Spike Lee has been an idol of mine since the early '90s, when "Do the Right Thing" blew the top right off my head. I analyzed the movie for a film-class project, and the more I watched and wrote about it, the more brilliant Spike Lee seemed to me. It was a brilliance that showed up in films preceding "Do the Right Thing," such as his student film, "Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads," and persisted in what came after, like the unforgettable "Malcolm X." So it was especially disappointing to witness Lee flounder on stage last night (Jan. 19) at UW’s Meany Hall.
I expected attitude, erudition, ease: Surely, after all these years, Lee would have experience and perspective to share with this packed hall of mostly UW students. But what we got instead was a haltingly told mish-mash of contradictory advice, random bits of personal history, and a dialogue about racism that lacked the righteous anger of a Radio Raheem but seemed not to have moved much ideologically from his moment in time.
Lee seemed to begin with the intention of making some argument about the importance of education, but his message meandered, sputtered, and fell short of the mark. He picked up momentum when talking about his grandmother, who bankrolled his Morehouse education and his first film, but failed to relate this in any meaningful way to student concerns expressed in the Q & A about financing education and making it in the film industry afterward.
He opened the Q & A by saying he would not answer any questions about AIDS, racism, or other pressing political concerns. This is in some ways understandable, as racism especially can be a powder keg, and Lee undoubtedly grew tired long ago of being thrust into the role of Voice for All African-Americans. However, his movies and his career have made racism their central concern, and to watch him wave the bull to the side like a nervous matador instead of grabbing it by the horns was deeply disappointing.
I wasn’t expecting him to morph into Malcolm X on stage, and for sure, most of the students’ questions all-too-painfully revealed the tedium and frustration he must have encountered in like scenarios over the long course of his career. But to say, “I don’t buy that racism ended with the election of Barack Obama” and leave it at that was a letdown from the man who gave us “left-hand hate KO’d by love.”
The entertainer who has taken up the torch that Lee has evidently passed is probably Tracy Morgan, who does in one episode of "30 Rock" what Lee failed to do over the course of a two-hour program. Once again, it’s the comedians, not the dramatists, who seem to be speaking truth to power now.
