From: grendel@camelot.bradley.edu (Alyosha Bourgea)
Subject: Re: Malcom the Tenth
Organization: Bradley University
Distribution: usa
Date: 22 Nov 92 06:05:30 GMT

In <1992Nov22.042531.619@seq.uncwil.edu> session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack C. Sessions) writes:

>grendel@camelot.bradley.edu (Alyosha Bourgea) writes:

>>First of all, as I said before, I base my opinion of Lee on comments that
>>*he* has made in the media, not that the media has made about him.  I have
>>seen interviews with him; I have seen him speak on television; I have read
>>columns that he has written; and I have seen some of his movies.

>Strange, we must be seeing different interviews of Spike Lee. Or maybe
>he has an evil twin? I have heard him say that even though his movies
>usually have a message, they are still movies.

Sorry, but that's not much of an excuse.

>>Second of all, I read a quote in Newsweek by the wife of the late Malcolm
>>X, in which she chided Spike Lee for suggesting that black children skip
>>school to see his movie.  If, as you claim, he never suggested that, I'm
>>not the only one who was misinformed.  What's your source?

>Spike Lee. Larry King directly asked him that question and his explanation
>was perfectly plausable. If you want the transcript, call CNN.

Nah, I believe you.

>>>I just saw an interview with Spike Lee on Larry King Live. He didn't
>>>mention any of those things. I have heard other so-called black leaders
>>>make such claims, but never Spike. I didn't see Mo' Better Blues
>>>so I don't know if it contained racists views of Jews, but I never heard
>>>it mentioned in the press anywhere and I read and watch a lot of news.

>>Well, if you'd like, I can give you some direct excerpts.

>Not really. Exerpts would be just as bad as quotes out of context. I'd
>rather see the movie and make  up my own mind.

Here's an unexcerpted article written by Spike in Rolling Stone, issue
643, on behalf of the Benneton company:

---

If I was to chose [sic] one word for the present state of the world,
one quickly comes to mind.  _Fucked!_  That's right.  _Fucked_.  OK,
it's a bad word, but hey buddy, we're living in a bad world.  Things
are so bad, people are seriously considering whether they would want
to have children today.  I'm not that pessimistic yet, but it makes
you wonder.

I'm thirty-five now, still young, still single, but I wish to have a
family.  What kind of world will my kids and your kids be living in?
Are we gonna fuck it up totally for them?  We're all headed in that 
direction--pedal to the metal--150 miles per hour.  My youth was spent
playing softball, stickball, two-handed touch football, everything.
The summers, boy, do I remember them.  I thought they would never end,
no school, no teachers, no homework.  We didn't have a care in the world.

Oh, there would be fights sometimes, but the most turned out to be was a
bloody nose or maybe, just maybe, a black eye, which always turned out to
be a badge of honor.

Nowadays, _Forgetaboutit_.  Kids are killing kids.  Kids have real guns
with real bullets that bring real death.  We're not talking no GI Joe shit
either.

I had a 007 James Bond gun, and me and my friends had gun fights, but it
was _fake_, nobody got crippled, nobody died.  We got up out of the street
after we were dead.

As for drugs in our Cobble Hill neighborhood, we were all terrified of the
glue sniffers.  That's about as far as drugs went.  I can still see Rory
stumbling down Court Street high as a kite, dried glue under his nose and
mouth, his brown paper bag filled with model airplane glue moving in,
moving out.  I heard Rory later died.  Glue has nothing on crack, no
comparison.  I never heard about the dreaded glue sniffers ever killing
anybody to buy a tube, or young girls turning tricks for a hit!  That
stuff just didn't happen.  But that was a Brooklyn that only exists in
my memories.

_Jobs,_drugs,_crime,_AIDS,_war,_racism,_education,_the_homeless_ and
_the_environment._  These are the issues today.  Issues that we will have
to take the initiative on.  Even though this is an election year, does
anybody really feel Bush or Clinton will do something concrete to
address this stuff that's gonna directly effect [sic] all of our urban
children?  I don't.  That doesn't mean, however, I'm not gonna vote.
I will.  But you know and I know what politicians do in the long run.
_Nada_.  Not jack shit.  As Stevie Wonder put it so eloquently in song,
"You Haven't Done Nuthin."

So what are we gonna do?  What can individuals do to ensure that this
planet doesn't self-destruct?  I can only come up with one solution:
everyone get involved.

And that's where the imagery involved in the Benetton ads stands head
and shoulders above the rest.  Let me first state that I have no illusions
about them.  Benneton wants to make a buck like any other company.  In fact
we all do but it's the route, the path we choose that makes the difference.
We all know that the quickest way to make a buck in films, music and 
advertising is _sex_.  I feel that more often than not this is the "low
road."  Oh, you want to sell some jeans, an album, a film.  Get a pretty
face with a pretty body that has pretty breasts, a pretty butt. _Voila_.
That low road is as jam-packed as the FDR Drive at rush hour.

The high road is a lot riskier.  Why?  Because it might make people think.
If it's provocative enough, it might make people sit down and discuss it,
talk about the message.  Talk about the imagery used in the ads.  Of course,
this takes more creativity.

When I first saw the Benneton ads, I had no idea what they were selling.
This was before a Benneton store was on every other corner in Manhattan,
(one day, please explain that to me).  I had no idea they sold clothes.
Regardless, it still made an impact on me.  Isn't that what good ads are
about?

A lot of people will have to do a lot of explaining on AIDS one day.  All
of a sudden, a disease appears out of nowhere that nobody has a cure for,
and it's specifically targeted at gays and minorities, (i.e., Hispanics
and blacks).  The mystery disease, yeah, about as mysterious as _genocide_.

I'm convinced AIDS is a government-engineered disease.  They got one thing
wrong, they never realized it couldn't just be contained to the groups it
was intended to wipe out.  So, now it's a national priority.  Exactly like
drugs became when they escaped when they escaped the urban centers into white
suburbia.  So you might think I'm crazy about this one.  I don't think so.
Who knows, the day might be fast approaching when you want documented blood
tests from prospective sexual partners.  No papers, no sex.

That's the kind of world our children might be born into.  _What_a_drag_.
Sounds like a bad science-fiction movie.

Let's all get down on our hands and knees right now and pray to the highest
heavens that it doesn't come to that.

---

Now, I like most of this article.  I don't think Spike is a bad guy, and
I think he's a very intelligent and entertaining filmmaker.  But some of his
ideas are just completely off the wall.  The last four paragraphs are what
I object to, this paranoid and flatly inaccurate account of the origins of
AIDS.  It's not the first time Spike has been wrong, and it's not the first
time he's been paranoid about the dudes in power trying to exterminate
African-Americans.  I think that's a poor philosophy and shows a reluctance
to look beyond racist suspicion to the facts and realities that everyone,
regardless of their background, faces.












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