Susan Granger’s review of “BAMBOOZLED” (New Line Cinema)
In this satirical fable, Spike Lee tackles race, television and how blacks are depicted in the media. Taking its title from a Malcolm X speech about how black people have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and led astray, the story revolves around Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans), a frustrated, black, Harvard-grad TV writer who, under orders from his boss (Michael Rapaport), comes up with a truly offensive concept – a postmodern minstrel show – that immediately becomes a hit. Incorporating all the shockingly bad taste possible, “Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show” stars homeless street performers (Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson) in blackface cavorting in a watermelon patch on a plantation. Smearing one’s face with charcoal suddenly becomes the chic, “IN” thing to do. The theme is Lee’s assertion that today’s successful black entertainers (Cuba Gooding Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Will Smith, Diana Ross, etc.) are no more than participants in racist minstrel shows. But they’re not the only ones under attack. Lee also goes after Mother Teresa, President Clinton, Al Sharpton, Johnnie Cochran, various networks, athletes and the NAACP. Lee’s use of digital video with multiple cameras creates the quality of a documentary expose – and popular culture is the villain. The real hero is Junebug, Delacroix’s father (Paul Mooney), a racy comic who refused to comply with Hollywood. But Lee allows his (justifiable) anger to run rampant over reason in the final tedious third of the film. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bamboozled” is a scathing 6. If you want to see the most perceptive indictment of TV-spawned culture, rent Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), written by Budd Schulberg, starring Andy Griffith, or Paddy Chayefsky’s chilling “Network” (1976).
