Spike Lee's School Daze is a classic in black film. Like most of Spike's 1980s output, I highly recommend this film to anyone interested in true black film (not Tyler Perry). This film is focused on a HBCU college in the South during the 1980s, at the height of anti-apartheid movements on college campuses and the struggle for funding that many HBCUs find themselves engaged in. Moreover, the film looks at colorism, class, and internal racial conflicts amongst African-American college students. In addition, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel Jackson, the light-skinned black woman from Martin, Jasmine Guy, and Laurence Fishburne star in this film, alongside Spike Lee playing a nerdy character entering a fraternity. The film also explores particular African-American cultural traditions such as stepping, music, and the conflict between college-educated blacks and those unable to attend.
This particular clip features dark-skinned, natural hair black women competing with light-skinned sistas who straighten their hair. The beautiful jazz song was composed by Lee's father, Bill Lee, a jazz bassist who has also played with folk legends such as Bob Dylan and Odetta. The choreography is also well done and these women are dancing their hearts out. The true genius of this song, whose lyrics were composed by Spike, is the strong black nationalist sentiment woven into the entire film. Lee satirizes light-skinned black women who try to forget their blackness and look down on darker-skinned blacks, using offensive epithets such as "jiggaboo" and invoking the image of the mammy to ridicule black sisters. There is no doubt that Spike Lee sympathizes with us darker-complected Negroes and calls for unity among all blacks while simultaneously arguing against a monolithic blackness.
In Spike's mind, the black student body and administration must wake up, remain united by transcending the petty differences between us, and remain committed to a politicized blackness that maintains the collective racial uplift ideology embedded in the history of HBCUs. Lee's black nationalist ideology demands black self-respect, a dedicated desire to uplift blacks culturally, socio-economically, and doing so on the international level (hence the desire by Fishburne's character's desire for divestment from apartheid South Africa). Lee also wishes to demonstrate the persistence of racial uplift, a prevalent belief and practice among the black Talented Tenth to not forget their roots or the majority of African Americans still struggling.
Now, I have not seen this movie in two years and am now must watch it again. Rediscovering the hilarious "Good & Bad Hair" clip has rekindled my passion for Spike Lee's early work. Indeed, almost all of his early films are great, including She's Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Mo' Better Blues, etc. It's also nice to see Laurence Fishburne in a black film as well as Giancarlo Esposito's continued relationship with Spike. However, from a New York Times article recently in the paper, Esposito, who is half-Italian, divulged his disagreement with Spike's black nationalist vision and aesthetic. I'm curious to how Fishburne and Samuel Jackson perceive Spike's black nationalist aesthetic and ideology as well, since those are two actors I rarely see in black films. However, I must say that the black nationalist/Afrocentric assumption that all blacks who straighten their hair out of some desire to attain whiteness or distance themselves from their African heritage, though often grounded in truth, are unfair since many African-Americans simply like the style and different hair textures. Thus, it is problematic to call those black women "wannabe" although many of them probably do straighten their hair out of a conscious desire to avoid the pejorative connotations of nappy hair.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/theater/giancarlo-esposito-an-actor-known-for-divergent-roles.html?_r=1
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spike-lee-project?before=1340985263
This review raises some important problems regarding the patriarchal black nationalist discourse that dominates Spike Lee's film. Though I agree that women in the film are portrayed in such a way that suggests they lack a political consciousness or awareness, whereas the men are involved in things beyond sexuality that include 'real issues' like fighting racism, apartheid, or poverty. I disagree with this writer's statement that the women are not politicized since the Afrocentric and Afro-headed women clearly have political motives for wearing their hair in a certain style or not. Nevertheless, there is legitimacy to the rather patriarchal world Lee always portrays without really criticizing on its sexism.
Other great scenes in School Daze
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zv7Js0HK7s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg8Oq_Sd3Bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJOsjlXXfVo&feature=related
"Wake up!"
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