I didn’t watch the broadcast but I read about this this morning. All I can think is that Spike Lee was being a big baby and acting like a 5 year old when he loses the t-ball game. Actually, a 5 year old would probably act better.
I don’t think he was upset that his movie lost as much as which one won. Green Book is an insipid rehash of Driving Miss Daisy* that reduces solving racism to befriending one racist person. Had it been a better movie, like Black Panther or Roma I doubt he would have been that incensed.
*: DMD won the year Lee’s masterpiece Do the Right Thing didn’t even get nominated.
Not really. That thread is about the censoring that may have been done when Spike Lee accepted his oscar. It wasn’t about his response to the best picture award. That’s why I started this thread.
I agree that I don’t think he’s upset that he didn’t win Best Picture. He’s not won Best Picture a lot of times now.
He’s upset because of the controversy behind the film itself. I think he would have been just as mad if he wasn’t up for best picture.
Not nominated for best picture, but it was nominated for best original screenplay (and lost to Dead Poets Society.)
Maybe, but that doesn’t excuse his jerkish behavior.
By many accounts, as talented as Spike Lee is, his ego is bigger than life. Without winning, he’s managed to make the Best Picture Oscar about him.
If you think that the movie that did win is racist, revisionist trash that does real harm, then I don’t think Lee’s comments are out of line. Personally, I was surprised that a white savior movie was nominated and won in 2019.
Which is a step up from making it about Green Book.
I haven’t seen it, and for all I know it’s a brilliant piece of character study or some such. But the stuff I’ve heard surrounding it, from the objections of the historical figure’s family to the director’s giving all the credit to the white star while neglecting to mention the black star, makes me side with Lee on this one.
The true atrocity of the night is that Sorry to Bother You didn’t even get nominated.
Sorry to Bother You is weirdly identical to BlacKKKlansman. Both deal with blacks finding a wedge into white society by appropriating their sounds and then finding that the conspiracy is deeper than they expected. Both have women that prod the men into doing more. Both have surrealistic visions that twist reality to heighten it. (A black police officer with an afro at that time? For that matter, every afro in the movie was from a poster.) The real difference is that STBY is ten times as creative and coruscating than BKKK. And it was more about how the world hasn’t changed since then than mere Charlottesville footage.
It was way too weird and low-budget to come within a mile of the Oscars, but I liked it a heck of a lot more.
I saw Green Book. It was very different from the “white savior” motif. Very different. For one thing, the white guy wasn’t a savior in any way.
The thing to keep in mind is that this was based on real people. It was written by the white guy’s son and both sons appeared in it. This is their story of their father. So it is told from his point of view. How else would it be???
I think a lot of people would say that maybe the story of a white man’s experience in Jim Crow south isn’t all that important and the fact that Hollywood keeps making movies from the white perspective of Jim Crow is problematic. I would bet a lot of people would say that this kind of white fairy tale feeds into the false narrative that racism is over. Also, the fact that the family of the black man in the movie says that it is inaccurate and that the director never mentioned that man in his acceptance speech demonstrate that he was nothing more than a talking prop for the white people in the movie.
I haven’t seen the movie, but there has been a lot of criticism of the movie and Lee’s comments didn’t happen in a vacuum. People are spinning this like Lee was just being a poor sport, but it ignores the experiences of non-whites (much like these kinds of movies do) who were troubled by the movie. By making Lee’s reaction to be some kind of temper tantrum, rather than real social critique, it allows people not to think about what he’s trying to say. It neuters him and let’s white people get back to ignoring the problem of race in America, after all, they did their part, they want to see Green Book.
Here is an article in the Washington Post that recounts some of the criticism
Another thing to keep in mind is that just because a movie is based on real events doesn’t mean it’s a good movie or that it was a good idea to make it.
And also, the brother of one of those real people said the movie was a lie.
And just because there are irrelevant aspects, doesn’t mean it was a bad film.
I haven’t seen it, I just see a lot of complaints on Slate and such that arn’t an actual part of the film.
As for Spike…thats a bad look. And its unprofessional as hell. Let little people do that.
I hadn’t been following the controversy over the movie at all and the movie didn’t look like my cup of tea anyway just from the ads. But I got to say, when I noticed the black lead was up for Supporting Actor my first thought was “WTF? He’s only a supporting actor in this?”.
As for Spike not being professional, meh that’s just how he is. He’s got a big mouth but that doesn’t make him wrong.
So artists aren’t allowed to comment on art that they find offensive? Why? I think we’ve entered a cultural moment where people of color are more willing to call BS and that ultimately that’s a good thing as it forces people to challenge their assumptions.
There’s a lot of reasons to doubt that Don Shirley’s relatives are telling the truth here.
A lot of reasonable people had a problem with Green Book. I wonder if the people who are upset by Lee’s comments would still call him unprofessional if they also found the movie he was criticizing to be offensive?