TV producer Pierre Delacroix becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a 21st century minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it becomes a smash hit.
Damon Wayans Savion Glover Jada Pinkett Smith Tommy Davidson Michael Rapaport Thomas Jefferson Byrd Paul Mooney Gillian White Susan Batson Yasiin Bey M.C. Serch Gano Grills Canibus DJ Scratch Charli Baltimore Craig muMs Grant Dormeshia Sumbry Tyheesha Collins Cartier Williams Jason Bernard Baakari Wilder Sekou Torbet Ahmir-Khalib Thompson Black Thought James 'Kamal' Gray Leonard 'Hub' Hubbard Kyle 'Scratch' Jones Christopher Wynkoop Jani Blom Show All…
The very black show
Dunno about that ending but goddamn, Spike Lee was not pulling any punches here. Exactly what I needed to watch right now. Extremely biting and sharp, if not a little bit messy with Damon Wayans' character (not to mention the strange accent.) The scenes of the audience interacting with Honeycutt near the end are straight up horrifying to watch, Savion Glover and Jada Pinkett Smith are so good here, and it's awesome to watch Tommy Davidson kill it in a serious role. So curious what Lee thinks about the legacy of Chappelle's Show and what Chappelle thinks about this movie (I know Lee was in a sketch on the show, but still.)
Perfect evidence of the need for a best casting Oscar as this movie's casting director deserves some award for getting Michael Rapaport to play himself. Just decided for my next birthday I am going to rent out a theater and watch all my white friends watch this movie!
Blackface, black talk, black hair and black skin. Black music and black stars and black food and black culture. Black swagger and black incarceration. Black lives. Black deaths. You can't take one without taking it all, and to think you can only makes you part of the problem.
"You've been had. You've been took."
Bamboozled, a spiteful, hateful, and rightful satire from Spike Lee, except what he satirizes almost seems mild compared to the landscape we're in twenty years later. It starts with black man Delacroix in a news network who keeps getting his scripts turned down because they portray black people too positively, too intelligently, too ordinary, too human. No, what his boss wants is something shocking and provocative,…
one of lee's most formally audacious and assaultive films and as scathing a media satire as there has ever been. a batshit reworking of Network and The Producers into a perversely funny and horrifying vision of america's historical racism maintaining itself in images/entertainment/industry and the illusion of choice that white money gives to black artists. "look at what you contributed to!" "keep em laughing." not over the choice to film most of this in crummy DV (which make the bland office spaces and heightened performances feel even weirder) and then the images of the modern minstrel show on this very colorful 16mm so that it pops off the screen! god ellen kuras.
"Everybody wanna be a nigga, but nobody wanna be a nigga." - Paul Mooney
Life imitates art.
Rachel Dolezal, who changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, is a woman who became the president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP after masquerading as a black woman for years. News broke in 2015 after her parents exposed the fact that she had no black ancestry whatsoever.
"Everybody wanna be a nigga, but nobody wanna be a nigga."
In Bamboozled, ManRay, a tap dancer, tap dances on top of a table in front of a white TV network executive to get a job on TV. Circa 2014, rapper Bobby Schmurda shucked and jiv-, I mean, danced on a table in front…
Watch this back to back with Blackkklansman and weep for how Hollywood neutered Spike Lee. A full appreciation of this film cannot be attained unless one sees the confused and noticeably insecure reviews of it as well, only then can you say to have enjoyed the full experience.
Look at all the brothers on the wall
Nothing’s changed. Black people are being shot dead on the streets by cops while Hamilton tries to cleanse an ugly ugly history and is the biggest musical in the world.
Look at all the brothers on the wall
A deeply deeply ugly and unpleasant film because it’s what America is and deserves.
Look at all the brothers on the wall
America will rape and murder black people and sell it back as humiliating entertainment. As a commodity.
Look at all the brothers on the wall
I remember seeing some of those cartoon as a child
Look at all the brothers on the wall
America will celebrate black art and still call you the n word. It will still kill you because of what you are. Black. But it’s okay, because
Look at all the brothers on the wall
I nearly spat my coffee out when I saw Bill Clinton
Criterion Collection Spine #1019
Writer and Director Spike Lee presents a powerful and provocative education in the history of racial exploitation in America.
"I want you to look at this shit. Look to what you contributed to!"
It would be difficult to discuss Bamboozled at any time, but that is especially the case in the Spring of 2020 with racial tensions boiling over as a result of the senseless murder of George Floyd, at the hands of police. So I will do my best to express why I think this is an important piece of filmmaking, that aims to fight racial prejudice.
For me, Bamboozled was both an incredible and uncomfortable movie watching experience. I have always been a fan…
Bamboozled is truly an upsetting experience to sit through, although with a daring premise like this, you would've expected Spike Lee to be at his most provocative, trolly mode from miles away. It's ultimately a jab at the money-grubbing Hollywood, and the faceless crowd hiding behind their invisible "black face" who feed off black misery as entertainment, whether knowingly or not. Technical wise this is as stripped down as can be. Thematically, however, Bamboozled is arguably Lee's biggest risk of his career.
Bamboozled definitely falls into the dank comedy category, chronicling the surprising rise and deadly fall of a variety show featuring controversial blackface antics. It's also a psychological journey of how a black producer and multiple black performers grapple…
Spike Lee is mad as hell, and he’s not gonna take it anymore.
Aside from being a perfect way for him to riff on Sidney Lumet’s already timeless Network, the sort of punch that Spike Lee manages to pack into Bamboozled can still be felt even today as we look back upon a culturally ignored perspective within the entertainment industry. Being arguably his most confrontational film since Do the Right Thing, what Spike Lee brings to the table in Bamboozled feels all too damning, much to that point it leaves one wondering if we’ve truly progressed from anything of the sort ever being repeated again no matter how much we tell ourselves things are getting better.
It’s very on-the-nose, as per the…
Spike Lee's scathing satire on the black-face minstrel image of African-Americans is one of Spike Lee's most misunderstood and thought-provoking films. It's angry but honest, blistering but passionate; it's Lee criticizing the hypocrisy, conformism and, capitalist puppets of a business so narrowed in on caricatures when portraying blacks on TV/film. It’s an absolute powerhouse of a film that will move, inspire, and infuriate whilst it frantically descends into a myriad of ideas & emotions for a wild yet moving conclusion. Fantastic stuff!
"It might be hard for some of you liberal minded good white folks" -Pierre Delacroix,
- Spike Lee Ranked: boxd.it/1XDiG
- 5x5 Director's Challenge (Spike Lee 3/5): boxd.it/48AW4
Uh...wow.
I can't believe that this movie exists but I am so glad that Spike Lee's alive and made it. I really enjoy the look and vibe of Bamboozled, especially the cinematography which I find underrated. Damon Wayans does an especially effective job with his performance, which highlights both the silliness and sad reality of the story. Tommy Davidson, Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Rappaport and Savion Glover give admirable Spike Lee joint performances as the supporting cast.
The main reason you should watch this is for the crippling, debilitating, harsh as fuck…
intense as fuck, jada pinkett smith and mos def are great. michael rapaport in this reminds me of armie hammer in sorry to bother you. the credits look like a boomerang bumper for a segment on the censored eleven
Satire about controversy tries too much to be controversial itself. I'm not really into that topic - in fact I needed to google the history of “Minstrel Shows” and “Blackfacing”. In the beginning I was already about to turn off again, but somehow it became more and more interesting. I also got more and more used to that kind-of “interesting” way of acting. Esp. Michael Rapaport was great since I remember hin from a rather calm role totally different. Bamboozled is certainly not a masterpiece, but entertaining - still a bit too much controversial controversial for me…
Stylewise you might also like:
- letterboxd.com/film/confessions-of-a-dangerous-mind/
Horrifying. Unfortunately you have give Michael Rapaport an Oscar for this role. Damon Wayans is so fucking funny as Pierre Delacroix. The use of 3d animation is really terrifying, as the blackface objects of old slowly gain new life, just like the mass market modern minstrel show. An unbelievable experience.
Spike lee the master of casting white people that seem a little too good at being racist
Week 23: Comedy
Spike Lee's Bamboozled had an interesting premise that genuinely excited me. It ultimately left me cold.
The look of the film was incredibly ugly. It looked like an old YouTube video or one of those hidden camera shows. It felt incredibly amateurish, and while I understood its purpose of replicating a cheap TV show, it didn't work for me. The TV parts should look like a TV show. Contrasting it with a more realistic reality would have been so much more powerful.
The sound mixing was really annoying. I could still hear what people are saying, it's just accompanied with so much pointless noise that what should be just a standard scene with dialogue…
What a power house of a film. Spike being Spike always throws in plenty of movie references, and this film had plenty. The plot starts out like The Producers, where Damon Wayan's Pierre decides that since he isn't considered "black enough" he will make the most over the top black show to the point that it will have to be cancelled because no one wants to watch it. Unfortunately for him (just like Max and Leo in The Producers) it is a massive hit where black performers are doing black face minstrel shows. The film then morphs into an updated version of Network, where in that movie they predicted the rise of reality TV and info-tainment where ratings are the…
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