Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The Spike Lee Reader includes new and several well-known pieces previously published about Lee’s work. The previously published pieces work seamlessly with the newer additions. These pieces provide a foundation to remind readers of the discourse established in response to the first decade of his career concerning representations of gender, sexuality, and class.... The Spike Lee Reader is a necessary addition to the library of researchers and scholars in film and cultural studies. It is also a theoretically rich, interdisciplinary text that will be of use for upper division undergraduate and graduate courses on film, popular culture, and Ethnic Studies."
—American Studies
Synopsis
Taken together, the essays in The Spike Lee Reader will spark dialogue and encourage a continuing consideration of the depth and complexity of Spike Lee's career.
Synopsis
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Synopsis
From his stunning debut,
She's Gotta Have It, to his incendiary
Do the Right Thing, through
Jungle Fever,
Bamboozled, and even
Inside Man, Spike Lee has found loyal fans and fervid detractors, as well as critical praise, if not always box office success. Lee's films have sparked critical inquiries into the nature of genres, the role of the auteur, and the question of whether there is, in fact, a black cinematic aesthetic. According to some critics, Lee's films challenge viewers to engage intellectually with a cinematic "text," to revel in and deconstruct the complexities of each film's polyphonic visual and aural fields.
Gathered in this anthology are critical writings on Spike Lee's films by leading scholars in the fields of cinema studies and African American studies. In sixteen new and reprinted essays, the contributors to The Spike Lee Reader consider the nexus of race, gender, and sexuality in Lee's work, and in so doing encourage readers to further explore the cultural, social, and political implications of Lee's films as well as his entire body of work.
Contributors include: Christine Acham, Toni Cade Bambara, Mark D. Cunningham, Anna Everett, Daniel Flory, Krin Gabbard, David A. Gerstner, Ed Guerrero, Keith M. Harris, bell hooks, Wahneema Lubiano, James C. McKelly, Tavia Nyong'o, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, Michele Wallace, S. Craig Watkins, and the editor.
About the Author
Paula J. Massood is Associate Professor of Film Studies, Department of Film, Brooklyn College, CUNY, and author of Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (Temple).
Table of Contents
The Spike Lee Reader
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
We've Gotta Have It: Spike Lee, African American Film, and Cinema Studies
Paula J. Massood
Chapter 1'Whose Pussy is This': A Feminist Comment
bell hooks
Chapter 2 Programming with School Daze
Toni Cade Bambara
Chapter 3 Spike Lee and Black Women
Michele Wallace
Chapter 4 But Compared to What?: Reading Realism, Representation, and Essentialism in School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and the Spike Lee Discourse
Wahneema Lubiano
Chapter 5 The Double Truth, Ruth: Do the Right Thing and the Culture of Ambiguity
James C. McKelly
Chapter 6 Spike Lee and the Fever in the Racial Jungle
Ed Guerrero
Chapter 7'Spike, Don't Mess Malcolm Up': Courting Controversy and Control in Malcolm X-The Movie
Anna Everett
Chapter 8 Through the Looking Glass and Over the Rainbow: Exploring the Fairy Tale in Spike Lee's Crooklyn
Mark D. Cunningham
Chapter 9 Clockers (Spike Lee 1995): Adaptation in Black
Keith M. Harris
Chapter 10 Reel Men: Get on the Bus and the Shifting Terrain of Black Masculinities
S. Craig Watkins
Chapter 11 We Shall Overcome: Preserving History and Memory in 4 Little Girls
Christine Acham
Chapter 12 Spike Lee Meets Aaron Copeland
Krin Gabbard
Chapter 13 Race and Black American Film Noir: Summer of Sam as Lynching Parable
Dan Flory
Chapter 14 Racial Kitsch and Black Performance
Tavia Nyong'o
Chapter 15 I Be Smackin' My Hoes': Paradox and Authenticity in Bamboozled
Beretta Smith-Shomade
Chapter 16 De Profundis: A Love letter from the Inside Man
David Gerstner
Notes on Contributors
Select Bibliography
Filmography (including exec. prod. credits and television segments)
Index