Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences In Film

Epilogue: New Millennium Minstrel Shows? African American Cinema in the Late 1990s

Epilogue: New Millennium Minstrel Shows? African American Cinema in the Late 19905 n Spike Lee's Bamboozled (2000), television writer Pierre "Peerless" Delacroix (Damon Wayans) attempts to get himself fired from his job at a fledgling television network by writing what he believes to be the most offensive show possible , Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show, a variety show based upon American minstrel shows from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It features "Mantan" (Savion Glover) and "Sleep 'N' Eat" (Tommy Davidson), a duo who wear blackface, dance, shuffle, shuck, and jive, all on a set that resembles a southern plantation very much like the idyllic settings from early vaudeville or from the black-cast musicals, such as Vincente Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky, produced by Hollywood between 1929 and 1943. To Pierre's surprise and (initial) dismay, the show is optioned by the Continental Network System (CNS), where it becomes an instant hit, subsequently sparking a vogue for African American memorabilia and blackface makeup. Because this study is focused on the visualization ofAfrican American urban experiences in film at different periods in American history, Bamboozled might not seem relevant. The film is set in the predominantly white world ofAmerican television broadcasting at the turn of the twentieth century, 207 Copyrighted Material 208 Epilogue and little of its narrative defines or explores any new or existing African American urban terrain. Yet in a brief moment in Bamboozled, all the elements discussed in the preceding chapters coalesce. This moment comments upon the state of contemporary African American popular culture while concurrently acknowledging the history ofAfrican American films set in the city. During an early meeting, Pierre, his boss Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport ), Pierre's assistant Sloan Gada Pinkett Smith), and the two performers discuss the show's details. As they mull over possible settings, Pierre suggests that The New Millennium Minstrel Show should be set in "the projects." This engenders a negative response from Dunwitty, who feels he is "more black" than Harvard-educated, middle-class Pierre both because Dunwitty is a white man married to an African American woman and because he is more familiar with African American pop culture and sports icons (signified by the photos adorning the walls of his office). As Dunwitty claims, the problem with contemporary African American culture-television, music, film-is that "it all takes place in the hood.... Everyone wants to bust a cap." Pierre proposes, instead, that the show be set in a watermelon patch, to which Dunwitty excitedly concurs, adding that it should be a watermelon patch on an Alabama plantation. This setting, Dunwitty believes, will present a fresh (and profitable) perspective on African American life for the eNS viewers. Ironically, the antidote to the hood's ubiquity is a southern rural idyll. In Bamboozled Lee's main point is to argue, through satire and irony, that what might appear to be innovative in urban popular culture actually has deep roots in the long and perhaps forgotten history ofAmerican cinematic, televisual, and theatrical representations. Pierre's choice of, and Dunwitty's enthusiasm about, the watermelon patch setting, combined with the performers' rag costumes, their blackface makeup, and their use of dialect suggest what is at stake when we either forget or are ignorant ofthis history. Bamboozled reminds audiences of the static boundaries of the antebellum idyll of black-cast musicals beginning in the late 1920s and showcasing performances by Mantan Moreland , Amos 'N' Andy, and Step 'N' Fetchit, all of whom made their living through various forms ofminstrelsy, and some ofwhom appeared in black-cast musicals, race films, or both. These Hollywood black-cast musicals began my discussion of the cinematic visualizations ofAfrican American city spaces over the years and to the present. A somewhat similar connection between past and present is made clear in Sleep 'N' Copyrighted Material African American Cinema in the Late 19905 209 Eat's claims that in the "New Millennium ... it's the same old bullshit. We've come full circle." Even more relevant to this work, however, is Lee's harsh indictment of the facets of African American visual culture influenced by hood films, gangsta' rap, and their reciprocal relationship with consumer culture . This critique is a clear continuation of the thematic explorations that Lee began in Clockers, except in Bamboozled Lee links contemporary forms of black culture with minstrelsy, ifnot in fact, then by association because advertisements for malt liquor and designer...