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.
