A combonation of reasoning behind number 16 and a nervous breakdown. (Or I thought it was a nervous breakdown, I don't really know). It seems to be a case of ultimately becoming what you sought to destroy, becoming the mask, etc.

Also, Reason 18 was based on an actual event in which the police gunned down a group of blacks, but left the sole white guy standing.

_
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it - Mark Twain

[–] desifir667 15 years ago

very good movie

[–] St_Anus 15 years ago

Pierre wearing blackface is obviously meant to be symbolic of the fact that he sold himself, and the black community, out, and is now therefore part of the problem, part of the machine. And the same goes for the paraphernalia IMO. They have become what they most despised.

If the characters changed, it's because success changed them, and often with success, morals and ideals eventually become compromised, or go out the door. i see no real 'flaw' here at all. Maybe the change was too abrupt, i'm not sure, haven't seen the film in a while.

[–] bj_arni 13 years ago

"Manray didn't seem illiterate"
He says in the movie that reading hurts his eyes. The movie hinted that he was probably dyslexic.

Also, it was Sloan that brought the Jolly *beep* bank to Delacroix - so it could have been totally possible that she was the one that slowly filled his and Manray's homes and offices with the trinkets from the past.
I took it to see time passing, like Sloan gives them another reminder every time they cross the line.

"Don't look down on yourself, just because other people do."
youtube.com/morbidchid

[–] samashley 15 years ago

The fact that you watched the movie with such diligence to actually go and take notes and then write a huge response on a message board is a testament to how great the movie is.

[–] Rupert__Pupkin 15 years ago

What a silly statement.

The reason I took notes is because I wanted to dispel any notion that this movie is an intelligent work of art. People talk about "Bamboozled" as if it's the most relevant and powerful statement regarding race relations since Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. A movie this poorly understood needs to be addressed in a serious manner. And that by no means makes it a great movie.

People have written hundreds of books about the Confederate States of America. Given all of the research and work that went into these books, would you also assume that the Confederacy was a great cause?

[–] St_Anus 15 years ago

you make some good points but overall you missed the element of irony and satire and took it far too literally.

[–] Rupert__Pupkin 15 years ago

You might be right, but the elements of irony and satire too closely resembled cheap plot devices and bad writing.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Rupert__Pupkin 13 years ago

I am calm. I just don't like crap. Sorry.

[–] Gong5 15 years ago

grating, formulaic and incredibly stupid. what an abomination...

[–] leon4tlc 15 years ago

I couldn't agree more...

[–] yoyodamoose3 15 years ago

good directiong bad idea and bad script

[–] Michael Dorsey 15 years ago

This film was a masterpiece, just a tad below Do The Right Thing and 25th Hour in Lee's filmography. It is complete satire and you seem to have missed that based on your critique. Lee is making on a statement on modern depictions of African-Americans in pop culture. Comparing it to a minstrel show is not a Johnathan Swift-like jump. I haven't seen the movie in years, but it stuck with me as much as any I've seen.

Wallace: "It's YOU!"
(Spoken to Feathers McGraw after he removes the red glove disguise.)

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] putrescent_stench 12 years ago

As others have already pointed out, most of your points are based on thinking about this too literally. It's like saying that Gulliver's Travels is absurd because the things in it couldn't happen.

It may not have been funny, enjoyable, or meaningful to you, but it could be your perspective more than flaws with the film.

"The TV show they created was boring."

Again, this will be a matter of perspective. Most TV shows ARE boring and insipid, and while Mantan is a caricature, it's spot-on as far as I'm concerned about 95% of prime-time TV. By making it so ridiculous and nonsensical, Lee was trying to make a point, not just about racism, but on the nature of popular entertainment. He's even saying it's hard not to like it. Remember the Mau Mau guy who starts laughing when they watch an episode of Mantan?

But if you don't have a cynical or at least highly critical view of mainstream society, I could see how the film would look racist at worst, badly written and heavy-handed at best.