Doing the Right Thing? Not Yet

Spike Lee says an East Coast magazine reporter recently informed him that he’d done a poll of people in his office--”white people in his office,” Lee pointedly adds--who were asked what they thought of the world’s most outspoken black filmmaker. The unanimous verdict: Hey, Spike, we don’t like you.

“They all said, this guy’s got an Upper East Side townhouse, courtside tickets to the Knicks, he sends his kids to private school,” says Lee, who’s telling the story on the phone from his vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard. “And yet he’s still mad. They all go, ‘What’s Spike Lee got to be angry about?’ ”

If you did a poll of people in Hollywood, where Lee is equally unpopular--he’s viewed by most executives as a self-aggrandizing bomb-thrower--you’d hear a similar refrain: After a summer that has been celebrated as a major box-office breakthrough for African American comic movie stars, most people’s reaction in town is, what has Lee got to be angry about?

Among today’s burgeoning ranks of teen moviegoers, black comics have as much heat as Eminem, Jay-Z, Wyclef Jean or any other reigning hip-hop star. “Scary Movie,” directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and co-starring his brothers Marlon and Shawn, has grossed nearly $150 million. “Big Mama’s House,” starring Martin Lawrence, topped the $115-million mark. Eddie Murphy’s “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” did $115 million in six weeks of release. Even “The Original Kings of Comedy,” a low-budget concert film directed by Lee that features four lesser-known black comics, has done surprisingly well, grossing almost $30 million in its first three weeks of release.

Black comedy has turned green, as in the color of big-time movie star salaries. Murphy makes up to $20 million a film. Lawrence is getting $16 million for the upcoming “Black Knight.” Chris Tucker, who co-starred in “Rush Hour,” a $145-million hit, is being paid $20 million to star in the sequel. Marlon and Shawn Wayans are being wooed all over Hollywood and are getting a big salary hike for committing to a “Scary Movie” sequel.

Black comics have become so popular that when studios put together a wish list for youth-oriented comedy actors, the talent pool of African American actors is now deeper than white ones. The long list of black comics includes the Wayanses, Jamie Foxx, Orlando Jones, Chris Rock, Eddie Griffin, Dave Chappelle and “Saturday Night Live’s” Tim Meadows, who has what could be a breakthrough role in “The Ladies Man,” due in October from Paramount

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But Lee believes this success has come at a steep price. In fact, his new film, “Bamboozled,” is a blistering satire of the very broad, below-the-waist buffoonery that has made many young black comics such hot new stars.

Opening here Oct. 6, the movie stars Damon Wayans as a Harvard-educated black TV writer at a floundering, UPN-style network. When his white boss, a self-styled hip-hop smoothie (played by Michael Rapaport), demands that Wayans create an urban hit, Wayans seeks revenge by hiring a homeless tap dancer to star in a wildly stereotypical blackface minstrel show set on a 19th century Southern cotton plantation. Instead of being shelved as an embarrassment, the show turns into a runaway hit with both black and white audiences.

The ad campaign for “Bamboozled” emphasizes the minstrel theme and is sure to draw attention and controversy. One poster for the film, designed by Lee, features a stereotypical grinning, red-lipped “tar baby” standing in a field of cotton, holding a slice of watermelon. A similar poster, featuring a grinning minstrel performer, recently ran in some publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly and the Hollywood trades. However, New Line says the New York Times has refused to run either the minstrel or the “tar baby” ad.

The film poses an especially thorny question: As young white fans appropriate black culture in comedy, hip-hop and other pop culture arenas, are African American audiences willing to accept the most demeaning, stereotyped images to achieve mainstream success? Lee cites classic social commentaries like “A Face in the Crowd” and “Network” as influences. But “Bamboozled’s” minstrel TV show is also inspired by such lowbrow TV fare as the short-lived “Secret Life of Desmond Pfeiffer” and “The PJs,” an Eddie Murphy-created animated TV show set in the inner city that features such characters as a slow-witted building superintendent, a Haitian voodoo princess and a crackhead who lives in a cardboard box.

When “The PJs” first aired last year, Lee blasted it as “demeaning and hateful toward black people, plain and simple.” The show’s defenders have fought back, saying it’s no more insulting to blacks than “The Simpsons” is to dim-bulb white folks. They also point out that while Lee often denounces others, he is quick to take offense when his films are the target of criticism. But black comic buffoonery--that minstrel factor--has clearly struck a nerve with culture watchers.

While most critics dismissed “Nutty Professor” as raunchy but harmless, the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane made a stronger point in his review of the film. “Murphy knows full well that he is toying with images of blackness,” Lane wrote, “but he should also remember that postmodern games mean perilously little in the multiplex; how does he think this eye-rolling, tongue-lolling parade of appetites will play in the gallery? Half of the strongest actors in Hollywood happen to be black; does Murphy wonder what they will make of this minstreling?”

Lee wouldn’t comment on “The Klumps”; he says he hasn’t seen the movie. But he argued that the success of a few comedies with African American stars in no way signaled a seismic shift in cultural attitudes.

“I’m glad Martin and the Wayans had big hits--and Eddie too, but that doesn’t make it a revolution,” he says. “It’s always been our job to amuse white people. That goes back to the slaves coming to the big house and entertaining the white folks after dinner. But if you have to get cheap laughs the way some films do or the way ‘The PJs’ does, by showing roaches crawling out of a toilet, then you have to ask the question: Is the audience laughing with you or are they laughing at you?”

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For Lee and other African American filmmakers, an equally big issue today is the widening gulf between the commercial acceptance of black comedy and black drama. In both film and television, it is relatively easy to launch a raucous comedy, but it is often a Herculean task to persuade a studio to greenlight an African American family story or a drama involving race relations.

In addition to “Bamboozled,” this fall offers two fresh marketing challenges, both period films loosely based on real-life stories. Due Sept. 29 from Disney Pictures, “Remember the Titans” stars Denzel Washington as the new coach of a freshly integrated high school football team battling racial conflict in early-’70s Alexandria, Va. And on Oct. 10, 20th Century Fox releases “Men of Honor,” which co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as Carl Brashear, a sailor in the newly integrated 1950s Navy who clashes with Billy Sunday, a redneck diving chief played by Robert De Niro, in his pursuit to become the first African American Navy diver.

Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of “Remember the Titans,” says he went to Disney after being turned down everywhere else, even with Washington on board as the film’s star. “I couldn’t get anyone to finance it,” recalls Bruckheimer. “They’d always say, it isn’t for us.” Bruckheimer and Washington had to cut their fees and agree to deliver a toned-down, PG-rated film to get it made on a modest $25-million budget.

Lee says he had a similar experience with “Bamboozled,” which New Line agreed to bankroll only after Lee pared the budget to $10 million, in part by shooting on digital video. “We went to everyone and their mama, and they’d all say, ‘If you can get Will Smith and he’d do it for scale, then we’d make it,” Lee recalls. “Everyone said, ‘Spike, it’s a really dark movie.’ And I’d say, ‘This movie isn’t any darker than ‘Dr. Strangelove’ or ‘Network.’ But we’re not unique. No one wanted to make ‘On the Waterfront’ either.”

Lee’s dilemma is shared by Latino filmmakers who’ve had similar struggles to get serious dramas made by timid studio executives. Still, Hollywood is so skittish about marketing films associated with race issues that Fox’s publicity department wouldn’t make anyone from “Men of Honor” available for this story, saying that the studio didn’t see the film as a black-oriented picture. In fact, while “Men of Honor” is billed as a true story, the character of Billy Sunday was invented for the movie, in part to create a part for a prominent white actor to play in the film.

Disney isn’t playing up the race issue in “Remember the Titans” either, promoting it as a feel-good drama. Lee’s satire is so barbed that some of his cast members have distanced themselves from the film; Damon Wayans has so far declined to do any interviews to promote the film.

Faced with a stiff marketing challenge and the pall of potential controversy, most studios shy away from tackling a serious African American drama. As one top executive put it: “Race is still a touchy subject. You never know when you’re opening up a raw wound.” Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad” was hit with charges of historical inaccuracy and plagiarizing an African American author; Lee’s “Malcolm X” was denounced by both the mainstream press and the black intelligentsia; and Lee himself attacked “The Patriot” this summer for its portrayal of blacks in Revolutionary War-era South Carolina. Last year, the makers of “The Hurricane,” a biography of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, saw their film savaged by a bitter debate over the film’s accuracy.

There are less opportunities than ever for any drama today, whether white, black or Latino. After last fall’s Oscar-oriented dramas, such as “Angela’s Ashes” and “The Insider,” performed poorly at the box office, most studios are wary of making dramas of any kind, preferring to focus on less-expensive teen comedies. Dramas also frequently revolve around romantic relationships, involving characters that studios remain reluctant to allow black actors to play, since it would either require an interracial relationship or make the film “too black” by having two major roles played by African American actors.

“There’s just always more potential for success with a comedy,” explains Mike De Luca, president of New Line, a studio that has made a wide variety of black-oriented films, from comedies (“Friday”) and gangsta thrillers (“Menace 2 Society”) to coming-of-age drama (“Love and Basketball”).

“The general public would rather be entertained than deal with weighty issues,” De Luca continues. “With a black drama, you’re inevitably dealing with a black issue, which is probably going to make the film less accessible for a mainstream audience.”

Studios make plenty of thrillers and action films that feature leading African American actors, including Washington, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman and Wesley Snipes. But serious drama needs a true believer to propel the project through a risk-averse studio hierarchy. It’s hard to find someone with enough clout to champion an underdog project, especially in an era when there are few black producers and virtually no top-level black studio executives.

The undeniable whiteness of Hollywood can’t help but play a role in the studio’s lack of identification with--or enthusiasm for--African-American film projects. When Lee was pitching “The Original Kings of Comedy,” he was astounded that none of the supposedly hip young studio executives he spoke to had ever heard of the film’s stand-up comics.

“They didn’t know who Steve Harvey or D.L. Hughley were--they must not watch UPN or the WB or HBO, where these guys are stars,” says Lee. “They’re just completely insulated from reality. Everywhere I went, I thought, is there a black executive in Hollywood?”

In fact, most studios have no black executives among the top production ranks. Roz Stevenson, a former Universal Pictures publicity executive who recently started a consulting firm--with Universal as her first client--says that many African Americans feel out of place in a studio environment.

“I’ve been in lots of meetings where I’m the only African American among 60 people,” she says. “It’s hard to feel at home. You feel that you’re out there by yourself.”

A black studio presence can clearly make a difference: As a production executive at Columbia Pictures in the early 1990s, Stephanie Allain played a major role in prodding the studio to make “Boyz N the Hood,” John Singleton’s groundbreaking debut film.

It’s also important to understand how a film plays in the black community. Stevenson worked on “Bring It On,” Universal’s current teen hit that features rival squads of white and black cheerleaders. While promoting the film to African American press outlets, Stevenson said she was repeatedly asked which cheerleading squad won at movie’s end.

“Everyone said, if the black squad doesn’t win, I’m not telling anyone to go see the movie,” recalls Stevenson. “Even though it’s a fundamental rule of publicity not to give away the end of a movie, I knew that African Americans are very sensitive about not winning or having things stolen from them, so I told everyone the ending. When Blaque [the music group whose members play black cheerleaders in the film] went on black radio to do publicity, I let them tell everyone, ‘We kick their butts!’ ”

Universal also discovered that the more the studio marketed the film to ethnic youth, the bigger the audience it attracted. The film’s initial trailers barely showed any black cheerleaders. But by emphasizing the black cheerleaders’ role in the film, the movie actually attracted a larger audience of young white, black and Latino moviegoers.

“Without the edginess of the black storyline, the movie’s image was too bland,” says Universal marketing chief Marc Shmuger. “By including the black cheerleaders, it broadened the movie’s appeal.

For many, the immense new crossover appeal of black comics is cause for optimism. “The younger generation is really a lot more homogenized,” says Eric Gold, who manages the Wayanses as well as Jim Carrey. “Kids don’t look at Marlon or Eddie or Martin and say, ‘They’re black.’ They look at them and say, ‘They’re funny.’ Jim Carrey didn’t get the opportunity to do drama until he’d proved himself over and over at the box office.”

Lee doesn’t think the issues are so cut-and-dried. His new film offers a melancholy view of an African American culture being abused by the careerist ambitions of white executives and black entertainers. “It’s a fine line between stealing and paying homage,” he says. “A lot of people will say ‘Bamboozled’ comes down on white America, but there’s plenty of blame to go around, whether it’s for black radio, who was the last to play Bob Marley or black comics, who even today still do minstrel entertainment.

“Stepin Fetchit didn’t have a choice, but today African Americans do have a choice about what kind of roles we play on TV or film. All I’m asking is, what kind of choice are you making?”