Bamboozled: Black People and White Man Essay

In 2000, Spike lee(pre noneinal) wrote and enjoin the film Bamboozled. When discussing his satirical film, Spike Lee claimed, I want multitude to think about the power of characterizations, not just in price of race, solely how imagery is used and what sort of social impact it has how it influences how we talk, how we think, how we emplacement one another. . . how film and television have historically. . . produced and perpetuated distorted images. Spike Lee certainly conveyed this message in Bamboozled. Images atomic number 18 powerful and carry broad social impact. They should never be misrepresented.Are all Afri roll in the hay Americans all lazy or dim-witted or talented servants, always situate and willing to please the White Man? The short answer is, no. However, throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, many commonwealth believed this. The ultimate question is, wherefore? As explained in the film Ethnic Notions, this false comprehension grew and grew, all the same past the duration of slavery, due to images. Derogatory images of African Americans as happy servants or savages, were everywhere they were published in childrens books and slapped on cans of viands to be used as a marketing tool.People bought into this sensing of African Americans, as they became acclimatized to it. Today, our society likes to believe that times have changed and at that place is no longer an issue of race or false perception of African Americans in the media. However, Spike Lee argues, A parvenue phenomenon has emerged in film in recent years, in which an African-American character is imbued with special powers, filmmaker Spike Lee told a student audience ? This new image is just a reincarnation of the same old separate or caricature of African Americans ?Lee cited four recent films in which there is a magical, mystical Negro character ? in The fabrication of Bagger Vance, a pitch-dark man with all these powers, teaches a green white male ? how to golf l ike a champion ? How is it that blacken nation have these powers but they use them for the benefit of white people? Spike Lee seems to be under the impression that African Americans ar still misrepresented in the media. They have only improved their susceptibility to mask the fact. False image is still there, but it is subtle. His film Bamboozled ripped viewing audience eyes wide open.The film explored and demonstrated two images of African Americans. The offshoot image, is the Black Man who is just like the White Man or the Asian Man or the Middle-Eastern Man a man who can be rich and successful like Pierre Delacroix in Bamboozled a man who can be poor and when without money will do almost anything for it like Manray and Womack. However, when Pierre Delacroix pitched television collections about a Black Man living in an upper-middle-class white, suburban neighborhood, his superior, doubting Thomas Dunwitty turned them down, they definitely dont want to see reward black peo ple on television. However, the network would allow Pierre Delacroix to create a show which blatantly degrades African Americans a show which goes back to the 1900s, to the time of black face and minstrel shows a time when black people were considered subhuman. This is where Spike Lee demonstrates the other image of the African American an image that the media has gently forced down viewers throats. Spike Lee, however, did not do so gently. The fictional television show in Bamboozled, Mantans New Millennium Minstrel Show, starred African Americans in black face acting like buffoons.It might as good have been an authentic minstrel show in the 1900s. There was leap and singing. The two main characters hid from the White Man in a volaille coup, saying aint nobody in here but us chickens 4 The creator, Pierre Delacroixs initial intention with this show was not to degrade his own race. It was to break the stereotypes. 5 He calculate the nation would be shocked and outraged Instead they ate it up. The studio audience dressed in black face.Children trick-or-treated in black face. It was the current craze of the nation. Black face is an act which digs back to a time of slavery, a time where African Americans were considered inferior. It was now socially grateful to publicly highlight a moment in history that hurt African Americans. People figured its on TV, its OK The black man was degraded, as he has always been, but in Bamboozled no mercy was spared. Spike Lee used the film in a variety of ways.He attacked todays media and the way in which it portrays African Americans. He explored the wide scope of African Americans lives, which is no different than the lives of any other race. He demonstrated the consequences of voracity and sacrificing ones dignity. Furthermore, he exposed society for what it really is mindless. The legal age of a population does not question the media. Instead it swallows images whole, even if those images are as false and misleading as a painted black face.