The Spike Lee Reader

by Massood, Paula J.

• ISBN13: 9781592134854
• ISBN10: 1592134858
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-28
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

Spike Lee's films have raised a multitude of questions about cinema, from attempts to outline the nature, or "essence," of a black cinematic aesthetics, to a revisioning of American film as a whole. They have sparked critical inquiries into the nature of genres, the role of the auteur, and the mechanics of an active text and an oppositional spectatorship. They have asked us to reconsider spectatorial pleasure; to revel in their polyphonic visual and aural fields. They consider not only race, but also the often blurred interconnections among race, gender, sexuality, and class. In short, they have encouraged, and, in some cases, forced us to interact with what's on screen and, perhaps more importantly, with each other, whether it be in the theater, the café, the classroom, or the street corner. Taken together, the essays in The Spike Lee Reader will spark dialogue and encourage a continuing consideration of the depth and complexity of Spike Lee's career.Contributors include Christine Acham, Toni Cade Bambara, Mark D. Cunningham, Anna Everett, Krin Gabbard, Ed Guerrero, bell hooks, Michele Wallace and many others.

Table of Contents

Introduction: We've Gotta Have It-Spike Lee, African American Film, and Cinema Studies	p. xv
"Whose pussy is this": a feminist comment	p. 1
Programming with School Daze	p. 10
Spike Lee and Black Women	p. 23
But Compared to What? Reading Realism, Representation, and Essentialism in School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and the Spike Lee Discourse	p. 30
The Double Truth, Ruth: Do the Right Thing and the Culture of Ambiguity	p. 58
Spike Lee and the Fever in the Racial Jungle	p. 77
"Spike, Don't Mess Malcolm Up": Courting Controversy and Control in Malcolm X	p. 91
Through the Looking Glass and Over the Rainbow: Exploring the Fairy Tale in Spike Lee's Crooklyn	p. 115
Clockers (Spike Lee 1995): Adaptation in Black	p. 128
Reel Men: Get on the Bus and the Shifting Terrain of Black Masculinities	p. 142
We Shall Overcome: Preserving History and Memory in 4 Little Girls	p. 159
Spike Lee Meets Aaron Copland	p. 175
Race and Black American Film Noir: Summer of Sam as Lynching Parable	p. 196
Racial Kitsch and Black Performance	p. 212
"I Be Smackin' My Hoes": Paradox and Authenticity in Bamboozled	p. 228
De Profundis: A Love Letter from the Inside Man	p. 243
Filmography	p. 255
Select Bibliography	p. 259
Contributors	p. 265
Index	p. 269
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