Bamboozled: A Satire Which Has Become Reality
And this is a major cause for concern.
Spike Lee has got to be greatest unheralded artist of our time.
The man has never shied away from tackling some of the most contentious issues of our time, ranging from colourism in School Daze to White America’s exploitation of Black entertainers in Mo Better Blues to divergent experiences among Black men of disparate ages in Get On The Bus and an intimate depiction of the nuclear Black family in Crooklyn.
And when we delve deeper into other joints from the legend such as Clockers, She’s gotta have it, Jungle Fever and Do The Right Thing, it is fair to state that Mr. Shelton Jackson Lee has been a one man army in taking on Hollywood in its entrenched attitudes to Black people.
So why have I written this about Spike Lee?
Bamboozled.
Perhaps more than any other film of his, Bamboozled is perhaps the most disturbing and powerfully relevant today too.
For those who do not remember what this film is about, I should provide a rather brief synopsis below:
An African American executive is under huge pressure to come up with a hit show from his boss, who is starting to question his capabilities.
