In a really tightly written paragraph of no fewer than 250 words, find a common thread that links either The Bluest Eye or Good Hair (or even Amusing Ourselves to Death) with Bamboozled and explain the connection that you see. It might be a thematic connection, common motifs, an intersection of ideas and philosophies…whatever interests you. Blog away!
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A common intersection of an idea that is shared in Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and “Bamboozled is the that way society perceives the African American community, which results in individuals believing, or conforming, to society’s idea. For example, in “The Bluest Eye” the entire Breedlove family was convinced that they were ugly because society claimed they were. They didn’t fight against it, instead they relished in the thought of their ugliness and obeyed what society thought of them. However, in “Bamboozled” the protagonist/narrator “De La” brought up the idea of creating a menstrual show, “Mantan”, and at first he tried to fight against his editors, who were trying to make the show extremely racy. Nevertheless, as time progressed De La fell under the influence of the show and it’s popularity and success. His assistant, Sloane, also contributed to De La’s influence by purchasing a piggy-bank of a person with a face painted black. Eventually, De La continues to buy the dolls with black faces until he is surrounded by them, which demonstrates how he conformed to society. In addition, De La conformed to society’s beliefs long before the menstrual show began because he choose to change his name. He also stated during the audition process of the show that he needed “a break from anything black” at least for a week. By saying that De La is being racist and not acknowledging his own heritage. As a result, both the Breedlove family and De La let their minds be controlled by society and ultimately lost everything because they refused to stand up for their beliefs.
A common thread that links “The Bluest Eye” and “Bamboozled” is the views toward African Americans. African Americans are mistreated in both the novel, and the movie. It’s sad because “Bamboozled” expects African Americans to act like fools, and perform for the public. We are considered lazy people who always sleep, and don’t work hard. Even in “Good Hair” African Americans are expected to have “Good Hair.” Blacks are considered inferior to other races such as European. In “The Bluest Eye” Pecola’s eyes, and skin color wasn’t good enough for society. In “Good Hair” African American’s hair isn’t good enough, and in “Bamboozled” the idea of a happy, stable African American family with successful parents isn’t possible, just like in “Reed Between the Lines.” Our hair color, skin color, and work aren’t good enough. We are all lazy individuals, and are only good for entertaining. This was my first time watching this movie, and my immediate reaction to the movie was, I found it sickening, and interesting. It interests me how African Americans were okay with being perceived the way they were. Some like Reverend Al Sharpon are found protesting against the injustice in the movie. Personally, I would never behave in such a degrading matter. I am no ones puppet. What I found disgusting was when the African Americans in the movie started to become the watermelon eating, big lip, dark faced individuals that they were expected to be. They started to believe that’s who they were. They were willing to be dehumanized just for money. We must choose what’s important, a few dollars, or standing up against injustice.
A common thread between The Bluest Eye and Bamboozled that I noticed was the stereotypes that society applies to black people. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison makes the implication that society’s standard for beauty is a blond, white, blue-eyed person. The story portrayed the black people who didn’t fit society’s criteria as ignorant, ugly, dirty, poor and inferior at all standards. In Bamboozled Spike lee used elements such as the idea for a new millennium minstrel show to demonstrate other stereotypes associated with black people. For example, during the show black people were made to eat watermelon and chicken, talk as if they had no education, dance like puppets and they were always shown serving a white family. In both the book and movie these stereotypes were internalized and the characters were made to believe these things because there were no positive images of black people being shown. As a result like Pecola, Pierre De La Croix was forced to succumb to the standards and stereotypes of society in order to fit in or in De La’s case for financial benefit. In both cases the characters were being dehumanized because all of these stereotypes were derived of biased point of views on African Americans and generalized on the population as a whole. Because not every black person eats chicken or not every black person is poor but in the end I believe these mediums were used to expose awareness to a much bigger issue in society.
Fom my point of view, the common thread between the bluest eye, and bamboozled , is that society conforms to the stereotypes given to them by society. Some examples that support my common thread is through, Pecola where she believes everything anyone tells her, because she is black she is already the outcast and too add to that, it doesn’t make it better that she lives in a broken down home , with ironically a broken down, family. Now as for bamboozled , the show, “mantan” compliments the times of Jim crow , where everyone saw black people as , comedians, but not the ones where people are laughing with them, more along the lines of people laughing at them. Mantan and his side kick, ” eatnsleep” conformed to the stereotype of black people during the slave era , where black people where only good for dancing and acting extremely foolish, for everyone’s personal entertainment.
My common thread between the book ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ and the movie ‘Bamboozled’ is the power media has on a society. The way media was explained in ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’, Neil Postman wanted to emphasize the influence the T.V, which can be found; more then one in every house hold, can severely damage the youth. Postman explains the way viewers have made the television a core part in their daily routine. Thus, a show like “ManTan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show” would have became a popular family show. The director Pierre De la Croix wanted to target the youth of the 21st century. With this it would have impacted the generation dramatically. De La only wanted to represent African Americans in a positive light but his boss Dunwitty wouldn’t allow it and reject his scripts. Evermore, just like in Amusing Ourselves to Death entertainment began to modify because stations had to appeal to what society saw “what was right”. Thus, the Minstrel Show became a success, which only lead people to regress to the earlier times when African Americans were slaves and seen just like the stereotypes illustrated in ManTan. Media holds a firm grip on society’s view of what’s accurate and immoral. Sadly, this is determined by the ratings a program receives. Which is plain disgusting.
“Bamboozled” and De La’s idea of a satire of a minstrel show strengthen the arguments made in Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” As Postman states in chapter 10, using television as a tool to teach will fail as people will only focus on the entertainment part and ignore the lesson or moral. De La’s show was watched and loved by millions of viewers, but his satire was never understood by any of them. Later he, himself, forgot the show was to teach the people and was engulfed in the fame and love from the entertained viewers. “Bamboozled” was also similar to “The Bluest Eye” and “Good Hair” with its stand on what is socially acceptable of the black community. “Good Hair” proves that the straighter the hair, the more beautiful (and costly) a woman is. In “The Bluest Eye,” light-skinned people, like Maureen Peal, are more beautiful than the dark-skinned people, like Pecola. “Bamboozled” shows us that people like Sloan must act like proper to be take serious. All three also show how skewed the view of blacks are from any and all races.
The common thread that I see between Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Bamboozled is that in both, races would aspire to be like one another. For example, in The Bluest Eye, Pecola was influenced to want to be white because blue eyes were considered beautiful and blue eyes are easily associated with white people. Furthermore, because Pecola was constantly surrounded by pictures of beautiful white girls with pretty blue eyes, she wished that she could be white and beautiful. However, Pecola’s obsession with beauty led to her demise in the end because she became crazy. I believe it’s the same concept with the movie Bamboozled. The main character de la, created a racist show that was entertaining and funny, which was viewed and loved by people of all races. However, white people liked the show the most. And as the movie progressed and the show progressed, white people supported the show more than African Americans. Soon, white people were wearing the black face and calling themselves niggers. I think that’s where the connection lies between The Bluest Eye and Bamboozled; different races striving to be one another because they were conditioned into thinking the other was either prettier or more entertaining and funny.
A connection between The Bluest Eye and Bamboozled is the way black people are displayed with a negative connotation. In The Bluest Eye, everyone has “bad sex,” no one seems to be happy (except the whores) and there really isn’t an overall positive view in the novel. The characters are seen as dumb, poor and ugly. In Bamboozled, De La wanted to create a minstrel show that was offensive and racist, the same way he thought black people were still viewed. Black people never had a positive show or portrayal of them on television before, similar to The Bluest Eye they are depicted as dumb, ugly, and poor, only differentiating in the way the characters acted. In Bamboozled, all the Blackface actors are happy, ignorantly blissful, tap-dancing joyful black folk yet, in The Bluest Eye everyone, specifically the Breedloves are miserable. It’s interesting that even the black actors had to wear dark face paint, as if to emphasize just how different they are to white people they are. I also found it interesting that, Sloan, the one who was against the idea in the first place, always tried to do the right thing, and one of the most hardworking, was the one who suffered the most loss. And it’s similar to Pecola by, all Pecola wanted was to be pretty, not riches or fame, yet she was a lamb to the slaughter. Although Sloan didn’t suffer in the same way, she still lost her brother, lover, boss, job and most likely mental capabilities.
Bamboozled and The Bluest Eye are both alike in terms of a thematic connection. Society’s perception of the African American race is the center of the movie Bamboozled and novel, The Bluest Eye. Also, the biggest connection is that society plays the biggest role on how the African American culture should be. De La Cruz, a character from the movie Bamboozled, is an African American male who creates a television show that degrades and is racist towards his own culture. The television shows the African American culture by using a monkey as the representation of a person who of this ethnicity. A monkey normally symbolizes someone who is dumb, dirty and worthless. In this case De La Cruz uses comical actors, such as Mantan, who use black “dirt” to cover their faces and continuously talks about “Negros” and “slaves”. They use objects such as a watermelon and cotton field that are stereotypes of blacks. In Bamboozled everyone conformed to society; however, when Mantan steppes out and tried to be his own person he is then tortured and shot to death. This truly shows the hardships that people go through when they go against societies wants and try to become their own individual. Likewise Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye uses society as the way a person’s life should be. For example, the character Pecola Breedlove is almost a teenager who wishes she had curly hair and blue eyes. Her determination to fit into society is like those who have conformed to wearing and thinking like the characters in De La Cruz’s television show. The peer pressure of being “beautiful” in Pecolas case took away her individuality and despite the pain and suffering of being unloved and mistreated Mantan is an example of how far a society will go to keep things in order. Things meaning the standards set by society.
The connection between both “Bamboozled,” by Spike Lee and “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison is that both works describe how society degrades the African American race in order to please others. In the novel, “The Bluest Eye,” Morrison demonstrates the revolting qualities of the African American race that are perceived by society. According to Morrison, society judge people based on their appearance. In the novel, the society considers the qualities of white, blond hair and blue eyes to be pretty whereas those who are dark-skinned are portrayed with unwanted qualities such as ugly, filthy, and pitiable. In “Bamboozled,” Manray and Womack were portrayed as uneducated African Americans in the new millennium minstrel show. Others are entertained by these qualities used to represent African Americans but African Americans are disgraced and feel insulted with the qualities used to degrade their race. When Manray and Womack are putting on makeup, they feel inferior because they have to put on a mask to entertain the audience and at the same time humiliate their own race. The African Americans were offended by the concept played by in the show due to the fact that African Americans are always portrayed as lazy, clumsy and uneducated individuals. The stereotypes played by the characters Mantan and Sleep-n-eat entertained the audience but offended the African American race. Just like in “The Bluest Eye,” colored people were being degraded by the white society. The degrading of Pecola allowed others to feel superior knowing that their condition is not as worst as Pecola. Making Pecola seen as the ugliest pleases others by making them feel better. In addition to degradation, Cholly is degraded by being forced to make love to a girl while white men are being entertained by his acts due to the gun power they hold. In both societies, the African American race was viewed as inferior in order to please the white people.
“Good Hair”, “The Bluest Eye”, and “Bamboozled” all have in common how black people are perceived and perceive themselves. “Good Hair” shows that many black women put on wigs, put chemicals in their scalp, and wear weaves to “enhance” their appearance. The problem with their vision of beauty is not what they naturally look like. They buy products that hide their naturally curly hair and replace it with straight hair. In “Bamboozled” Pierre recreates Minstrel shows to show how African Americans are portrayed in the media. However, Pierre’s Minstrel show was a hit and defeated the purpose of him creating the show. The Minstrel shows portray black people as lazy and doltish. The actors in these minstrel shows put on black faces and a lot of make up around their lips. This is making fun of African American people’s skin and implying that they all have very big lips. These shows play on stereo types of black people. This was after his previous attempts to make a show that uplifts African Americans and continuously having his ideas rejected. Pecola, the protagonist of “The Bluest Eye”, represents many African American girls that perceive beauty as resembling another race. Pecola idolizes Shirley Temple and wants to look like her. Having blonde hair and blue eyes is considered beautiful.
The connection between Bamboozled, The Bluest Eye, and Good Hair is the stereotypes that surround African Americans and the lengths one goes to so society will accept them. In Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, Pierre De La Croix created a satire of African American culture and hoped that society would see its wrong doings in stereotyping African Americans. Although the television show had the opposite result, the show went to extreme lengths to depict the discriminations within society. Trying to exploit the flaws in society caused others to die and friends to part ways. In Good Hair Africans Americans went to great lengths to obtain what they thought was “good hair”; putting in weaves, dying their hair different colors, and using perms and other harmful chemicals all to get ideal hair. Society has imprinted on African Americans that good hair is straight hair. However, white people often yearn for curly hair, the type of curly hair that minorities are born with. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola yearned to have blue eyes because she thought it would make her beautiful. Pecola prayed religiously everyday so she could have blue eyes to the point that see was driven insane. Overall, it was the stereotypes of African Americans and lengths one goes to, to make society except them for who they are.
It is devasting to know that in both the movie, “Bamboozled,” and the book, “The Bluest Eye,” African Americans are stereotyped in negative aspects, such as ignorant, lazy and ugly people. In Spike Lee’s movie, Pierre De La Croix decided to make a television show that stereotyped blacks, so the two main characters in the show, ManTan and Sleep-n-eat, displayed no intelligence, no education, and were treated as puppets. Therefore, society looked at blacks in a negative perspective, and the image for blacks was made fun of. In society’s eyes, it was a joke to be a “nigger.” Similar to Spike Lee’s movie, society in “The Bluest Eye” looked down at blacks. Society did not want to associate with blacks or even have any acknowledgement of them. Black people were considered ugly and not considered beautiful. Since having blue eyes and blonde hair was beautiful, Pecola disliked being black because she figured she wasn’t beautiful. It’s interesting to see how society in “Bamboozled” acknowledged black as a form of entertainment; however, society in the book did not want nothing to do with blacks. They did not want to even look at them. Also, in both the book and movie, it seems that Pierre De La Croix and Pecola wanted to fit in with society. Pierre wanted to fit in with the other sitcoms to have economic benefits and Pecola wanted to fit in with society to have a personal benefit.
Throughout this unit we have experienced a novel, a documentary and a movie that have all portrayed the ideology of ‘black people trying to meet a white conformity’. In the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the main character Pecola is an unfortunate one as her looks aren’t appealing nor are they what she craves. Growing up in a society where everything white is ‘pretty’ Pecola stresses her-self with the admiration and hope that one day she would acquire blue eyes because only then, will she be considered as beautiful as a white woman. In the Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair, Rock exploits the idea that a black woman’s hair must be ‘straight’ in order to elaborate their beauty. He does this by talking to many customers, hair salon owners, chemist, factory workers, and even hair donors themselves who all contribute to either the usage or development of products such as: hair relaxer and weaves. In Spike Lee’s movie Bamboozled, Lee uses the story of a screen writer who creates a new minstrel show with hopes of destroying the television corporation that he works for and ironically it is adored rather than despised by everybody even targets the show; African Americans. Moreover, as its success continues to flourish the screenwriter De la Croix begins to indulge himself in the fame rather than take into account the horror that he reanimated. This causes himself to disregard his conscience in order to please his boss who represents the ignorant white community that keeps downgrading blacks with racially objective stereotypes. Overall, all of these tie together because they all convey the struggle that the African Americans face to live up to the society’s social standard and that being the ‘white standard’.
The common theme here is good art. Both producers were able to make the reader/viewer feel and think differently after being exposed to such work of art. As I watched ‘Bamboozled,’ the scenes where I was supposed to feel uncomfortable, I did, and the scenes where I was meant to be amused, I was. As was the case for “The Bluest Eye.” As Mantan and Sleep n Eat appear blackfaced in the opening act of the minstrel show, everyone in the audience is stunned and speach-less, as are those who are actually viewing the movie. One can only tell of the immorality of the scene by the unsettling feeling in the pit of one’s stomach and the ache in the chest area that appears; this feeling of course is one Spike Lee hoped to achieve. Similarly, Toni Morrison writes with such creativity in order to get the reader to feel a certain type of way, for example, Morrison describes the scene between Cholly and Pecola in such a way that we, the readers, do not hate Cholly, but instead pity him. She also writes the novel in broken narration so the reader is not only affected by what is being read, but moved enough to take action. Both works of art discuss the negative stereotypes in which African Americans are viewed and how their actions eventually becomes self fulfilled prophecies for behavior, in a matter that makes the viewer/reader feel and relate to the events enough to take action.
Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” and Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled” are both tied to the common theme that blacks sometimes allow themselves to be controlled by society. In Good Hair, Rock shows how African American women will wear wigs, weaves, and get perms in order to have straight hair and be viewed as beautiful. In “Bamboozled,” Lee shows how African Americans didn’t mind being exploited because it was all in “good comedy.” Although minstrel shows were racist against blacks, they suddenly forgot, and began to feed into the show just because it was on television. In both films, Blacks are perceived as people who just follow the herd. In Good Hair, people allow their little girls to get perms that have harmful chemicals, just so they can feel “beautiful” through society’s eyes. In Bamboozled, the minstrel shows were highly racist, however it was okay to exploit blacks in this way because blacks supported it since many did not know the history behind it, and found it funny. There are some blacks however, who don’t perm their hair and get weaves because they feel that natural is beautiful. Towards the end of Bamboozled, Eat-n-sleep and Manray realized they were being exploited and refused to continue with the show. Both movies show that Blacks will sometimes forget that they are allowing themselves to be controlled by people if they choose to feed into a trend.
The relationship between Bamboozled and Amusing ourselves to death is the way media can affect society. In the book Amusing Ourselves to Death, media affected the way children grew up and the way they learned. Technology was becoming their resource of learning. Its amazing how media can affect an important group of people as it did in this book and Bamboozled. In the movie Bamboozled black people were offended by the new television show that was made by De La Craix. Their feelings toward the show was so bad that a black “gang” killed the main character of the show on live televison. People were being offended on how the black culture was being made fun of with the faces of black people being painted with even blacker paint. The fact that the setting took place on a watermelon plantation was also offending. The use of “nigger” was used so easily that it made it seem right for white people to say it. Even the white audience were wearing the black face paint. Some people couldnt take this anymore which lead to the death of Manray(the main character) and Pierre De La Craix. In both pieces it portrays the theme of the impact of media on society. Our emotions, decisions and state of mind are all made up of how media is presented on television, radio, and any other type of media shown to the society.
A connection between bamboozled and the bluest eye is that african americans and minorities as a whole are put down. In bamboozled, the show made of fun of african americans and gave society permission todo so as well and as a result, they were made fun of. Many african americans first were appauld at the jokes made about them. Then, they started making fun of themselves. In the film, manray represented the thing that opposed society and became a symbol for what can happen if they do. In the bluest eye, pecola, claudia, and frieda, look up to shirley temple because she is considered pretty by the rest of society and because of that, they view themselves as ugly. The entire book is a commentary on how african americans are viewed as a group of ugly people who do ugly things and have ugly things done to them because it is right. Both the film and the book outline how these people have been viewed for centuries and are still viewed by some people.
I think there’s a common link to all of the works because each of them views the trend and behavior that society has on influencing individuals. However, I would mostly connect it to “Good hair” because like De la Croix in “Bamboozled,” the women eventually became comfortable with their circumstances instead of hiding it and letting those who didn’t know that the weave wasn’t their real hair; they went along with it and shared it with everyone. De la Croix initially wanted to allow society to acknowledge what African- American standards are being lowered to and how we are always viewed to others that can’t relate through his television series. Unfortunately, De la Croix himself became susceptible to society’s image of blacks always being degraded. He steered away from his original plan; ultimately, conforming to what everyone else thought, laughing at his own degrading family although he was no different. The women in “Good Hair” used weaves or relaxer, not knowing their true origins or what expense others went through, to find beauty in themselves. This was their way of not only finding beauty, but fitting in to an imaginary standard set by society and those who are exalted and considered beautiful. In “Bamboozled” the painting of the black face was a bad representation of blacks during a time of oppression, bringing it back made it okay and almost entertaining; although the underlying connotation was nothing amusing. Overall, both works expressed ideas that were and still are accepted and okay, but the issue is that those actions are mainly to blame on an influencing society.