“Bamboozled” (2000) is a Spike Lee film starring Damon Wayans as Pierre Delacroix who creates a minstrel show for television. The show is supposed to shock America out of its racism. Instead it becomes wildly successful, making America more openly racist. Jada Pinkett-Smith, Mos Def and The Roots also appear.
Delacroix is a black man who works for a white television network, coming up with ideas for new shows. He needs a hit. After years of creating serious shows about the black middle-class that are never given a chance, he comes up with a satire: “Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show“.
It features black performers in blackface playing happy slaves with huge smiles who sing and dance. The show’s lead characters, Mantan (Savion Glover) and Sleep’n Eat (Tommy Davidson), are shiftless and dullwitted, played to stereotype for laughs. The house band (played by The Roots) is called the Alabama Porch Monkeys.
This sort of thing was pushed off of radio and television by the NAACP back in the 1950s. Delacroix expects shock and protest. He gets a bit of that from blacks but not enough to matter compared to the wild success it enjoys among most whites and some blacks.
White unease quickly disappears when it turns out that (some) blacks like the show and that the show’s creator, Delacroix, is himself black. How can it be racist? In time the show’s studio audience appears in blackface too, proudly calling themselves “niggas”. “Niggas is a beautiful thing” goes the catchphrase.
For Delacroix and Mantan success goes to their heads. The whole bit about the show being a satire on racism is quickly forgotten. For others, like Tommy Davidson’s character as well as Delacroix’s assistant Sloan (Jada Pinkett-Smith), the show’s merciless racism becomes too much and they quit.
We get a bit of background on Delacroix: his father, Junebug (Paul Mooney), is a small-time stand-up comedian who plays black night clubs. He had the talent to make it big in Hollywood but never did because he did not want to say the things that Hollywood wanted him to say. He cared more about integrity than success. Besides, he had money enough to live on and a beautiful woman – what more did he need? Delacroix thinks he is a fool.
Junebug: “Everybody want to be black, but nobody want to be black.”
Sloan on Delacroix: “He’s not black; he’s a Negro.”
Delacroix puts personal success above all else. He becomes a sell-out who furthers racism. He does not see the error of his ways till the closing scene where he lays dying, quoting James Baldwin:
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.
“Bamboozled” was excellent till the last 20 minutes when it ends in a strange blood bath that almost comes out of nowhere.
See also:
I’ve only seen a few moments of this movie, but I’d like to see it in full one day. Movies that I’ve seen that were around the same premise were Hollywood Shuffle and Drop Squad.
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That montage of archive racist footage always brings tears to my eyes.
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There’s so much to comment on this film. I dunno where to begin.
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Very good film and not surprisingly came and went in US almost without a sound. Too much for the “mainstream audíences” I guess.
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I enjoyed Bamboozled. My husband and I quote from this movie often. Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show-kind of reminds me of TP’s House of Payne and Meet the Brown show that comes on right now, there are some striking similarities….smh…
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I fail to understand the popularity of Tyler Perry and other “minstrel-ocities”, personally…
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@ sepultura
I was thinking about that also.
In my mind the difference between the original minstrel shows and Tyler Perry is audience. Tyler Perry is black and his cultural product is intended for black consumption almost exclusively. Whereas minstrel shows were made by whites for whites. It’s one thing to laugh at yourself, and quite another thing when someone else is laughing at you, especially if that someone else is also an oppressive majority group who doesn’t see you as fully human. So I don’t see Tyler Perry as really comparable to Minstrel shows even though his work does often portray blacks in a similarly stereotypical way.
That said i did enjoy “She can do bad all by herself” and “Daddy’s little girls (flawed as it was) ” I don’t get the Medea stuff at all though.
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Check out the racism that passes for entertainment in Peru. It’s quite similar to the premise of the movie.
http://socialliaison.blogspot.com/2011/06/racism-that-passes-for-entertainment-in.html
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In my mind the difference between the original minstrel shows and Tyler Perry is audience. Tyler Perry is black and his cultural product is intended for black consumption almost exclusively. Whereas minstrel shows were made by whites for whites. It’s one thing to laugh at yourself, and quite another thing when someone else is laughing at you, especially if that someone else is also an oppressive majority group who doesn’t see you as fully human. So I don’t see Tyler Perry as really comparable to Minstrel shows even though his work does often portray blacks in a similarly stereotypical way.
Don’t defend Tyler Perry. It’s because of the popularity of Tyler’s movies that Hollywood refuse to invest in real projects. Why should Hollywood invest in real people instead of characters, when it’s proven that black americans prefer to see bamboozled garbage like Tyler Perry’s crap? I just finished watching that Medea’s family reunion and it’s disgusting.
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The reason why this movie went unnoticed is because of low production quality. It looks like a college movie.
Tyler Perry makes movies that look expensive.
I’ve seen college movies that looked better than this. I’m not taking about content at all, but rather the actual film. This looks like it was made with a $10k budget, not $10M.
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Spike Lee was limited by his budget to using off-the-shelf video cameras to shoot most of it.
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I think Bamboozled is one of Spike Lee’s best films. (I also loved Crooklyn, Do the Right Thing, Malcom X and School Daze.) Good review. And I agree about the ending. It was strange.
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“Why should Hollywood invest in real people instead of characters, when it’s proven that black americans prefer to see bamboozled garbage like Tyler Perry’s crap?”
good question. This sounds more like an indictment of black America than of Tyler Perry though.
Anybody seen this show?
http://www.hulu.com/watch/276772/in-the-flow-with-affion-crockett-no-rush?c=Comedy#s-p1-so-i0
It seems kind of like what we’re talking about in terms of taking it to extreme stereotype level for entertainment purposes.
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@ jas0nburns:
I’ve seen the previews for that Affion Crockett debacle and have no desire to see it. More of the same…”minstrel-ocities”. For that matter, most sitcoms in general are nothing but worn-out premises that have been re-hashed and re-used ad nauseum and ad infinitum – boring, boring, BORING!
I will never allow one of my books to be made into a movie unless I have sole control over the final product – I would hate to have my masterpieces destroyed by Hollywood inanity.
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@ Sepultura
Yeah It looks like they are trying to re-create the Chappelle show formula for success but without the talent/nuance. I don’t know how other people here feel but I think Chappelle was funny and able to pull of his racial humor without coming across in that crude, offensive way. For example this
Doesn’t seem to play the same way even though it’s hard to put my finger on why.
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You need to read my blog about stuff they love.
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I have been putting this off for so ling. It hurt too much to look at this. I really want to see this film. I saw Drop Squad I thought that was pretty good. Good Fences would fall into this catagory as well. I think I’m Going to watch this. Good Fences is more about self hate and the Rented Negroes meme.
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Forgive typos in above comments.*long*
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I do feel some kind of way when white people at work are talking about Tyler Perry. It’s one thing to laugh at yourself but when the oppressor of your people wants to be in on the joke it’s different. And that’s not a good feeling.
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