On December 21st, 2012, Spike Lee threw down the
proverbial gauntlet at Quentin Tarantino’s feet for the second time in 15 years. He’s taken issue with Quentin’s Spaghetti
western homage Django Unchained. It follows the exploits of an ex-slave who
becomes a bounty hunter in order to rescue his lady love from the bonds of
captivity. In order to do so, he must
square off against an evil plantation owner.
When asked about the film during a filmed interview with VibeTV, Spike said "I can’t speak
on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it, all I'm going to say is that it's
disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of
anybody else." He elaborated
further via his Twitter account: "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.It Was A Holocaust.My Ancestors Are Slaves.Stolen From Africa.I Will Honor Them." [sic]
When a Tarantino fan accused him of taking things too seriously, Spike
fired back "Wrong.Birth Of A Nation Got Black Folks Lynched [sic]. Media
Is Powerful. DON'T SLEEP. WAKE UP YO."
If there’s one thing that can be counted on in this world,
it’s that any major release aimed at Black audiences will be met with some
level of discord within the Black community.
It’s inevitable. Spike’s
criticisms of Django Unchained are an
example of this ongoing phenomenon, even though the movie in question doesn’t
technically qualify as a “Black film.” It was conceived, written, and directed
by a white guy. That particular issue is at the heart of Spike’s dilemma.
This ongoing issue has plagued Black cinema for at least the
last 40 or so years. In 1972, Junius
Griffen, then a film publicist and head of the Hollywood/Beverly Hills chapter of
the NAACP, first coined the phrase “Blaxploitation.” It was short hand for “Black exploitation.” He did so in an August 10th, 1972 Hollywood Reporter article titled “NAACP
Takes Militant Stand on Black Exploitation Films.”
The term was used to describe a wave of very popular films often
portrayed Black folks in a rather stereotypical light. Many focused on the underworld, and contained
ample doses of sex, violence, and profanity.
The genre was born in the early 1970’s and petered out later in the
decade. It included such Fred Williamson
vehicles as The Legend of Nigger Charley,
The Soul of Nigger Charley, and Boss Nigger, all of which were
forerunners to Django Unchained. The
NAACP, along with other groups such as The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and the National Urban League, ultimately banded together and formed
the Coalition Against Blaxploitation.
![]() |
Poster for The Legend of Nigger Charley. |
The furor over Blaxploitation set a precedent. Almost every decade since has had it’s very own
Black film renaissance, each of which has been met with similar criticisms. The hood films of the 1990’s were accused of promoting
“Black on Black” violence, and were often blamed for outbreaks of violence at
opening weekend screenings. In the
current era, Tyler Perry’s various forms of Chitlin’ entertainment have been
branded as “Coonery and Buffoonery” by many, most famously by Spike
himself. It seems that no matter how the
Black experience is portrayed, some segment of the audience gets ticked off. Spike’s recent rant about Django, provides a rather handy (though admittedly
limited) scope through which to view this phenomenon.
Spike was perhaps the primary inspiration behind the Black
film renaissance of the early 1990’s. That movement peaked in 1991, when 16 movies made
by Black filmmakers received a theatrical release. This was largely due to Lee’s unique
voice. As Roger Ebert once said of his sophomore
feature, “Spike Lee's "School Daze" is the first movie in a long time
where the black characters seem to be relating to one another, instead of to a
hypothetical white audience.” This made
Spike stand out in a market place where Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby represented
the alpha and omega of the Black experience.
From day one, Spike’s penchant for blasting his peers in the
media became evident. In a New York Times article that was
published in 1986, the same year that his feature film debut She’s Gotta Have It was released, Spike zeroed
in on Whoopi Goldberg. He criticized her
for wearing blue contact lenses, and noted her “vicious crossover
mentality.” 3 years later, as Do The Right Thing fast became a
lightning rod of controversy, Lee accused Eddie Murphy of not using his
considerable pull at Paramount studios to ensure that put Blacks in a position
of power. On The Arsenio Hall show, Murphy called Spike a cricket. After Hall publically came to Murphy’s
defense, Lee branded him an Uncle Tom.
In subsequent decades, Lee’s ire has known no bounds, and is
regularly aimed at fellow Black artists.
His targets have included filmmaker Matty Rich, as well former
collaborator Samuel L. Jackson. He even
turned on Will Smith, who opted for director Michael Mann when agreeing to star
in the biopic Ali. His recent war of words with Tyler Perry quickly
devolved into yet another example of “House negro vs. Field Negro.” His disdain for modern rap music is also well
known, as he has traded words with both 50 Cent The 2 Live Crew. Also of note are his clashes with white
filmmakers and icons such as George Lucas, Clint Eastwood, and Charlton Heston.
Spike’s rants have often either coincided with, or preceded,
the release of one of his films. That
underlines his penchant for self-promotion.
It reveals his rather narcissistic view of himself as being the sole
standard bearer, and perhaps sole standard setter, of Black film. During the late 80’s and even into the 90’s,
Spike had the playing field all to himself.
Now he has to share it, and he doesn’t like it. The idea of sharing it with the likes of a
nerdy white guy brings us to Spike’s ongoing feud with Quentin Tarantino.
![]() |
Quentin Tarantino vs. Spike Lee |
Spike’s beef with Quentin began in December of 1997, with
the release of Jackie Brown. In an interview with Variety, he took Tarantino to task.
By his count, the n-word was used in the film 38 times. He noted that Quentin had used it in all of
his films up until that point. He then stated
"I'm not against the word... and I use it, but Quentin is infatuated with
the word. What does he want? To be made an honorary black man?"
Spike’s vitriol was surprising given his (then) recent
history with Tarantino. He’d given him a
cameo role in his 1996 film Girl 6,
which was released on March 22nd of that year. The timeline of events up until that point
proves very telling. Quentin’s
breakthrough film, Pulp Fiction, was
released on October 14th of 1994. In
that film, as the character Jimmie, Tarantino performed the now infamous “Dead
Nigger Storage” routine. During that
monologue, Tarantino used the N-word multiple times. Not the colloquial variant, mind you, but the
proper pronunciation. If Spike was so
disturbed by Quentin’s obsession with the word, why collaborate with him after
the fact? Did he just realize Quentin’s
obsession while watching Jackie Brown? I highly doubt it. As Spike himself noted, Quentin had been
using the word in all his films up until that point.
Now let’s take a look at Spike’s criticisms of Django Unchained. American slavery was not a Sergio Leone
spaghetti western, according to him. However,
he certainly didn’t feel that way on August 21st, 1998, when he
appeared on The Chris Rock Show. During that episode, he and host Chris Rock
lamented the (then) current state of Black cinema. Spike cited John Singleton’s film Rosewood as an example of a quality
Black film that performed poorly at the box office. Rosewood
was based on the 1923 Rosewood massacre that took place in Levy County,
Florida. The film was essentially a Schindler’s List rip-off that reimagined
the horrible tragedy as…a western! At one
point, the character Mann (Played by Ving Rhames) becomes a gun-slinging hero. No such events occurred in real life. The film played fast and loose with
historical facts. Chris Rock interrupted
Spike’s endorsement, saying that Rosewood,
while positive, wasn’t actually good.
![]() |
Ving Rhames as Mann in John Singleton's Rosewood. |
So what of his comparisons to The Birth of Nation? Spike’s
observation regarding the power of media is absolutely correct. However, as people of color in America know
very well, true racism hardly needs either motivation or justification. Even a cursory glance at the right wing’s
reaction to Obama’s presidency proves that emphatically.
Ironically, a similar argument was once used by film critic
David Denby to brand Lee as a rabble rouser.
In his review of Spike’s breakthrough feature Do The Right Thing, which originally ran in the June 26th,
1989 edition of New York Magazine,
Denby said of the film “The end of this movie is a shambles and if audiences go
wild, he’s partly responsible. Lee wants
to rouse people, to “wake them up.” But to do what?”
In that very same issue, columnist Joe Klein weighed in with
equally alarmist sentiments in his article “Spiked?”: “All these subtleties are
likely to leave white (especially white liberal audiences) debating the meaning
of Spike’s message. Black teenagers
won’t find it so hard though. For them,
the message is clear from the opening credits, which roll to the tune of ‘Fight
The Power,’ performed by Public Enemy, a virulently anti-Semitic rap group
(Professor Griff, the group’s minister of information, recently told the Washington Times that Jews were ‘responsible
for the majority of wickedness that goes on around the globe’).”
Griff was subsequently ejected from the group as a result of
his comments. Klein goes on to say that
the film states that both the police and white people are the enemy of Black
Americans. Ironically, Spike seems to be
doing exactly the same thing to Tarantino that Denby did to him. By doing this, Spike has not only aligned
himself with would be detractor’s such as Denby and Klein, but also conservative
pundits such as Matt Drudge, who fear that Django
Unchained might be a call to arms for the Black Community. They think it might stir up the “good
nigras.” That’s exactly what Klein and
Denby once thought of Do The Right Thing. Interesting, isn’t it?
To be fair, Spike is surely not alone in his disdain for Django.
Among his most unlikely allies is conroversial film critic Armond White,
who’s never exactly been his biggest fan.
In his scathing review of the film, which is titled “Still Not a Brother,” White predictably resorts to personal attacks. He brands Samuel L.
Jackson an Uncle Tom of the worst order.
Such hyperbole is White’s stock-in-trade, as are his contrarian shtick
and effete sensibilities.
On the less vitriolic side of things is Erin Aubry Kaplan,
who’s recent LA Times piece “'Django' an unsettling experience for many blacks,” lists reactions from a number of Black professionals who work within
the entertainment industry (mostly in a behind-the-scenes or journalistic
capacity). She finds Tarantino’s recent revelations decidedly trite, to say
the least: “Tarantino has said in promoting ‘Django’ that America has never
dealt honestly with its history of slavery — true, but general enough to be
almost entirely uncontroversial.”
She also takes issue with his ideas about how future Black
Audiences will receive Django: “In a
recent interview with The (L.A.)Times, however, he assigned meaning to
his new film in a way that he typically resists. ‘Even for the movie's biggest
black detractors, I think their children will grow up and love this movie,’ he
said. ‘I think it could become a rite of passage for young black males.’ The presumptuousness of that sentiment is
striking to some — passage from what to what, exactly? Watching somebody
getting blown away in nearly every frame hardly seems like indoctrination young
black men need, if they haven't been indoctrinated into such violence already.”
Filmmaker Tanya Steele, a former student of Spike’s, concurs
with Ms. Kaplan. The Black film site Shadow
and Act, Her analysis “Tarantino's Candy (Slavery In The White Male Imagination)” which was recently published on the Black film site Shadow and
Act, asks “Is the culture any worse because of 'Django Unchained'? I don't
think we are better because of it. Will it deepen discussions around slavery?
Probably not. Will it decrease violence in the 'hood? Probably not, if
anything, the gun received more glorification and worship. Not sure black males
or anyone else needs that.”
She then goes on to acknowledge the obvious appeal and
entertainment value of the film. Not to
dismiss either Ms. Kaplan or Ms. Steele, but both come off as obviously
intelligent and insightful sisters who quite obviously aren’t that enthralled
with violent revenge thrillers. Nor do
they seem to grasp the concepts of allegory and myth. Thankfully, there are many other Black folks
that do. Among Django’s supporters are Oprah Winfrey, comedian D.L. Hughley, comedian Donnell Rawlings, writer Touré, Star Jones, and
most recently filmmaker Antoine Fuqua.
Fuqua recently came out in defense of Tarantino, noting Spike’s penchant for using the media as his own personal firing squad: "That’s just not the way you do things. If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee,talk about it. But don’t do it publicly."
Perhaps even more telling is that the film has been nominated for four
image awards by the very organization that once lead the charge against such
fare: The NAACP.
So just what is Spike’s real
problem with Django Unchained? I offer that his problem is either that he
didn’t think of it first, or doesn’t have the clout and/or talent to pull it
off. Spike has never exactly been a
populist filmmaker. His works are
fiercely personal. He rarely if ever
makes concessions to popular tastes. He
expects them (the audience) to come to him (the artist). Over the last twenty years, moviegoers have
been increasingly less willing to accommodate him in that regard. At this point, one has to wonder if his
position is dictated by his own limitations as a filmmaker. He’s has never been the most adept
storyteller around, and his meandering narratives can be frustrating for the
uninitiated. Tarantino is also a
fiercely personal filmmaker. It just so
happens that his over-indulgences make for entertaining viewing. Perhaps, a genre piece that uses American
slavery as its backdrop is beyond Spike’s capabilities.
Spike, like the white aristocracy that he has always railed
against, is part of a dying breed. He’s represents
an altogether different aristocracy.
He’d like to remake Black America in his image, dictating our collective
tastes and mindset. Slavery should only
be depicted by him, in the kinds of films that he’d like to make. Anyone who deviates from that path is either
a house nigger or a wigger. Well, if
cheering on an ex-slave who ultimately takes his destiny into his own hands by
seeking bloody revenge (with the help of a white liberal mentor, of course)
makes me an Uncle Tom, than so fucking be it!
Spike stopped understanding his audience a long time ago. Meanwhile, Tarantino seems to know exactly
what that audience wants to see, and delivers it in his own unique way. More power to him.
Solid. a blog that actually makes sense and the tangent don't stay too far from the source. This article is like how the new used to be.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen “NAACP Takes Militant Stand on Black Exploitation Films,” Hollywood Reporter, August 10, 1972? I would to read it.
ReplyDeleteXbox Live needs to have adequate component. Because of this, I enjoy to be able to assemble all these codes and also share them with you. Try to find infection free code generators and also you're prepared to have your Xbox Live Gold free codes. The xbox live gold codes are normally collected from various areas in the internet.
ReplyDeleteIt's late finding this act. At least, it's a thing to be familiar with that there are such events exist. I agree with your Blog and I will be back to inspect it more in the future so please keep up your act. Real Cricket 19 Mod
ReplyDeleteIt is perfect time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy. I've read this post and if I could I desire to suggest you some interesting things or suggestions. Perhaps you could write next articles referring to this article. I want to read more things about it! Real Cricket 19 Mod Apk
ReplyDeletegolden goose
ReplyDeletecurry 6
supreme
kyrie shoes
air jordan
off white hoodie
yeezy boost 350
hermes
supreme clothing
kd 12
Shemale Escorts in Bangalore
ReplyDeleteSex Escorts in Bangalore
Celebrity Escorts in Bangalore
Aunty Escorts in Bangalore
Independent Bangalore Escorts
Bangalore Escorts Services