Black Representational Politics In Spike Lee's 'Bamboozled'

In this essay, I will be discussing the debate and conversation surrounding the topic of Blackface, and what does that mean in media and to the black people, and how they are being misrepresented by whiteness. Through the analysis of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, what is understood about Lee’s exploration of Hollywood’s representational politics, double consciousness and racial interpellation. And also, with support from the film and readings, how does Lee frame characters from a gendered perspective.

Blackface, as known in today’s context and one from when it was conceptualized, is understood to white people’s construction of blackness, in the same breath trying to paint out and mould what the black experience could be. When dealing with the concept

In the film, for example, we see a patriarchal white male making business and representational decisions about how the two black actors should prostituted on stage for the white gaze. In this particular scene, we can visibly see that all the black people seated in the boardroom find the white man’s character and his choice of words highly problematic but choose to go along with it. When the black man’s plan backfired and went in favour of the white people, the movie then took a turn for the worse (Bamboozled, 2000). Since the black man came up with the idea, and soon became successful before realizing the seriousness of the repercussions, it seemed as though the white man believed that since it was the idea of the black man, the idea was more than okay to go along with it. And although in Spike Lee’s movie the black man came up with the idea, it raises multiple issues of Hollywood’s black representational political issues. For one, black people did not get the opportunity or given the chance by society to be able represent themselves through media and cinema. As black people, they were unable to present themselves as themselves in attempt to show a correct view of the black experience, but instead that moment was taken away from them, which can be dated back in black history, which deals with the power struggle between black and white people. In economy, and especially looking into cinema and film, white people have always had an upper hand on black people, carrying all the power in their hands, and choosing not to share the power amongst the American people. Finding a positive representation of black people, especially in today’s context, can prove to be challenging because according to white people, black people