Bamboozled

We watched the Spike Lee film Bamboozled. I have never been completely on board with his politics, but I think that he is usually great at providing provocative films. They usually are interesting enough to at least justify reexamining your own perspective. With this as my perspective, I think this film is an utter failure. It almost adds up to being a spoof of a Spike Lee film.

Lee's perspective seems to be that we live in a society so racist that mainstream America would gladly embrace a blatantly racist television show. I find that hard to believe. I clearly believe that there are still racists in America today. I might even believe that there is enough racism to accept racism subtexts in our entertainment, but I am can't imagine the movies reality intersecting with ours.

Even though it is a point that is included in the movie itself, I think that it is sad that Lee would want to make a movie which encourages racial stereotyping. Only his own ethnicity allows him to do so without being denounced as a racist himself.

On my scale of 1-100, I give it a 50. The rating is this high only because of the quality of the acting and the thought that the mileage you get out of the message may be different from mine.

For a complete list of my ratings go to Mike's Movie Ratings .