# Spike Lee Joint **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 8, 2003, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259 "2003-01-08T05:35:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RexKatWA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@RexKatWA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexKatWA)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/1 "2003-01-08T05:35:49Z")
What is it? What’s the derivation? ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/2 "2003-01-08T06:03:26Z")
Like “A Kevin Smith film.” Means the same thing and has the double meaning of joint being a place you own and joint being a dope cigarette. I can’t stand Spike Lee – he’s the most racist guy working in Hollywood but he gets away with it cause he’s black. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/3 "2003-01-08T06:27:59Z")
I spent some time on Google without getting a definitive answer. Many comments just say, “That’s what he calls his films.” Two possible hints are: There is such a thing as a “poetry joint,” which apparently is essentially a poetry jam. Like a film, it’s a type of artistic endeavor. Pretty long stretch, though. This comment-"…the loving production credit on his movies,‘A Spike Lee Joint,’ which means everything from operating independently to hiring your dad to write the musical score." Pretty cryptic, and likely just one person’s take on the term. In other words, ya got me. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/4 "2003-01-08T06:44:55Z")
I was told once (by someone who grew up in a working-class black neighborhood of Philadelphia) that “joint” is used to mean just “thing.” I’m not sure that has much to do with what Lee means by the word, since he grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. But perhaps “A Spike Lee Joint” means just that it’s something created by Spike Lee. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/5 "2003-01-08T06:48:09Z")
And then there’s this thread–[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102381&highlight=spike+joint--which](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102381&highlight=spike+joint--which) supports what Wendell said and the poetry joint connection. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/6 "2003-01-08T06:52:19Z")
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102381](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102381) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mermaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@The\_Mermaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mermaid)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/7 "2003-01-08T13:24:02Z")
And now for something completely irrelevant. Spike Lee and I share the exact same birthday. We also share the date with Mr. Fred Rogers, Hal Lindon, Carl Reiner Jerry Reed, William Hurt, Jimmy Lee Vaughn and Holly Hunter. This sort of shoots the horoscope theory right in the foot. ---
**Author:** ![Logical\_Phallacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Logical\_Phallacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Logical_Phallacy)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spike-lee-joint/147259/8 "2003-01-08T13:30:35Z")
you take some homegrown deeply good stuff, scatter it over a prolonged thing, roll it up all together nicely and then experience it.