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Spike Lee: what's everybody's problem? (1 Viewer)

Ken_McAlinden

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If the statement were reversed, it would no longer make any sense. It would read: "Few black directors get our (white) stuff right". What would be the equivalent films to Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, Cry Freedom, and Ali? 70s Blaxploitation films? Were any of them based on major historical events that skewed "white" history to appeal to a black audience?

Spike may have been able to wrap better semantics around it, but at least there was a point to be made. Arguing about "reversing the statement" is a rhetorical exercise since in the case of the reversal, there is not a point to be made.

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Terrell

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But you can bet Spike wouldn't like it. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. However, as I said before, Ali isn't a black history film. It's a film about one man. So his point about whites rarely get our stuff right. Our stuff? Ali's life isn't their history.
 

Ken_McAlinden

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My point was that he would be right to not like it since there would be no truth to the statement. When black directors have skewed the portrayal of "white history" in high profile movies over a significant period of time, then someone can make the statement and if Spike gets mad we can call him a hypocrite. Until that time however, we are simply building straw men to burn in effigy with this argument.

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Robert Crawford

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Terrell,

You're adding very little to this discussion except the presence of your obvious dislike for Spike Lee!

Crawdaddy
 

Terrell

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Robert, I think I made some good points and added to the discussion. How exactly did I not add to the discussion?
 

Robert Crawford

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Terrell,

You can edit your post all you want but just remember what last chance basis mean! Furthermore, if you can't see how your points of contention were blown apart by other members then there is nothing else I can tell you.

Crawdaddy
 

Rex Bachmann

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I'm not quite clear whether the most valid rebuttal point about complaints about Spike Lee's statement on white directors getting "black history" correct has been made.

During the 60's the issue among "Black Power" advocates was what has come down to us today as "empowerment". It seems to me that Mr. Lee's statement is not at its base about whether white directors can "get it correct", but whether they should be doing this at all, instead of blacks themselves for themselves. Wasn't this after all Malcom X's message? Self-reliance and independence of mind and spirit, a "necessary" liberation from the "shackles of (spiritual) oppression"? You don't achieve this by allowing others do for you what you can and, therefore, should do for yourself.
 

Micheal

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Repeatedly trashing the director without backing it up with any facts is just "bashing".
Comments like...
I doubt Lee knew much if anything about Ali's history.
...are just ignorant and uninformed.
Can you truly tell us how much Spike Lee actually knows about Ali? I don't think so.
 

Ken_McAlinden

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I think in the best of all possible scenarios, we would get Spike Lee's version and Michael Mann's version, but the financial reality is that only one version is going to be made. Spike is frustrated since the only shot at a high profile historical film he has been given was Malcolm X, and then only after Norman Jewison deferred. He's been trying to get his Jackie Robinson biopic off of the ground for years, and was apparently given the cold shoulder on the Ali project while they gave Michael Mann $100 million (four times the cost of Malcom X, albeit 10 years later so adjust for inflation) to make it.

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Mark Pfeiffer

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I expect Spike is very familiar with Muhammad Ali's life considering how large a figure Ali has been (and considering how big a sports fan Spike is).

As for his current projects, I heard on the radio that he is working on a documentary about Jim Brown. (It's for HBO, I think.)
 

StephenC

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What,exactly,is Mr.Lee's "status" in Hollywood?He got passed over for Ali,he can't seem to get his Jackie Robinson film made,and it seems the only film studio who has green lighted him lately is HBO.To me,it would be such a waste to let such a talented man get handcuffed by the industry.I'm just asking because I really do not know what he has been up to.
 

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