Why Spike Lee Is Evil...

[mike j]

So why is Spike Lee evil again? Because he made a
movie about 'the hottest day of the year' instead of
'smokey the crackhead'? He didn't Disney-fy anything,
he maybe Kazan-ed it a bit but so what? Why does every
african american-made movie have to be drenched in
gritty tupacian neo-realism? If you didn't like the
movie fine --- passive resistance is an old
argument.... uh huh. And who said he wasn't
'acknowledging the poverty and anomie' (what is that,
like some sort of shellfish?) anyway? Profundidty,
Schmoshmundity... rent 'la grande illusion' and blow
it out yer arse.

PS - Radio Raheem got choked to death by a white cop.
Is that an old argument too? Come to NYC and find out,
it's quite alive and gasping.

>>>>>>>

Any asshole can be pissed off. And any asshole can get
a dialogue going by 
being pissed off. I'm not criticizing Spike for
stirring shit up, I'm taking 
him to task for what he says once he's got everyone's
attention. I'm talking 
means, you're talking ends. You like that he created
dialogue, even though 
the discussion, to be totally honest,  lasted only as
long as the movie was 
in theatres (which begs the question: was this an
honest discussion or part 
of the marketing?Conflict and sensationalism, after
all, has always helped 
fill the seats). I would argue that his dialogue would
have had a much more 
lasting impression had he not simply regurgitated the
old arguments I spoke 
of earlier (King's passive resistance, Malcolm X's and
Stokely Carmicheal's 
use of violence, Garvey's black capitalism). Have you
ever seen the French 
film Hate? This film--I think anyway--treats race
hatred in a more 
intelligent manner, while injecting problems of class
into the mix 
(something which Mr. Lee, and nearly every other
contemporary American 
film-maker, save John Sayles,  has been loathe to do).
And your point about 
Lee not including drug abuse (and other urban ills)
into his fictional 
neighborhood tells you everything you need to know
about Spike's worldview. 
The Bed-Stuy we see in Do the Right Thing looks
Disneyfied, like a set from 
Seinfeld or Sesame Street. But if you want to talk
about problems of race 
without acknowledging the poverty and anomie that
surrounds it, I'm afraid 
you're doing your cause a disservice. The inner cities
are rotting; by 
failing to admit to this, Spike's no different than
the rest of the American 
media who soft-pedal the fact that tens of millions of
Americans (more white 
than black) live in crushing poverty. Again, this is
an instance where Spike 
managed to capture our attention and said nothing.
It's one thing to create 
conflict, quite another to discuss causality and maybe
some possible 
solutions. His riot, after all, was caused not by
poverty but by a blaring 
boom box and the lack of black celebrities on the wall
of Danny Aeillo's 
pizzeria; a materialist critique of racism is quite
simply not forthcoming. 
His answers are equally disappointing: throw up a
quote by MLK and a quote 
by X and let the viewer decide. Ironically, this is
one of the few instances 
where Spike Lee allows the viewer to think for
themselves instead of ramming 
his own well-worn homilies down their throats. And
then there's his 
egregious use of stock characters: the Korean grocer,
the old black man 
disgusted by the antics of the younger generation,
etc. He's a lazy 
film-maker who prefers short-cuts and quick fixes;
original analyses and 
profundity have never been within his reach. By the
way, judging a film or a 
film-maker by its/their politics is no less relevant
than judging it on a 
formal or linguistic level. Especially when discussing
Spike Lee, a 
film-maker who has never shied away from political
messages. Frankly, I'm 
surprised that you'd encourage someone to shy away
from judging a Spike Lee 
film on a political level. He's certainly not an
art-for-art's-sake kind of 
film-maker.
          About Disposable Heroes. I encourage you to
read their lyrics. 
Musically, they may be no match for PE (although PE's
beats seem woefully 
dated compared to even the worst hip-hop nowadays) but
their lyrics make 
Chuck D's efforts look like an angry high-schooler
(which is what he is, 
ostensibly). DHOH were also free of anti-semitism
(i.e. Prof. Griff, 
Swindler's List) and to my knowledge none of their
members were ever charged 
with murder. By the way, Spike Lee could easily, and
accurately, be called a 
"one-miss wonder" (which is what he is, ostensibly).



From: mike j <michaelmailing at yahoo.com>
To: Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: Why Spike Lee Is Evil...
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 18:29:34 -0700 (PDT)

re spike & 'do the right thing':

sounds like you're accusing spike of being pissed off.
well to quote a p.e. sample - "i got a right to be
pissed off man, my people been persecuted!" say what
you want about the garbage can going through sal's
pizza, he got a dialogue going.

i remember at the time, one of the big debates was
over Spike's depiction of a black community (Bed-Stuy)
without crack cocaine which was then at epidemic
proportions in these neighborhoods. basically the
white media was saying "why don't you show how fucked
up your people are?" an interesting thing to think
about in the historical context of the film, trying to
crucifying the man for portraying his neighborhood and
culture in a positive light.

not to mention ernest dickerson's needing to reinvent
the cinematographic wheel to get those gorgeous black
faces to show up like they should. i'm tellin ya,
dissing those movies you're taking ALOT for granted.


re public enemy:

um, what can i say, chuck and flava and the bomb squad
(hank shocklee especially, that guy is sooo amazing)
made in my opinion two of the best rap albums ever
('yo!' and 'nation of millions'). 'disposable heroes'?
you have to be kiddin' -  one miss wonders. they
almost seemed like a club band as i remember it.

judging music by its politics is like judging fiction
by its,er, 'signifiers'. when i saw p.e. in nyc 1989
(the 'terrordome' single had just come out), a friend
of mine was so scared he waited near the exit just in
case those uzi's went off!!

silly rabbit.



 >>>>>>>>>

Mike J,
I agree with you on two points: first, House Party
rules; second, I'll give
Spike (Mr. Lee) credit for She's Gotta Have It, his
only film that isn't
heavy-handed and overly melodramatic (the soundtrack
is also quite good).
However, I've always thought that 'Do The Right Thing'
was one of the most
overrated films of the 80s. I think he's guilty of
recycling the peaceful
reform / violent resistance binary of MLK and X, as if
either of these
options could be transferred to 1980s America and
still result in some sort
of tangible results; in other words, I'm accusing
Spike of being utterly
ahistorical and of using comfortable sound-byte
ideologies that are either
outdated or, at the very least, need to be fine-tuned
as conditions change.
His politics, in short, are horribly convoluted; this
is why he can make an
utterly horrible film decrying the NBA--He Got
Game--yet still act as a
spokesman for Nike, heap praises on that idiot Michael
Jordan, and make sure
that the cameras catch his image at every Knick game.
And don't get me
started on Public Enemy, the feature group on Do The
Right Thing's
soundtrack. They've also built their reputation by
spewing out black power
slogans from the 60s while offering nothing new to the
discourse. If this is
all America has to say about race, then I'm afraid
America's doomed. W.E.B.
DuBois could produce more profound insight vis. a bout
of flatulence than
Spike Lee and John Singleton combined.
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