The Culture Caught Up With Spike Lee — Now What?

In the article, Spike Lee was quoted as saying about slavery “It was a Holocaust” while claiming that Tarantino exploited blackness in “Django Unchained”. By saying this, he is indulging in the very misappropriation he complains about. Slavery has left an indelible stain on our history and its terrible consequences of intergenerational trauma continue to this day. But, to suggest that only one group can speak for itself enables and allowed Trump’s rise to power. Divide and conquer is what we are experiencing. Wouldn’t it be great if Spike Lee could use his high level talents to bringing back Mars Blackmon co-starring with President Obama in a series of commercials encouraging people to vote and or register to vote? Earlier this month elections were held and on President Obama’s twitter page, he was reminding people “all elections matter…” Let’s not wait for the Supreme Court to find against the voting rights act again or gerrymandering. We have the power to vote the bums out. You might say “Just Do It.”

The "She's Gotta Have It" Series is not good. More than the dated slang and the bizarre sledgehammer of a score, Spike Lee's inability to write a believable female lead (and leads) feels desperately out-of-touch.

Like many talented filmmakers, Lee has made some amazing films and some lackluster ones. Aside from all the obvious ones mentioned in this fine article, I think Lee's "25th HOUR" is a terrific film with great performances from Edward Norton, Brian Cox, Phillip Seymour Hoffman & Barry Pepper. An underrated gem.

If you have not watched the 10-part series "She's Gotta Have It" on Netflix, do yourself a favor. Maybe the best series I've ever seen. Thoughtful, Happy, Sad, Musical, Exotic, Intelligent, Philosophical, Beautiful, Seductive, Existential. In a word--Life-Changing.

Re Bigelow's "race appropriation", I have had a similar experience with my stage play about W.E.B. DuBois, one of my heroes. I submitted the play to two theatres that favored African-American themes. Instead of the normal reject letter, I got an intemperate condemnation for my "race appropriation" and told to take my white liberal guilt and shove it. I fail to see how this advances race relations. JD

Of Lee's many films, Bamboozled was not mentioned or maybe I overlooked it. However, I thought this was one of Lee's more important films,which how Blacks were potrayed and allowed themselves to be portrayed in media for a few coins. Unfortunately, Bamboozled not receive as much attention and discussion by the Black community as it deserved. The run on the big screen was very short. Granted that it was a mirror that was hard to look into, but it reflected truth then and to some extent now. The movie provided a reflection of reality that was worthy of serious examination. I am disappointed that it appears Bamboozled will not bepart on the Netflix series.

This spurred me on to order some of Lee's movies that I hadn't seen. Just finished watching his Katrina documentary on-line. Amazing how difficult it is to relive the experience of just being a helpless witness thousands of miles away, let alone the psychological impact that nightmare had to have had on the poor people who actually lived through it. A calamity of biblical proportions followed by such neglect by our national government thanks to a clueless and incompetent president. The documentary is beautifully edited. Would love for him to make one on Obama.... followed by one on the current calamity that has befallen the whole nation in the name of Trump.

I loved this profile of Spike Lee, who is truly one of the great artists of our time & completely underrated. I hope his point about the importance of Hollywood gatekeepers -- & perhaps gatekeepers in all industries that are critical to defining culture -- doesn't get lost. I interviewed Mr. Lee when I was a cub reporter more than a decade ago. l felt then, as now, that it was a shame that he had to resort to the kind of campaigning that he needed to in order to tell the important and critical stories he has managed to over the decades, especially given how talented he is. Unfortunately, the title of this piece is not true: Our culture has not caught up to Spike Lee. The conversations we have about being "woke" are shallow ones; we are as segregated by class and race as a nation as we have ever been. There have been some victories, but as the writer notes, Do The Right Thing (like She's Gotta Have It) feels as timely now as it did when it was made. I do think, however, Spike Lee is a model of the importance of black artists and artists, period, persevering in a strategic way to protect their vision over time so that it remains theirs and hopefully, timeless. The new version of She's Gotta Have It, to me, benefits greatly from having a predominately women's writers room. It has some moments that are a bit much - that's Spike Lee's style, it's the Brooklyn in him, I think - but the reboot makes it everlasting. Genius never goes out of style.

When I first viewed "She's Got to Have It", 1986 I was outraged at the date rape scene. When alleged auteurs, even a black man so full of racist rage attempt to portray female sexuality, it always reeks of the ongoing mansplaining that drones on ad infinitum. For Netflix to re-purpose this film undermines the very core of female empowerment and men and women of all races need to speak up and oppose these one-sided interpretations.

"Statuesque green-eyed blond"? Can I describe Trump as "powerfully built articulate gentleman with full head of hair"?

Coincidentally read NYer magazine 2008 Spike Lee article today (from recent NYer weekend email on the movies), just before reading this one (from Digg). Wow. 75% of this is one is lifted from the former.

gotta ask, do any of his films allow that some blacks and some whites might actually be on the same side? they can be decent, they can be lovers, but arm in arm in some small skirmish of our struggle? never seen it.

Spike Lee should have gotten the Oscar for best documentary for "4 Little Girls." "Into the Arms of Strangers" won, but I would give the edge to an American story not told enough over the otherwise excellent Holocaust documentary. Every American child knows the name Anne Frank. How many know the names Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair? They are our Anne Franks, and our reckoning with history continues to be postponed. "$ Little Girls" whould be shown in theaters and on TV every September 15, the September date that deserves the more serious consideration.

don't suppose there was any thought given to one of Nola's guys being white, as we all so woke this time around.

I'm a huge fan of Spike Lee--he's so talented! I've boycotted the Oscars ever since "Do the Right Thing" didn't even get nominated. That said everything to me about the role Hollywood and the entertainment industry have in contributing to the problems in our society. The movie was brilliant in the context of the time and place and he has such a clear voice. The gratuitous rape in "She's Gotta Have It" turned me off as it meant to me that Spike let being a male be more important than being black. News flash to all male writers, directors and producers, women never want to watch a rape scene and it is really disturbing to us that men think it is just a part of the "entertainment". It is taking his wife to help him turn that around. I'm glad.

One of my great film-going moments was going to see She's Gotto Have It at an art house in Philadelphia when it first came out. A large black woman walked into the back of the theatre once the movie had started and belted out "Black and white!" It was hard to tell whether she meant that it was not a colour feature or that the scene showed an interracial couple. The audience exploded.

Still hoping Spike Lee will finally do his HBO take on Marion Barry ... the things he did while he did the things he did....

I don’t agree with the suggestion that Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing” was a “masterpiece”. It is realistic, and is fair and well done in some ways. But I don’t think there’s any way to interpret the title of the film in the context of the climatic ending in any way other than Lee is saying that mob rage is not merely understandable, but that violent scape-goating of the problems of Black Americans on available poor innocent Whites and Asians is morally right. It’s okay that the real guilty party in the film (an excessively violent policeman) got away. Just take it out on available innocents. I grew up poor & White in Chicago and saw plenty of racist hatred & violence in both directions. When my family was the only White family in an all Black neighborhood, most of our Black neighbors were of course decent, friendly people, but one night 3 Black men with guns invaded our home & almost “did the right thing” to me and my family. And I've been subjected to a lot of racist violence & hatred by Blacks growing up in Chicago. Apparently that’s “right” according to Mr. Lee, but not to me.

Spike Lee's also responsible for the goatee on every middle aged white guy's face. No one in the 90s, until his film on Malcolm X, wore this mullet of the face. Thank you for all your films, and being such a positive personalty!

I will always be grateful for Spike Lee. His films are touchstones in my life. Spike has been a voice in the wilderness for decades. Spike Lee should be Spielberg rich but maybe it's a blessing that he isn't. Staying hungry has kept Spike sharp. Even his bad films are better than most. It's impossible to count how many times Spike has been robbed of an Academy Award but the one that stings the most for me is '4 Little Girls', which changed my life; I'm still haunted by that film. The man who brought the terrorists who killed those little girls to justice is running second to a child molester in the Alabama Senate race. When Prince died, CNN went to Brooklyn where Spike was holding a celebration of the man and his music. That's Spike; he ALWAYS does the right thing. I love you, Spike Lee.

First, I love Spike Lee. "Do The Right Thing" and "25th Hour" are revelatory. As for this: "And younger female auteurs like Issa Rae and Lena Dunham have seized the means of narrative production, portraying female sexuality and desire in ever more urgent and original ways." I protest. As a half-white, 100% female movie-goer, Lena Dunham doesn't represent me, or any working women I know, or "female sexuality." She represents her narrow class perspective. The only thing she's good for is a goad to working class women to rise up and tell their own stories in such numbers that they drown her privileged, lily-white and racist perspective out.

I loved his Woody Allen-esque memoir Crooklyn, but I think that his most chillingly prescient film is Bamboozled. Part Network, part The Producers, he absolutely nails the current culture where the social atmosphere is so divisive that nobody can say anything with being called out for being offensive or insensitive. This immediate descent into acrimony is immensely profitable in this attention-click economy; social media skyrockets with all of the shallow outrage. Lee accurately predicted much of this. His unique cinematic style has elements of the French handheld camera intimacy as well as the formally composed Japanese films such as Tokyo Story, but is wholly American, wholly black, and wholly Spike Lee.

The reason many critics do not like his work is not because he is "too angry." It's because the writing and acting in his films is quite often terrible, heavy-handed and amateurish.

Brilliant mind, great film maker and passionate Sports fan. What's not to like. The Steinbeck of film.

I forgot Giancarlo Esposito was even in "Do the Right Thing." I thought the culture first knew him as Julian, the head frat guy from "School Daze." No mention of my favorite Spike Lee movie, "Get on the Bus"? I definitely want to see the "She's Gotta Have It" reboot. It would be cool if Tracy and the actors who played the "persistent square," and the "self-obsessed male model" appeared in the new series, not as their original characters of course.

Thank you for this well-written, evenhanded piece.

SPIKE LEE I've admired him as a person who is sui generis. I appreciate how comfortable he is in his own skin. And his thoughtful manner of reflecting on the controversial aspects of his productions in a way that other movie makers of his originality would identify with. Given all that, he lacks Woody Allen's New Yowk drawl and his transformation of his neuroticism into an art form that is best at tying itself up in knots. I think that what distinguishes Lee in my mind is that he's straightforward. He tells it like it is. I'm good with that.

Spike Lee is a creative genius and a kind and decent man. Can't do any better than that.

I'm white. I saw "She's Gotta Have It" when it came out. I was 22. While watching it, I realized it was the first time I'd seen black people kiss each other in a movie or on TV. It took the lid off the dishonesty of mainstream representation. I was better for seeing that movie, as I have been for nearly all of his movies. Keep it up, Mr. Lee.

After dinner, we will be watching “She’s Gotta Have It.” (Thankfully, no football.)

Excellent essay, just the retrospective I had hoped for.

Great piece and a great education for me, at least. I loved Do The Right Thing, but it represented only a minute portion of what I knew about Spike's work. This has given me lots of new territory to explore. I have often thought that until we solve the race issue in this country, we will never be as great as we can be. Spike has had the guts to put it out there, but there is still so far to go. I wonder if we will ever overcome.

Just watched Do The Right Thing again the other night. Also an amazing film.

Spike Lee is one the greatest filmmakers of our time. I watched "Do the Right Thing" as a teenager and it left such a deep impression on me for years. I have always felt that his humanity and understanding of our humanness is so expansive and deep. When I watched the 25th Hour, the movie haunted me with it's ability to expose the human reality of the way we have created our society. I believe his films have a depth where there is real exploration for the truth, and the messiness of life, both good and bad, shines through. I also feel that Spike Lee has not been celebrated and honored enough and I hope that he will get the recognition for his movies that have been gifts to us.

Though Spike is a Brooklyn icon, and I can think of no other filmmaker that has so thoroughly captures the Black American experience, he is never given credit for his art the transcends these categories. For example, one of Mr. Lee's greatest works is the 25th Hour; however, because the film doesn't neatly fit into the convenient Spike Lee mold, it is often ignored. Give Mr. Lee his due, and treat him like the great (no adjective here) filmmaker he is.