Bamboozled Film, Essay Example

Racism is a common element in the U.S., where mostly black Americans encounter challenges of prejudice and discrimination. Bamboozled Film, written and directed by Spike Lee, can be described as an extreme satire about a frustrated black American TV executive known as Pierre Delacroix. As a black individual in the media industry, Delacroix is used to stereotypical and prejudicial statements and insinuations, particularly from his boss, Thomas Dunwitty. Delacroix intentionally establishes a Minstrel show that promotes the aspects of racism in the context that he is perceived as racist, but the show becomes a success. Lee satirically exposes the domination of racism in the U.S. culture through the Bamboozled Film.

Spike Lee is the author of the screenplay, as well as the director of the movie in context. By being an African American individual, Lee has observed and experienced in one way or the other racism. Lee’s mother, Jacqueline Carroll, was an art and black literature teacher, while his father, William James Edward Lee III, was a jazz musician and composer. Consequently, Lee attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, which is historically known to be a black college. It is evident that Lee had exposure to what racism and black lives are based on his background, a fact that inspired the film. In the film, Lee explores racism by looking at history from a different perspective; how the art forms handled the depiction of people of color, which is not good. Thus, the film is essentially satirical as it reveals how society has dehumanized people of color.

The film Bamboozled was released in 2000. Lee regarded the film as a way to commemorate the 100th anniversary of cinema and half a decade years of television. However, he wanted to pass a message of how racism is still engraved in society. The time period depicted in the film is accurate as it explores the events that occur in the U.S. contemporary society by the time of its production. However, the time period being revealed is through the lenses of the majority of society who possess the stereotypical ideologies about blacks. The film has black characters who wear black masks to make them darker. In the film, although Delacroix projects that the Minstrel show will have him fired, it succeeds. Lee insinuates that the Minstrel show succeeds because the majority of the population, white Americans, support racism. The time period of the film, therefore, presents urgency in terms of the need to change the American population’s perspective about racism.

In the context of character representation, the film inclines how whites perceive African people. While the film is produced by an African American, the main characters in Delacroix’s show are black actors in blackface and use exceedingly racist jokes and gags. The Minstrel show also airs abusively prejudiced CGI-animated cartoons. This indicates how the characters are represented as they would be perceived by racist whites. The characters in the film are entertaining the larger U.S. population. However, the film is precisely addressing whites racists indirectly while connecting with both blacks and whites by exploring the challenges Africans encounter in the region due to their skin color.

The Bamboozled Film is exploring the plight of blacks in a white-dominated region where an African story is being told. Therefore, the film is centered on exploring the historical reality that blacks in the U.S. experience due to racial stereotypes. The film reveals how racism is real in American historical connection, offering urgency for the characters and the audience to address racism and its associated prejudice and stereotypes. The reality is that blacks still experience discrimination or abuse due to their color. The negative depiction of African people is the never-ending stereotypes that limit their potential.  The film conveys a message that society fails to recognize the hidden potential of blacks due to their color. Essentially, due to the racial stereotype, the white population in the region fails to observe other significant attributes of blacks. The fact that the Minstrel show in the film further humiliated the blacks, it gained more popularity in the country. It depicts that the show promoted what is accepted by the majority of Americans. While Delacroix hoped that the show would result in his firing from work, the opposite happened. It is, therefore, explicit that the American population has not changed its stereotypes about races, which deter it from understanding the value of blacks in society.

Overall, the audience of the film is the U.S. population, and the movie represents the burden of racism in American society. The role of the film in society is to refute/criticize racism, calling for fairness and freedom among different ethnic groups. The political stance of the film is that it criticizes the administration for failing to fight racism effectively, to the extent that black militant activists decide to fight against racism. Politically, the film represents the need for intensified fighting against racism as it is still engraved in the roots of American society, even in the 21st century.