Bamboozeld and its use of racial slurs

Bamboozled, written and directed by Spike Lee is a movie about a modern televised minstrel show called Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show. The show features black actors, in black face. Seeing black actors in blackface was a weird experience for me to see because normally white people donned blackface for minstrel shows. In the scenes where the main characters of the show, Manray and Womack, applied the makeup, the images of them looking into the mirror as they applied the paint and red lipstick was really effective. I was able to feel the emotions they felt as they became a different person, even though they were playing themselves.

I somewhat enjoyed this movie but at the same time disliked it as I became offended by comments made by Thomas Dunwitty, the white producer of the show. His character talks like a black man and constantly uses “nigger” and believes there is nothing wrong with that. He says he can say it whenever he wants to because his wife is black and because he grew up around black people. This is a common thing that I still hear today. When whites say “nigger” and “nigga” they say things like, “I have black friends so I can say it” or “I said it to my white friend so it’s different.” It’s not! This is a racial slur that many people use so freely and it bothers me. How others can easily dismiss it amazes me. This made me think of what Bonilla-Silva says about abstract liberalism when he says, “whites can appear “reasonable” and even “moral,” while opposing almost all practical approaches to deal with the de facto racial inequality” (p.28). This frame allows whites to justify their racial views and deny that any kind of racial inequality existed. I can only hope that our society acknowledges the implications of the word “nigger” and refuse to use it in conversations. Does anyone else feel this way? I know for some “nigga” is used as a term of endearment, which I cannot rap my head around.

I tried my best not to take this movie and its content too hard but there were some things said that will always be offense to me. This movie was the first time I had seen a minstrel show in its entirety. I think Spike Lee did a wonderful job with the portrayal of black minstrelsy in its rise and downfall. This movie was made over 12 years ago, if it were remade today how would people perceive it?