Facing Blackness

Spike Lee's film Bamboozled, released in 2000 to controversy and mixed reviews, follows a frustrated black TV producer on his quest to create a show so offensive it will get him fired. The result is a modern-day minstrel show that, contrary to expectations, becomes a massive hit. A satire of race, media, celebrity, and American history, Bamboozled has conventionally been regarded as one of Lee's lesser efforts, though it now appears to be one of his most prescient and radical. In this reappraisal of the film for its 15th anniversary, film critic Ashley Clark makes the case for Bamboozled as one of Lee's most rich and enduring works, and as one of the most important satires of American culture in this young century.