Both The Help and Bamboozled are movies that try to address the issues of race in society. The Help covers the lives of a few black domestics working for middle-upper middle class white families in the 1960s. It shows their struggles with racism and discrimination and overall has a very serious feeling to it. Bamboozled, on the other hand, is a satire about a new age black face show becoming popular despite the fact that it was extremely racist and offensive. While both movies, at least in some ways, succeed in either addressing issues of race or trying to break stereotypes, I do feel that The Help is a much better representation and does a much better job at what it sets out to do. That's not to say that Bamboozled doesn't succeed in addressing certain issues, things such as racist stereotypes and just how offensive things like black face actors were, however I feel that it being a satire really diminishes some of it's potential. I realize that being a satire that it's main purpose is to poke fun at a very serious topic, and that's all well and fine, yet I feel that it really didn't solidify it's point. Bamboozled is trying to show that there are some stereotypes about blacks that will always be apart of our society and it does this by having the main characters be a part of a modern minstrel show. Although I feel the movie did a good job addressing some of these stereotypes, it didn't really do a good job at explaining how we could overcome them, or why we should even care. I get what Spike Lee was attempting to do with this movie, and in all regards it was enjoyable and did make me think about a few things, however I feel he may have missed the point to some extent.
The Help, on the other hand, I think did a great job of addressing the issues of race and discrimination. Throughout the movie you follow these maids as they struggle to deal with the harsh discrimination from the white families. It left a much bigger impact on me than Bamboozled did, if only because it wasn't a satire. I realize it's like comparing apples and oranges but the fact that The Help wasn't a satire just made it hit harder. It was more real, more believable, more moving. When you're watching The Help, all the issues that these maids had to face due to their race feels real. In those regards The Help really makes you think about how things were back then and how things are now.
I completely agree with you. The Help certainly accomplished what it set out to do while I felt Bamboozled completely failed. I cannot remember the exact wording of the Bamboozled response question, but we were asked to analyze a critique of the film. The main point of the critique was that if you graphically portray a controversial subject in a negative fashion, the image still retains is negative connotation. I think that's exactly what happened with Spike Lee's film. However, The Help seemed to crusade for social change and promote the idea of equality which gave the movie an uplifting message of hope amidst a heavy subject.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that Bamboozled didn't sufficiently address how to overcome racism. I'm also not a fan of the Wayans brothers, so that alone was a huge turnoff. I suppose The Help didn't really discuss how to overcome racism either, but it made an attempt at doing so.
ReplyDeleteI thought the emphasis on the character's trying to embrace every aspect of stereotypes was distracting. His fake French accent was obnoxious, and while there are certainly white people who do act like Michael Rapaport's character, they're certainly in the very slim minority. If anything, Bamboozled may have made whites stereotypes of black people even worse.