In discussing my recent production of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera with a former student, I disclosed that I had received an angry letter from a parent. This parent was so offended by the content of the play that he was concerned that my intent was to corrupt the youth of the school. Unfortunately, he was unfamiliar with satire and walked away from the play having learned nothing. I commented to my former student, “If people would just stop being offended and just listen, then they might actually learn something.” As I thought about that, I couldn’t help but think of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and its fiery satire of media portrayals of African Americans. The film has been vilified by many and currently holds a lowly 47% on Rotten Tomatoes. Considering that the majority of film critics are white and male, I can’t help but wonder if the low scores are a result of what Diawara calls “resistant spectatorship.” This principle identifies the tension between what the film tells us to feel and what we know from a historical perspective. Basically, if a film portrays a historically recognized bad as good, the informed viewer will not go along , but resist the film. It seems that satire would utilize this principle to its advantage. In Beggar’s Opera women are called sluts, whores, jades, jilts, hussies, baggage, strumpets, and property. One of the complaints of the parent who hated Beggar’s Opera was that the viewers would be led along to think that objectifying women is a good that should be emulated. As satire, that was actually the opposite of the intent. By portraying the bad as good, it attempts to inspire in the spectator a resistance, to look at historical fact (the systematic and institutionalized objectification and oppression of women) and fight against what the play is presenting. The difference between satire and what Diawara states is that the author of the text in satire wants you to resist, while the texts to which Diawara refers assume compliance. The negative response from this father of a student and from the critics of Bamboozled seems to stem from this interrelationship between satire and resistant spectatorship.
The satire in Bamboozled is my no means subtle. It is clear that Lee intends for us to see the Minstrel Show and be horrified, to resist the portrayal of that entertainment as well executed and funny. When we are shown the entire audience wearing black-face (white, black, hispanic, italian, asian), he is indicting us as a culture of both creating the image of the black man and then adopting it to show how ‘accepting’ we are. There are many critics who consider themselves liberal, accepting, and loving of ‘black culture’, not unlike the PR representative stating that she has a PhD in african studies (whatever that means), who would take offense. They are being implicated in the creation of a false culture, and acceptable culture, of what blacks are supposed to be like, and then the embracing of their own creation. They love black culture but that culture is a myth, it is burnt cork and fire-truck red lipstick. So they resist. But their resistance is based on a false history. As Diawara indicates, the understanding of history is what leads to resistant spectatorship, we see that what is represented on screen is not congruent with the oppressive realities of history. The resistance of the white population to the implications of this scene is therefore really a form of defensiveness. The black-loving whites have written a story about themselves, that there is a culture of blackness that they appreciate and thereby are no racists. But that culture is the culture that they have given to the African American peoples. It is akin to giving a recipe for a sandwich to a black person with the instructions to follow the recipe exactly and then saying, “Ooh, Black people make the best sandwiches. Here, I’ll buy it from you. See, I love black people.” But this narrative is faulty and in reality part of the hegemony that oppresses blacks. That is why the critics were so offended. They were being told that they were racist for the very reason that they believed that they weren’t racist. So they resist. And their resistance is a show, a mottled mirror of the true resistance that black people experience watching their portrayal in film and contrasting it to the true history.
Maybe the satirical approach to this film is what complexifies the issue. The cognitive dissonance of satire combined with the false history of the white man leave him no place to stand. What makes this so difficult is that it places the white critic in a limbo-esque space between resisting and proving the film right or wholeheartedly embracing the film and proving the film right. If they resist, then it is resisting based on a false history which the film decries. If they embrace, they are like the audience putting on the black face. Really, there is no safe place for a white audience watching this film. There is not supposed to be. It is a damning piece of work. The racist tradition the film mocks is a historical reality, in which whites are complicit in maintaining. There is nothing to be done to make us okay with what is seen. But maybe if we stop being offended and listen, then we just might learn something.
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