Black Identity In Bamboozled

Black Identity In BamboozledAfri stinkpot Americans exhaust for a long time been equal in American moving-picture arrangement in discourses of ovalbumin realism. With the emergence of fateful managers, t here has been a push to detach the disastrous community from the traditional, negative stereotypes attached to them. Bamboozled (Spike lee(prenominal), 2000) is a ignominious satire on race representation and assimilation and the ways in which the dominant hegemonic business office structure is able to divide and rule those it subjugates. This in the altogetherspaper publisher will first explore the floor of cinematic representation of African Americans, which will be discussed in line with the put disclose of deception in Bamboozled (2000). This paper will as well as explore African-American individualism quandary as presented in Bamboozled (2000).IntroductionI inadequacy hoi polloi to mean ab push finished the power of images, non just in terms of race, an d how imagery is utilize and what sort of gradely impact it has- how it influences how we talk, how we think, how we view hotshot a nonher. In departicular, I want them to see how learn and telly set out historically, from the birth of both mediums, produced and perpetuated distorted images. Film and television started out that way, and here we argon, at the dawn of a new century, and a lot of that lunacy is fluid with us today.Spike lee.The debates over race and representation of African Americans in guides cast been highly contentious for over a century. Blacks have generally been perceived and stigmatized, doneout recital, as trouble makers, incapables, intellectually limited, lacking(p), idle and irrational, amongst the more separate demeaning labels attached to them. These labels ar connected non exactly to the history of colonization exclusively likewise, importantly, to the exploitation, perpetuation, and careful maintenance of stereotypes by cinemat ic clichs which have impose themselves easily and significantly on the democratic imagination. As rightly stated by Wijdan Ali, the projection of destructive and negative stereotypes onto marginal or ineffectual groups indoors a troupe has always been an easy and useful method for making scapegoats.Effectively, paintings form the exalted space to circularize and preserve the labels which the mainstream reference desires to attach to the erosive community.tail fin decades of the Civil Rights Movement have gone by, and the degree of change in the portentous community, though undeniably real and noticeable, be perplexingly complex and inadequate. Although the incident that we now live in a time in history where Americans have voted in a baleful President, where gruesomes now occupy positions of power and are ostensibly less subject to institutional discrimination than in the past, the shameful community nevertheless remains inadequately poor, unemployed, undereducated an d negatively labeled. Adding to these, portrayals of African Americans in cinema are still, to a great extent, mark by buffoonery. at that placefore, adopting a writing-back call in Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee satirically attacks the way in which African Americans have historically been misused and reprobate on screen. through Bamboozled (2000), the coach attempts both to entertain and to educate his auditory modality about the history of African American representation within popular culture, with the word bamboozled itself indicating the state of having been cheated or conned. Bamboozled (2000) presents American mass entertainments history of racial discrimination through abasing minstrel stereotypes, which first started to be performed in musical comedy theatres and which were later brought to cinema with films much(prenominal) as The Wooing and Wedding of a Coon (1905), The Sambo Series (1909- 1911) and D.W Griffiths controversial The Birth of a Nation( 1915). Conseque ntly, the purpose of this field of honor is to explore African American evolution in the American film indusattempt and to analyze the effects of stereotypes and misrepresentation on African American identity using Cornel Wests theory of disaffection (1993) and Du Boiss theory of mental image consciousness (1903). These will hopefully in gambling help to sympathize why the integration of African Americans is considered as a subtle ignore even in a civilise era where racism seems to be a thing of the past, and where people are vatically no long judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. exclusively before getting to what Bamboozled (2000) actually brings to the table of African-American films, it is important to find at the history and evolution of black representation in Hollywood cinema, which the following paragraphs are going to deal with.II. African Americans in American Films A Brief RetrospectiveAfrican Americans first started to be re presented in minstrel indicates in the late 1820s and later on television in the early 20th century. Through blackface minstrelsy, a performance style where uncontaminating males parodied the songs, dances, clothing and speech patterns of Southern blacks using blackface makeup and hypertrophied lips, Americas conceptions of blackness and gabardine were shaped by these mocking caricatures, for, as pointed out by bell hooks, there is power in looking. While exsanguinousness was posited as the norm, e genuinely black face was a statement of social imperfection, inferiority, and mimicry that was placed in isolation with an absent whiteness as its ideal opposite. Consequently, for over a century, the notion that colored people were racially and socially inferior to whites was ingrained, internalized and accepted both by white and black minstrel performers and audiences.The caricatures took such a strong hold on the American imagination that audiences naturally came to expect any per son with dark skin, no number of his/ her background, to fit in one or more of the following stereotypes Jim Crow, a dull-witted and subservient plantation slave Zip Coon, a lazy, gaudily-dressed man from the urban center representing the proud newly- freed slave Mammy, the cont fetch uped, happy, loyal and ever-smiling female slave (as evidence of the supposed unselfishness of the institution of sla real,) Uncle Tom, the good Negro submissive, hearty, closelipped no matter what, stoic, selfless, and oh-so-very-kind, Buck, the proud and menacing Black man always fascinated by white women Jezebel the temptress the mixed race Mulatto, and Pickaninnies, who have bulging eyeball, unkempt hair, red lips and wide mouths into which they stuff huge slices of watermelon.As time travel on, black appearance in mainstream films became more and more frequent, as tumesce as the increase in the number of independent black directors, from Oscar Micheaux to Daniels Lee and Spike Lee. Since Th e Birth of a Nation, which marked a change in emphasis from the pretentious but harmless Jim Crow to the threatening roughshod Nigger, black filmmakers have responded by creating race movies and blaxploitation films which were tailored to black audiences . The seventies witnessed a resurgence of the blaxploitation genre with films such as Sweet Sweetbacks Baadassss straining (1971), Shaft (1971), Black Caesar (1973) and Foxy Br avouch (1974). Since such films were themselves in turn sendd of using the negative to hyperbolize issues pertaining to blacks, this genre saw its end in the late 1970s to give way to a new wave of black directors, such as S. Lee and John Singleton, who cerebrate on black urban life. However, we cannot afford to simply celebrate the achievements of black filmmakers for the so-called ethnic arts. And as Stuart Hall remarks, we have come out of the age of innocence, which says that its good if its there. The spotless concomitant that such films have had a considerable increase does not mean that the status of and opportunities for black people have dramatically improved although it may be true that the take of bring in-cut racism has known an important decrease, or even a disappearance. This can be backed up by Appiahs statement that changes in the representation of blacks do not ipso facto lead to changes in their treatment.III. The Issue of legerdemain in Bamboozled (2000)In Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee directly addresses this issue of African American representability as being a discourse of white essentialism. Through Bamboozled (2000) the director invites his audience to realize that although nobody goes around in blackface anymore,it does not entail that Hollywood has altogether abandoned/given up essentialist discourse. The director satirically uses very symbolic icons and elements throughout the film in rove to highlight racism and misrepresentation. The beginning of Bamboozled (2000) itself generates the intended theme Stevie Wonders Misrepresented People, a song which encapsulates the historical, political and social adversities set about by blacks, is carefully and sprucely set as the background music, which powerfully and heavily impacts upon the content of the film as well as upon the audience.Spike Lee makes it blatantly work that Bamboozled (2000) sets out to illustrate White American ideology and discourse within contemporary public sphere. Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans), the protagonist of the film, is a ne iirk decision maker working in a company which is specialized in black matters. Ironically though, during the meeting in which Delacroix is reproached for his lateness and reminded of CP time, it can be noticed that the only if Black person present is Pierre himself. His boss, Dunwitty, clearly does not want to see Negroes on television unless they are buffoons. He even scrub one of Pierres brilliant shows because it starred blacks as dignified people and goes on to complain that the latters written materials are too clean, too white, too antiseptic, which match to him merely portray white people with blackfaces. He urges Delacroix to keep it real, that is, he reminds him of the humiliating position of blacks in cinema blacks are only entertainers. The characterization of the struggle endemic to the African American experience of representation, which Lee throws to the audience in a very obvious yet complex way, can be seen in Extract 1. It can be observed in this scene that Delacroix has no other option than to portray blacks as entertainers if he is to respect his contract. This scene is also important because it does two things first, it shows Delacroixs struggle to evoke the black community by attempting to fight misrepresentation, and second, it shows a well-educated Delacroixs willingness to break up himself from other African Americans.The name of the blackface show in Bamboozled (2000) is in itself very symbolic Mantan The New Millennium Minstre l Show. Here, Lee suggests that minstrelsy has not disappeared in the new millennium. In his-own words therefore, it has only gotten more sophisticated. Gangsta rap videos, a lot of the TV shows on UPN and WB- a lot of us are still performing as buffoons and coons. The issue of black-white relations resurfaces in Bamboozled (2000) and the exercise of the Other is do explicit through Lees intended message. Black stereotyping and Otherisation fetchs the demand evil in the construction of white identity and is needed to lull white audiences of the stability of their identity. With this comes the implication that black films are successfully marketed only if they appeal to mainstream audiences. Clearly, Spike Lees aim in this provocative film is to show that even today, the American film industry is still concealing essentialist discourses within contemporary films. Consequently, as essentialism involves ongoing human and social interaction as well as limitation, identity regulatio n and enforcement takes place within this kind of racist discourse, whereby blacks have to undergo identity dilemma while seek to seek approval. As we have seen, cinema has an important employment to pushover in the construction of identity. History, cinema and black identity are elaborately intertwined. The association of these three in Bamboozled (2000) communicates to the audience how blacks are identified and how they in turn identify themselves. As a marginalized group, most of the black characters in Spike Lees film forsake their identity so as to realise approval, to be successful, or to get out of black poverty and the conclusion is shown to be a disastrous one for the black soul and community. The side by side(p) section is therefore going to be an exploration of identity dilemma in Bamboozled (2000).IV. Identity Dilemma in Bamboozled (2000)I have comprehend all my life that White people dont have to change who they are, how they talk, or how they behave. Therefore, I was left with the impression that it was everyone elses responsibility to attempt to adopt the cultural and social personalities of White people.Ronald, L Jackson.In order to tackle this issue of identity in Bamboozled (2000) Cornel Wests theory of alienation(1993) will be used in parallel to DuBois theory of recur-consciousness (1903) .Wests theory of alienation (1993) explores the identity crisis approach by the black diasporan community in modern day America. natal alienation, which has been created by the history of colonization, is an irretrievable damage to black identity. Since the Black is rendered into an inferior being through history and representation, and this inferiority further reinforced by both descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes in cinema, blacks as a end point experience a severe identity dilemma, a double consciousness.Alienation in Wests theory exists on two intricately related levels first as an ideological system of subjugation and discriminatio n and secondly as a black existentialist struggle. In Bamboozled (2000), this powerful system of oppression forces the black characters to forsake their black soul and identities. Unlike Delacroix, Womack (Tommy Davidson) and Manray (Savion Glover), two homeless street performers, are forced by their unfavorable economic conditions to become de-rooted and senseless performing dolls. Both are stripped of their names and imposed with the abasing and stereotypically racist names of SleepnEat and Mantan respectively. Alienation here produces the modern black diasporan problematic of in visibleness and namelessness, whereby Womack and Manray are forced to look at themselves through the look of others, of measuring their soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused condescension and pity.Impelled by societal and endurance pressures, both of them are forced to assimilate in order to be accepted by the white community as well as by the assimilated black people. It becomes clear t hat David Llorenss (1968) two types of blacks are present in Bamboozled (2000). Delacroix and Sloan represent the chosen ones while Manray and Womack represent the fellah. The former is familiar with the streets and the black unwashed, while the latter is culturally refined has assimilated into the white community. Alienation and white essentialist discourse creates such a situation where the chosen one feels broken by the fellah and seeks at all times to show that they are two different kinds, and to please the Guardian, that is, the white man. Manray and Womack are, through the eyes of Sloan ( Jada Pinkett Smith) and Pierre, African Americans who plowshare similar traits to the primitive African. Delacroix points this out by looking down on them and recomm oddment that they be given deodorants, toothbrushes, toothpastes and underwear. He also attempts without success to dissociate himself from the fellah black category by desperately explaining to Dunwitty that blacks are not a massive group, and that middle class black does exist. These words are representative of the African American communitys desire not to be identified only through blackness. For Dunwitty, Delacroix is only trying to wear a whiteface, which is not a mere fabrication or a mere racist comment. Dunwittys words throng an important truth. We see from the beginning of the film, that Delacroix eagerly and desperately seeks recognition and visibility from his white co-workers when he walks his way to his office. He also rejects the black vernacular for Standard English so as to make a clear cut difference between the educated and the uneducated black. This, to an important extent, reifies the transcendence of whites and serves to alienate blacks in American society, as, jibe to West (1993), alienation is part of a whole system of language. Once a cultures language is alien from the mainstream populations language, the cultures identity is similarly taken away and starts to dissipate.De lacroix himself unconsciously embodies several of the blackface stereotypes, although he tries to portray blacks in a positive light. He can be viewed as a Zip Coon, with his pretentiousness and his implicit disregard for the fellah blacks during the auditioning for the aluminum Porch Monkeys, and his dissociation from the black vernacular. Furthermore, he embodies the Uncle Tom stereotype several times in the film, especially in the scene where he acts as the loyal, faithful and subservient black while insisting on handing off an grant to Mathhew Modine (playing himself.) Delacroix is therefore himself caught in this whirlwind of Europeanization. In his relentless effort to assimilate into white culture, he gets himself a Harvard education and a penthouse, dresses professionally, and speaks the right language. Even when he sets out on his mission to deconstruct stereotypes and raise public cognizance on modern day racism, he is himself unable to resist the misrepresentation and c aricature of the terms set by uncontested nonblack norms and models. Delacroix therefore also contributes both consciously and unconsciously to the dominant discourse of alienation of blacks from the white community by setting up a Coon show which idealizes a simpler time, a time when men were men, women were women, and Negroes knew their place. Some black sept are consequently outraged by his racist show and accuse him of selling out his own community. But what has actually happened to Pierre Delacroix is that he has been experiencing the split-self- disease, what Du Bois calls a twoness an American, a Negro two souls, two thoughts, two inconsistent strivings two warring ideals in one dark body. Aware of the fact that the popular American view has consistently dehumanized African Americans through negative representation, Delacroix does not want to be among those blacks who are despised by the European American population. He does not want to be imperceptible and formless. Ther efore he aspires to be both Negro and American, two identities, which, according to Du Bois (1903) are often in conflict. Delacroixs wearing of the blackface by the end of the film iterates the inescapability of the imposed mask of blackness. Realizing that he is unable to appear as anything but black in the eyes of others, he compromises with his black self and resigns himself to the mask. What Lee is actually showing is that in modern day America, and even for sophisticated and well- off black Americans, the merging of the American and the African is one very difficult (if not impossible) thing to happen.The impact of stereotypes and alienation on black identity causes one to have a keen sense of sensory faculty about his or her various selves and how they are perceived. Often, blacks in Bamboozled (2000) have to discuss their identity. Through this act, they inevitably reach a self- acknowledgement of twoness. Womack for instance realizes that he will always be looked down upon as a cabin class American citizen, no matter how famous and successful he has become. He becomes conscious of the fact the he had been bamboozled insofar as believing that he could be an equal citizen. His success lies only in the fact that he is able to entertain white America, to always keep em laughing, a quality which Delacroixs father Junebug (Paul Mooney) believes is essential for the black American to achieve success. As shown in Extract 2 therefore, when Womack experiences double consciousness, he decides to stop acting in the minstrel show. This scene is significant in that it highlights the self-realization which is made possible only through a double-consciousness. Womack at this particular bit realizes that outside of the character of Sleepn Eat, he is simply invisible, a nobody. Through the eyes of others there is no other possible identity for him. Mantans own identity grows in conflict with that of Womack following this conversation clearly he is still unaware of t he complexities of the disjointed nature of identity in this scene. A a couple of(prenominal) scenes later however, he also becomes afflicted by the same double consciousness experienced by his friend. In Extract 3, after discovering that he has been hoodwinked and led astray, Manray refuses to be further associated to Mantan. He realizes that it is fundamentally wrong to carry on his identity through the medium of blackface. Although Lee might be suggesting that Manrays realization occurs at too late a time, his message clearly goes in line with Du Boiss (1903) argument that double consciousness is the realization that identity is multifaceted. jibe to him, at one point or the other, black Americans develop a conflict with the different identities that they need to embody in order to be accepted by the mainstream, a conflict which is inexistent among white Americans.On the other hand, Sloans brother, Julius, who forms part of the Mau Mau revolutionary underground gang and who d oes not go through double consciousness because of his refusal to be seen through white Americas eyes, is juxtaposed to the blacks who try to assimilate white culture, thereby denying their own roots, language, people, and culture. Julius constantly affirms his black identity, dissimilar the other blacks we encounter in the film. Extract 4 shows how he refuses to be a representative of de-rooted, disenfranchised blacks. In the perspective of revolutionary blacks such as the Mau Maus therefore, Manray needs to be executed because he is a hurting to the black community he is a Judas, an Uncle Tom, one who contributes to the demise of his own race. The murders of Manray and Delacroix show to what extent alienation and double-consciousness can be detrimental to African Americans. They create inter-ethnic conflict and a heavy malaise in the black community. Alienation as an ideological racist discourse therefore divides and rules those who are marginalized in a society that looks on in amused contempt and pity. Through the Mau Mau gang, it can be seen that those who accept and affirm their black identities are ineffective in society. They are in no way in a better state of being than those who experience double-consciousness. Since they do not master the mainstream language and do not believe in the ideological discourses of the inferiority of their race, they are forced to retire to the underground world.The fact that the untruth of history and alienation results in double consciousness in many cases in Bamboozled (2000) is destructive to all. Accepting white essentialism as culturally representable not only creates a fatal division between assimilated and un- assimilated blacks it also kills the spirit of the black man.V. ConclusionAlthough the situations and the characters in Lees Bamboozled (2000) are all fictitious, and although the director does not choose the medium of docudrama to convey his important messages, he manages to successfully reconstruct blac kface minstrelsy. African Americans have been freed, but only physically. There has been neither a consistent attempt to make up for the mistakes of humanity of the past nor to reshape identities. His argument in Bamboozled (2000) is that the identity dilemmas faced by the characters in the film are no different from the identity issues faced by African Americans in post-racial America. Although blacks do not find themselves as being represented in blackface or as victims of blatant separatism anymore, they are nevertheless always reminded of their blackness, and of what it implies to be a black in America. Whether Lee is genuinely successful in renegotiating a stigmatized identity or in deconstructing stereotypes by dismantling the false normativity of white authority remains highly debatable. On the one side, his use of satire and his engagement with the history of racism and representation impact heavily on the audience. However, the frustrating ending of Bamboozled (2000), as we ll as the inter- ethnic conflict between the revolutionary and the assimilated blacks, display a contaminating and intense sense of helplessness and desperation in regards to humanitys chances to ever get rid of the veil which separates whites and blacks in America, as well as in any other parts of the world. Lees message, considering his role as an auteur, seems to reflect Du Boiss words that the black man must not bleach his soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that his blood has a message for the world.