Bamboozled
Encyclopedia
Bamboozled is a 2000 satirical
film
written and directed by Spike Lee
about a modern televised minstrel show
featuring black actors donning blackface
makeup and the violent fall-out from the show's success. The film was given a limited release
by New Line Cinema
during the fall of 2000, and was released on DVD
the following year.
) is an uptight, Watts University-educated black man, working for a television network known as CNS (for "Continental Network System"). At work, he has to endure torment from his boss Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport
), a tactless, boorish white man. Not only does Dunwitty talk like an urban black male, and use the word "cracker
" repeatedly in conversations, he also proudly proclaims that he is more black than Delacroix and that he can use nigga since he is married to a black woman and has two mixed race children. Dunwitty frequently rejects Delacroix's scripts for TV shows that portray black people in positive, intelligent scenarios, dismissing them as "Cosby clones"
.
Facing the necessity of either coming up with a hit black-centric show or being fired, Delacroix decides to aim for the latter. Delacroix would be in violation of his contract if he resigned, but getting fired would release him from it and allow him to seek work at another network. With help from his personal assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith
), Delacroix decides to pitch a minstrel show
. Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show is complete with black actors in blackface
, extremely racist jokes and puns, and even offensively stereotyped CGI
-animated cartoons that caricature the leading stars of the new show. Delacroix develops the program believing that the network would reject such over-the-top racism
and fire him immediately. Delacroix and Hopkins decide to recruit two impoverished street performers, Manray (Savion Glover
, named after American artist Man Ray
) and Womack (Tommy Davidson
) -- homeless squatters who regularly perform outside CNS' headquarters building to star in the show. While Womack is horrified when Delacroix tells him details about the show, Manray willfully agrees to star in the show, seeing it as his big chance to become rich and famous for his tap dancing skills.
To Delacroix's horror, not only does Dunwitty enthusiastically endorse the show, it also becomes hugely successful. As soon as the show premieres on television, Manray and Womack end up becoming big stars while Delacroix, contrary to his original stated intent, defends the show as being satirical. Delacroix quickly embraces the show and his newfound fame; he even wins awards for creating and writing the show, while Sloan becomes horrified at the racist nightmare she has helped to unleash. In the meantime, an underground, militant rap group called the Mau Maus (presumably named after Mau Mau), led by Sloan's older brother Julius (Mos Def
), becomes increasingly angry at the content of the show. Though they had earlier auditioned for the program's live band position and were rejected, the group plan to bring the show down using violence. Eventually, Womack quits, fed up with the show and Manray's increasing ego. Manray and Sloan thus grow closer, which angers Delacroix. Delacroix tries to break up Manray's relationship with Sloan by accusing her of sleeping with Manray to further her career. Delacroix reveals that Hopkins only got her position as his assistant by sleeping with him. The move backfires and drives Manray and Sloan even closer.
Sloan creates a tape of racist footage culled from assorted movies, cartoons, television shows, and newsreels to try to shame Delacroix into stopping production of the show, but he refuses to view the tape. After an argument with Delacroix over all these differences, as well as realizing he is being exploited, Manray defiantly announces that he will no longer wear blackface. He appears in front of the studio audience, who are all in blackface, during a TV taping and does his dance number in his regular clothing. The network executives immediately turn against Manray, and Dunwitty (who is also wearing blackface) personally fires him from the show and throws him out of the studio.
The Mau Maus kidnap Manray, and then announce a plan to publicly execute Manray on a live webcast
. The authorities work feverishly to track down the source of the internet feed, but Manray is nevertheless assassinated while doing his famous tap dancing (as a sort of sacrificial figure at his death). At his office, Delacroix (now in blackface make-up himself, mourning Manray's death) begins to fantasize the various coon-themed antique collectibles in his office staring him down and coming to life and goes into a rage, destroying many of the racist collectibles. The police quickly catch The Mau Maus, shooting them down in a hail of bullets. They leave only one survivor, a white member known as "One-Sixteenth Black" (MC Serch
), who tearfully proclaims that he is "black" and demands to die with the rest of his group instead of being arrested. Furious, Sloan confronts Delacroix at gunpoint with her brother's revolver and demands that he watch the tape she prepared for him. Delacroix, after watching the tape, tries to get the gun, but is shot in the stomach. Sloan, horrified, flees while proclaiming that it was Delacroix's own fault that he got shot. Delacroix, after positioning the gun to make the gunshot wound to the stomach appear self-inflicted, watches the tape as he lies dying on the floor.
The film concludes with a long montage of racially insensitive and demeaning clips of black characters from Hollywood films of the first half of the 20th century. Some of the films used in the sequence are The Birth of a Nation
, The Jazz Singer
, Gone with the Wind
, Babes in Arms
, Holiday Inn
, Ub Iwerks
' cartoon Little Black Sambo
, Walter Lantz
's cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
, the Screen Songs
short Jingle Jangle Jungle, the Merrie Melodies
short All This and Rabbit Stew
, and, from the Hal Roach
comedy School's Out, Our Gang
kids Allen "Farina" Hoskins and Matthew "Stymie" Beard. After the montage, as the cameras point to Delacroix's lifeless body on the floor, the camera then shows Manray doing his last Mantan sequence on stage.
, with its show within a show
featuring its characters, all in blackface
, performing in a watermelon
patch. The Roots
, a hip-hop band from Philadelphia, have a role as the show's house band, The Alabama Porch Monkeys. The audiences within the movie, initially baffled, come to love the show, and after a few episodes Hispanics, Asians, blacks, and even elderly white women show up in blackface and proclaim themselves "nigga
s".
One of Lee's tricks on the audience for his movie is that the performances of the show within a show are rendered with careful clear musicianship, timing, and dancing, all within the most stereotypical settings of cotton
fields and watermelon feasts.
In a particular scene between Delacroix and DJ on the fictional radio station 'The Experience' discussing critics and art, Delacroix makes a reference to the controversy surrounding the Sensation exhibition
at the Brooklyn Museum
in 1999 where then-current Mayor Rudy Giuliani
issued a lawsauit against British artist Chris Ofili
's painting The Holy Virgin Mary
. It depicted a Black Madonna
alongside images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and elephant dung. Delacroix likens the painting as art and Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show as such.
The script expresses rage and grief at media representations of black people, largely through the eyes of its moral center, Sloan Hopkins. It also satirizes many icons of black culture including Ving Rhames
, Will Smith
(real-life husband of Jada Pinkett Smith), Johnnie Cochran
, and Al Sharpton
. Cochran and Sharpton appear as themselves in the film, protesting against the television series. It also seems to take aim at variety show
s such as In Living Color
, of which Davidson and Wayans were cast members (and is mentioned by Wayans' character in a discussion of African-American comedy routines).
Bamboozled has a superficial similarity to the 1976 Oscar-winning film Network
which is also about the frustrated employee of a television network who in an act of desperation creates a controversial television show. In both films, the show becomes extremely popular but begins a chain of events which spins violently out of control. Mantan's last words to the show's audience are based on Howard Beale's famous line "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" The plot also has a lot in common with The Producers
. The Producers uses satire about Nazism
and the Jewish Holocaust in a similar over-the-top way. Its protagonist creates a Broadway
musical
starring a fictional Adolf Hitler
that is so offensive it is bound to lose money. This will give his boss a huge tax shelter
. The musical becomes a smash hit and makes a lot of money, instead of losing money as intended.
The character names given to Manray and Womack, "Mantan" and "Sleep n' Eat" respectively, are taken from names used by prominent vaudeville-era black actors Mantan Moreland
and Willie Best
.
using the Sony
VX 1000 camera. This kept the budget to USD$10 million. The "Mantan Show" sequences are shot in Super 16
film stock.
for the film was released September 26, 2000 by Motown Records
. The album consisted of hip hop
and contemporary R&B, and was India.Arie
's first time on an album, with six singles.
, with the consensus "Bamboozled is too heavy-handed in its satire and comes across as more messy and overwrought than biting."
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
written and directed by Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
about a modern televised minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
featuring black actors donning blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
makeup and the violent fall-out from the show's success. The film was given a limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
by New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
during the fall of 2000, and was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
the following year.
Plot
Pierre Delacroix (whose real name is Peerless Dothan), (Damon WayansDamon Wayans
Damon Kyle Wayans is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, one of the Wayans brothers.-Early life:Wayans was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elvira, a homemaker and social worker, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager...
) is an uptight, Watts University-educated black man, working for a television network known as CNS (for "Continental Network System"). At work, he has to endure torment from his boss Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport
Michael Rapaport
Michael David Rapaport is an American, actor, director and a comedian. He has acted in more than forty films since the early 1990s...
), a tactless, boorish white man. Not only does Dunwitty talk like an urban black male, and use the word "cracker
Cracker (pejorative)
Cracker, sometimes white cracker, is a pejorative term for white people. It is an ethnic slur that is especially used for the white inhabitants of the U.S. states of Georgia and Florida , but it is also used throughout the United States.-Etymology:One theory holds that the term comes from the...
" repeatedly in conversations, he also proudly proclaims that he is more black than Delacroix and that he can use nigga since he is married to a black woman and has two mixed race children. Dunwitty frequently rejects Delacroix's scripts for TV shows that portray black people in positive, intelligent scenarios, dismissing them as "Cosby clones"
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...
.
Facing the necessity of either coming up with a hit black-centric show or being fired, Delacroix decides to aim for the latter. Delacroix would be in violation of his contract if he resigned, but getting fired would release him from it and allow him to seek work at another network. With help from his personal assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured...
), Delacroix decides to pitch a minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
. Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show is complete with black actors in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
, extremely racist jokes and puns, and even offensively stereotyped CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
-animated cartoons that caricature the leading stars of the new show. Delacroix develops the program believing that the network would reject such over-the-top racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and fire him immediately. Delacroix and Hopkins decide to recruit two impoverished street performers, Manray (Savion Glover
Savion Glover
Savion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer. As a learning prodigy, he was taught by notable dancers from previous generations. Glover is currently interested in restoring African roots to tap...
, named after American artist Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
) and Womack (Tommy Davidson
Tommy Davidson
Tommy Davidson is an American comedian, film and television actor.Born in Washington, D.C., Davidson was adopted when he was 2-years-old. He was a child of an interracial adoption, with his parents being Caucasian and he being African-American. He attended high school at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High...
) -- homeless squatters who regularly perform outside CNS' headquarters building to star in the show. While Womack is horrified when Delacroix tells him details about the show, Manray willfully agrees to star in the show, seeing it as his big chance to become rich and famous for his tap dancing skills.
To Delacroix's horror, not only does Dunwitty enthusiastically endorse the show, it also becomes hugely successful. As soon as the show premieres on television, Manray and Womack end up becoming big stars while Delacroix, contrary to his original stated intent, defends the show as being satirical. Delacroix quickly embraces the show and his newfound fame; he even wins awards for creating and writing the show, while Sloan becomes horrified at the racist nightmare she has helped to unleash. In the meantime, an underground, militant rap group called the Mau Maus (presumably named after Mau Mau), led by Sloan's older brother Julius (Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
), becomes increasingly angry at the content of the show. Though they had earlier auditioned for the program's live band position and were rejected, the group plan to bring the show down using violence. Eventually, Womack quits, fed up with the show and Manray's increasing ego. Manray and Sloan thus grow closer, which angers Delacroix. Delacroix tries to break up Manray's relationship with Sloan by accusing her of sleeping with Manray to further her career. Delacroix reveals that Hopkins only got her position as his assistant by sleeping with him. The move backfires and drives Manray and Sloan even closer.
The Mau Maus kidnap Manray, and then announce a plan to publicly execute Manray on a live webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
. The authorities work feverishly to track down the source of the internet feed, but Manray is nevertheless assassinated while doing his famous tap dancing (as a sort of sacrificial figure at his death). At his office, Delacroix (now in blackface make-up himself, mourning Manray's death) begins to fantasize the various coon-themed antique collectibles in his office staring him down and coming to life and goes into a rage, destroying many of the racist collectibles. The police quickly catch The Mau Maus, shooting them down in a hail of bullets. They leave only one survivor, a white member known as "One-Sixteenth Black" (MC Serch
MC Serch
MC Serch is a Jewish-American hip hop MC and former member of 3rd Bass.-Biography:Serch grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, attending Far Rockaway High School, and graduated from Music & Art High School...
), who tearfully proclaims that he is "black" and demands to die with the rest of his group instead of being arrested. Furious, Sloan confronts Delacroix at gunpoint with her brother's revolver and demands that he watch the tape she prepared for him. Delacroix, after watching the tape, tries to get the gun, but is shot in the stomach. Sloan, horrified, flees while proclaiming that it was Delacroix's own fault that he got shot. Delacroix, after positioning the gun to make the gunshot wound to the stomach appear self-inflicted, watches the tape as he lies dying on the floor.
The film concludes with a long montage of racially insensitive and demeaning clips of black characters from Hollywood films of the first half of the 20th century. Some of the films used in the sequence are The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
, The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
, Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
, Babes in Arms
Babes in Arms (film)
Babes in Arms is the 1939 film version of the 1937 Broadway musical of the same name. The film version stars Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee, June Preisser, Grace Hayes and Betty Jaynes.-Production:...
, Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn (film)
Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with music by Irving Berlin. The film has twelve songs written expressly for the film, the most notable being "White Christmas"...
, Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks, A.S.C. was a two-time Academy Award winning American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, creator of Mickey Mouse, and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney....
' cartoon Little Black Sambo
Little Black Sambo
The Story of Little Black Sambo is a children's book written and illustrated by Helen Bannerman, and first published by Grant Richards in October 1899 as one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children....
, Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
's cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
"Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat" is a pre-Civil Rights 1940 hit boogie-woogie song written by Don Raye. A bawdy, jazzy tune, the song describes a laundry woman from Harlem, New York whose technique is so unusual that people come from all around just to watch her scrub...
, the Screen Songs
Screen Songs
Screen Songs is the name of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. They were revived by Famous Studios in 1945 starting with the Noveltoon Old MacDonald Had a Farm....
short Jingle Jangle Jungle, the Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...
short All This and Rabbit Stew
All This and Rabbit Stew
All This and Rabbit Stew is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Merrie Melodies series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on September 20, 1941 by Warner Bros. and Vitaphone. It was produced by Leon Schlesinger and directed by an uncredited Tex Avery, with musical...
, and, from the Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
comedy School's Out, Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
kids Allen "Farina" Hoskins and Matthew "Stymie" Beard. After the montage, as the cameras point to Delacroix's lifeless body on the floor, the camera then shows Manray doing his last Mantan sequence on stage.
Cast
- Damon WayansDamon WayansDamon Kyle Wayans is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, one of the Wayans brothers.-Early life:Wayans was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elvira, a homemaker and social worker, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager...
as Pierre Delacroix/Peerless Dothan - Tommy DavidsonTommy DavidsonTommy Davidson is an American comedian, film and television actor.Born in Washington, D.C., Davidson was adopted when he was 2-years-old. He was a child of an interracial adoption, with his parents being Caucasian and he being African-American. He attended high school at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High...
as Womack/"Sleep 'n Eat" - Savion GloverSavion GloverSavion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer. As a learning prodigy, he was taught by notable dancers from previous generations. Glover is currently interested in restoring African roots to tap...
as Manray/"Mantan" - Jada Pinkett SmithJada Pinkett SmithJada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, producer, director, author, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. She starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured...
as Sloan Hopkins - Michael RapaportMichael RapaportMichael David Rapaport is an American, actor, director and a comedian. He has acted in more than forty films since the early 1990s...
as Thomas Dunwitty - Mos DefMos DefDante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
as Julius Hopkins/"Big Blak Afrika" - Thomas Jefferson ByrdThomas Jefferson ByrdThomas Jefferson Byrd is an American actor. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.-Filmography:* Clockers * Girl 6 * Get on the Bus * Set It Off * Touch Me * He Got Game...
as "Honeycutt" - Paul Mooney as Junebug
- Gano GrillsGano GrillsGano Grills is an African American actor from Staten Island, New York. He has been known for being the creator of the logo for the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan which in fact is not true, the creator of the Wu-Tang Clan logo is Allah Mathematics who is Wu-Tang Clan's DJ as well as an in-house producer...
as "Double Blak" - CanibusCanibusGermaine Williams , better known by his stage name Canibus, is a Jamaican-born American rapper. He is a part of supergroup The HRSMN. Canibus rose to fame in the mid-nineties...
as "Mo Blak" - Charli BaltimoreCharli BaltimoreTiffany "Charli Baltimore" Lane is an American Grammy Award nominated female rapper. Her stage name is taken from Geena Davis's character in the film The Long Kiss Goodnight.-Musical career:...
as "Smooth Blak" - MC SerchMC SerchMC Serch is a Jewish-American hip hop MC and former member of 3rd Bass.-Biography:Serch grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, attending Far Rockaway High School, and graduated from Music & Art High School...
as "One-Sixteenth Blak" - The RootsThe RootsThe Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
as The Alabama Porch Monkeys
Overview
The content is intended as satiricalSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, with its show within a show
Story within a story
A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
featuring its characters, all in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
, performing in a watermelon
Watermelon
Watermelon is a vine-like flowering plant originally from southern Africa. Its fruit, which is also called watermelon, is a special kind referred to by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind and fleshy center...
patch. The Roots
The Roots
The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
, a hip-hop band from Philadelphia, have a role as the show's house band, The Alabama Porch Monkeys. The audiences within the movie, initially baffled, come to love the show, and after a few episodes Hispanics, Asians, blacks, and even elderly white women show up in blackface and proclaim themselves "nigga
Nigga
Nigga is a term used in African American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger .- Use in language :In practice, its use and meaning are...
s".
One of Lee's tricks on the audience for his movie is that the performances of the show within a show are rendered with careful clear musicianship, timing, and dancing, all within the most stereotypical settings of cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
fields and watermelon feasts.
In a particular scene between Delacroix and DJ on the fictional radio station 'The Experience' discussing critics and art, Delacroix makes a reference to the controversy surrounding the Sensation exhibition
Sensation exhibition
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists, which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London and later toured to Berlin and New York...
at the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
in 1999 where then-current Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
issued a lawsauit against British artist Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
's painting The Holy Virgin Mary
The Holy Virgin Mary
The Holy Virgin Mary is a painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996. It was one of the works included in the Sensation exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000...
. It depicted a Black Madonna
Black Madonna
A Black Madonna or Black Virgin is a statue or painting of the Virgin Mary in which the Virgin Mary is black. The term was especially applied to those created in Europe in the medieval period or earlier...
alongside images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and elephant dung. Delacroix likens the painting as art and Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show as such.
The script expresses rage and grief at media representations of black people, largely through the eyes of its moral center, Sloan Hopkins. It also satirizes many icons of black culture including Ving Rhames
Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses "Ving" Rhames is an American actor best known for his work in Bringing Out the Dead, Pulp Fiction, Baby Boy, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.-Early life and education:...
, Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
(real-life husband of Jada Pinkett Smith), Johnnie Cochran
Johnnie Cochran
Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. was an American lawyer best known for his leadership role in the defense and criminal acquittal of O. J...
, and Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton
Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...
. Cochran and Sharpton appear as themselves in the film, protesting against the television series. It also seems to take aim at variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
s such as In Living Color
In Living Color
In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series, which originally ran on the Fox Network from April 15, 1990 to May 19, 1994. Brothers Keenen and Damon Wayans created, wrote, and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Century...
, of which Davidson and Wayans were cast members (and is mentioned by Wayans' character in a discussion of African-American comedy routines).
Bamboozled has a superficial similarity to the 1976 Oscar-winning film Network
Network (film)
Network is a 1976 American satirical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System , and its struggle with poor ratings. The film was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet...
which is also about the frustrated employee of a television network who in an act of desperation creates a controversial television show. In both films, the show becomes extremely popular but begins a chain of events which spins violently out of control. Mantan's last words to the show's audience are based on Howard Beale's famous line "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" The plot also has a lot in common with The Producers
The Producers (1968 film)
The Producers is a 1968 American satirical dark comedy cult classic film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop...
. The Producers uses satire about Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and the Jewish Holocaust in a similar over-the-top way. Its protagonist creates a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
starring a fictional Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
that is so offensive it is bound to lose money. This will give his boss a huge tax shelter
Tax shelter
Tax shelters are any method of reducing taxable income resulting in a reduction of the payments to tax collecting entities, including state and federal governments...
. The musical becomes a smash hit and makes a lot of money, instead of losing money as intended.
The character names given to Manray and Womack, "Mantan" and "Sleep n' Eat" respectively, are taken from names used by prominent vaudeville-era black actors Mantan Moreland
Mantan Moreland
Mantan Moreland was an American actor and comedian most popular in the 1930s and 1940s.-Career:Born in Monroe, Louisiana, Moreland began acting by the time he was an adolescent, reportedly running away to join the circus...
and Willie Best
Willie Best
William "Willie" Best sometimes known as Sleep n' Eat was an American television and film actor....
.
Production
Most of the film was shot on Mini DV digital videoDigital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
using the Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
VX 1000 camera. This kept the budget to USD$10 million. The "Mantan Show" sequences are shot in Super 16
16 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
film stock.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack albumSoundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
for the film was released September 26, 2000 by Motown Records
Motown Records
Motown is a record label originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, United States, on April 14, 1960. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, is also a nickname for Detroit...
. The album consisted of hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
and contemporary R&B, and was India.Arie
India.Arie
India.Arie is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter and record producer . She has sold over 3.3 million records in the U.S. and 10 million worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards from her 21 nominations, including Best R&B Album.-Background:Simpson was born in Denver, Colorado...
's first time on an album, with six singles.
Reception
Bamboozled received mixed reviews; it currently holds a 48% 'rotten' rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, with the consensus "Bamboozled is too heavy-handed in its satire and comes across as more messy and overwrought than biting."
See also
- Color AdjustmentColor AdjustmentColor Adjustment is a 1992 documentary film that traces the evolution of the black image in television from the explicitly racist 1948 to more subtle 1988, where blacks are portrayed as wealthy and having achieved the American dream, an image that director Marlon Riggs finds inconsistent with reality...
- a 1992 documentary film by Marlon RiggsMarlon RiggsMarlon Troy Riggs was a gay African-American filmmaker, educator, poet, and gay rights activist. He produced, wrote, and directed several television documentaries, including Ethnic Notions, Tongues Untied, Color Adjustment, and Black Is. ....
about the portrayal of blacks in television - Classified X - a 1998 documentary film by Mark Daniels and Melvin Van PeeblesMelvin Van PeeblesMelvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
about the history of blacks in cinema.