I was reading the NY Post over someone’s shoulder on the subway this morning (right, like I would spend money on the Post?) and saw that Spike Lee is planning a movie on the Tawana Brawley case, and that he thinks she was telling the truth . . .
Great. JUST what NY needs right about now . . .
This is NOT a Buffy The Vampire Slayer thread. Please move along 
Spikey likes attention, contraversy, and being extremely offensive in the name of making his point.
I just rewatched Summer of Sam, which was his “let’s portray white people in as many unattractive and unflattering ways as we can” film and I caught “Bamboozled”, his minstrel show flick on cable the other night. Bamboozled sang in places due to the extreme, unassailable talent of Savion Glover, and it made its point about some of the awful “black” sitcoms on television and stereotypes about African Americans in the entertainment business, but it really was an offensive mess of a picture.
Er, didn’t Tawana Brawley, uh, admit she was lying?
I think Spike Lee has gotten in the way of one too many stumbling Knicks.
Spike Lee is a racist, a photgrpahic negative of a Klan member. He has attacked Tommy Hilfigger for being white, he has attacked Whoopi Goldberg for wearing blue contacts andbeing a “wannabe white.” He is an undeniably talented filmmaker, but he has some really ugly views.
Any cite for this? Latest article I could find at the New York Times (admittedly from 1997) has her speaking at a rally at Bethany Baptist Church, organized to support her advisor with his (then current) defamation suit, which he lost.
(The url is too long to bother with)
Or this at the Court TV website:
http://www.courttv.com/legaldocs/newsmakers/tawana/
Again, as of 1997, she was still claiming the the events of her assault were true.
I believe if she had retracted her accusations, this would have received wide coverage.
I kinda disagree with Gobear—I interviewed him once (Spike, that is, not Gobear) and he was very nice to THIS white gal. And I’ve never actually heard him say anything racist . . . But I can’t stand his films. Not from a sociological standpoint, I just don’t think he’s a particularly good director, and his scripts (or the ones he uses) tend to be clunky and awkward.
I imagine this Tawana project—should it come about—will be getting a LOT of press . . .
I think Spike Lee has some sadly confused ideas about what is necessary to overcome the history of racial descrimination in this country, but I’ve never considered him to be a racist. I didn’t find anything particularly unusual about Lee’s direction of white characters in Summer of Sam. He quite often (almost incessantly, in fact) turns his camera on the unattractive and unflattering moments of his characters.
I also have to disagree (conditionally) with Eve on the quality of his direction. I think Get on the Bus was one of the finest films of the last several years (not perfect, but powerfully performed and using Lee’s unorthodox cameral placements and shot angles to great effect.) I also though Malcolm X was a fine film.
Lee (like him or not) is often criticized for a lack of range or craft, but I think those criticism are unfair. Lee often returns to the same themes, but he uses a broad spectrum of cinematic techniques to frame his stories. No, he will never be one of the great visual storytellers of our age, but he isn’t making Home Alone 3, either.
I also saw “Get on the Bus” recently and really enjoyed it.
I usually love Spike Lee. I always look forward to anything new he does, and have several DVDs of his stuff in my collection, but strangely, I did not care for “Get on the Bus”. I might watch it again and see if I get anything else out of it this time.
Tawana has not recanted. Probably never will. Though of course there is no evidence to support her story, and never really was.
Steven Pagones, the gentleman who was falsely accused and named by her, um, advisers, successfully sued Mason, Maddox, and Sharpton for damages, and is [slowly] collecting money from them. I believe Sharpton has now paid off his debt. The others are dragging their feet. Pagones has talked about going after Brawley eventually, too, but we’ll see whether anything comes of that.
Well, it’s better than a movie about how O.J. was framed by the LA police.
I love Spike Lee’s movies, but he does have some strange opinions on how to address racism. Like his pissy-fit about rich black men marrying white women. I almost fell off of my chair when I saw his wife. And that whole bruhaha over whether it was possible for a white person to direct Malcomn X’s autobiograghy. So only Jews and Germans can make WWII pictures and only Chinese people can make movies about The Forbidden City.
But his movies are sometimes painfully honest. It hurt to watch that “Bugaboo” number in School Daze.
I’ve never met Spike Lee and I won’t claim any special knowledge of his life. But I’ve always felt that he’s spent his entire film career attempting to prove how black he is. It’s as if he’s embarassed because he grew up in a middle class suburb instead of a inner city ghetto.
PS - Was Chris Rock’s character in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back intended as a rip on Lee? I know that, at least at one point in his life, Kevin Smith said he is an fan of Lee’s work so I was somewhat surprised by this character.
Hrmph! :mad:
I absolutely agree with that. Spike Lee offends me very much.
gobear-Your “photographic negative klansman” phrase is one I’ll have to remember. I just love how that sums it all up.
I do think however that a lot of his offensive nature is contrived in order to call attention to his worthless films, and assure their place in the limelight. The “controversial” reputation they thus get may help, or at least he believes helps him make more money.
Spike, go take a long walk on a short pier.
Not at all. I’ll deny that he’s a talented filmmaker. I’ve only managed to make it all the way through two of his flicks…early ones, SCHOOL DAZE and DO THE RIGHT THING.
I’ve tried several others on video and managed to wander out of the room, feeling an overwhelming urge to go scour out the kitchen sink, before they were over.
I applaud his self-promotion skills, his making himself into the Serious African-American Director Who Matters. I just wish a BETTER director had copped the title. And it pisses me off that Hollywood figures “Well, we’ve got Spike on hand, we got our house African-American director, nobody can call US racists, so why should we go looking for another black guy to make serious movies?”
I wouldn’t go out of my way to call Lee a racist, but didn’t he catch a lot of shit for his depiction of the Jewish jazz club owners in MO BETTER BLUES? I though that was particularly nasty, as we have Jewish club owners (and gangsters) to thank for promoting jazz music at ALL in the first half of the 20th century.
Each to their own, but if all I know about a movie is that Spike Lee directed it, I’d go–chances are good that I’d enjoy it.
saw and enjoyed:
She’s Gotta Have It
School Daze (despite excessive heavy-handedness)
Do the Right Thing
Get On the Bus
Malcolm X
intend on seeing:
Girl 6
Jungle Fever
Original Kings of Comedy
didn’t see, probably won’t:
Crooklyn
Bamboozled
Well I have seen Spike Lee speak. The tone of some of the things he said were so racist and anti-semitic that I was offended to the point of wanting to leave the room. The only reason I stayed was because I couldn’t leave in a loud enough way to demonstrate my disgust. Under the circumstances, it seemed more prudent to me to remain as a witness.