When
the major networks announced sitcom line-ups for fall 1999,
not a single minority person was cast, though minor networks
featured "The PJs'' and "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer,"
both filled with Black stereotypes. In Bamboozled,
Director Spike Lee delivers a riposte to the networks, critiquing
even the portrayal of Blacks in "The Jeffersons" and "The
Cosby Show." At the beginning of the film, Continental Network
System Vice President Dunwitty (played by Michael Rapaport)
demands at a staff meeting of his team of writers that they
must come up with something new. Afterward, Dunwitty tells
Pierre Delacroix (played by Damon Wayans), the only Black
writer on the staff, that his proposed series about successful
Blacks will not sell, so he must think up something spectacular.
Delacroix soon spots two panhandlers, Manray and Womack, and
decides to design a minstrel show for them as "Mantan" (played
by Savion Glover) and "Sleep ‘N Eat" (played by Tommy Davison),
who respectively tapdance and tell self-deprecating jokes
as slaves on an Alabama plantation. Designed by Delacroix
as a satirical response to Dunwitty to end Black stereotypes,
he says "I want them to be offended. I want to wake America
up.'' However, the show proves to be a smash hit among White
Americans, who give Delacroix an Emmy. Ultimately, the former
panhandlers cannot take the humiliation and quit. After the
film ends, a montage of clips shows how Black performers have
been demeaned over the years on film and TV (but excludes
Jinn’s bumbling valet, the Steppin Fetchit of last year’s
Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom
Menace). Although longtime filmviewers are well
aware of the sad history of how Blacks were exploited over
the years, Spike Lee informs the younger generation anew but
appears not to notice the nonstereotypic roles of Samuel L.
Jackson, James Earl Jones, and many others. MH
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