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The Spike Lee Enigma
Challenge and Incorporation in Media Culture
Bill Yousman
The Spike Lee Enigma is an exploration of ideology and political economy in the films and career of one of America's most controversial filmmakers. Since the 1980s Spike Lee has created numerous films that are socially challenging, some would even say radical, while simultaneously maintaining a collaborative relationship with mainstream Hollywood and the global advertising industry. Lee, thus, seemingly represents an enigma – operating on the margins of both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic cultural production.
This book incorporates multiple perspectives, ranging from media effects theories, critical cultural studies, and the political economy of media, to semiotics and ideological, auteurist, and feminist approaches to film theory and analysis. Early chapters provide a clear explanation of these theoretical and methodological approaches while later chapters explore several of Lee’s films in great depth. In a social environment where popular culture has supplanted education and religion as a primary force of socialization and enculturation, this book demonstrates why a popular filmmaker such as Spike Lee must be taken seriously, while introducing readers to ways of viewing, reading, and listening that will allow them to achieve a new understanding of the mediated texts they encounter on a daily basis.
This book incorporates multiple perspectives, ranging from media effects theories, critical cultural studies, and the political economy of media, to semiotics and ideological, auteurist, and feminist approaches to film theory and analysis. Early chapters provide a clear explanation of these theoretical and methodological approaches while later chapters explore several of Lee’s films in great depth. In a social environment where popular culture has supplanted education and religion as a primary force of socialization and enculturation, this book demonstrates why a popular filmmaker such as Spike Lee must be taken seriously, while introducing readers to ways of viewing, reading, and listening that will allow them to achieve a new understanding of the mediated texts they encounter on a daily basis.
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- New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2014. 241 pp.
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- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Media Saturation and Media Culture
- Questioning Spike Lee
- Overview of Subsequent Chapters
- Chapter 2: The American Film Industry, Race, and Spike Lee
- Development of the American Film Industry
- Black Filmmakers and the American Film Industry
- Black Stereotypes in American Film
- Black Independent Cinema
- The Emergence of Spike Lee
- Popular and Academic Reception of Lee’s Films
- Artistic and Cultural Merit
- Representing Race, Class, and Gender
- Lee’s Political Agenda
- Chapter 3: Theory and Method: Media Culture, Ideology, and Spike Lee
- Mass Society and Mass Media
- Contesting Paradigms I: Media Effects and Critical Theory
- Media Effects
- Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School
- Contesting Paradigms II: Critical Theory and Cultural Studies
- Limitations of the Frankfurt School Approach
- British Cultural Studies
- Celebratory Cultural Studies
- Contesting Paradigms III: Cultural Studies and Political Economy
- Origins of Ideology
- Marxist Perspectives on Ideology
- Althusser on Ideology
- Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony
- Mainstream, Alternative, and Oppositional Media
- Mainstream Media
- Alternative Media
- Oppositional Media
- Applying Critical Theory to the Films of Spike Lee
- Why These Films?
- Critical Film Theory
- Semiotics and Structuralism in Film Studies
- Methods of Ideological Analysis and Spike Lee
- Chapter 4: She’s Gotta Have It, but He Already Got It
- Production Background
- Narrative Structure
- The Beginning
- The Middle
- The End
- Coda
- Critical Reception
- Analysis of Structural Oppositions in She’s Gotta Have It
- Men/Women and the Privileges of Gender
- Defining Morality/Immorality—Enculturation Through Modern Myth
- Chapter 5: The Undecidability of Doing the Right Thing
- Production Background
- Film Narrative
- Critical Reception
- Structural Semiotic Analysis of Do the Right Thing
- Indeterminacy—Complex Moral and Ideological Positions in Do the Right Thing
- Harmony/Discord
- Ideological Choices and Contradictions in Do the Right Thing
- Male Agency/Female Spectatorship—A Continuing Theme
- Chapter 6: Lee Goes Big: Identity and Ideology in the Epic Malcolm X
- Production Background
- Narrative Structure
- Part One—Detroit Red
- Part Two—Malcolm X
- Part Three—El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
- Coda
- Critical Reception
- Structural Analysis of Malcolm X
- Identity—Detroit Red/Malcolm Little
- Identity—Malcolm X/Detroit Red
- Identity—Malcolm X/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
- Hollywood Iconography—Race and Ethnicity
- Hollywood Iconography—Gender and Sexuality
- The Invisible Dimension—Class and Class Consciousness
- Chapter 7: Spike Lee and the Paradox of the Alternative Mainstream
- Gender and Sexuality—Spike Lee’s Marginal Women, Violent Men, and Repulsive Gays
- Race and Racism—“Us vs. Them”
- Class Struggle—The Missing Dimension
- Spike Lee—Advertising Man
- Chapter 8: The Mainstreaming (?) of Spike Lee: Challenge and Incorporation
- Challenge and Incorporation
- The Conservative Tendencies of Media Culture and the Marginalization of Dissenting Voices
- Afterword
- Notes
- References
- Index
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← 216 | 217 →REFERENCES
Extract
Abrams, J.J. (2011). Transcendence and sublimity in Spike Lee’s signature shot. In M.T. Conard (Ed.), The philosophy of Spike Lee, pp. 187–199. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky.
Acham, C. (2008). We shall overcome: Preserving history and memory in 4 Little Girls. In P.J. Massood (Ed.), The Spike Lee reader, pp. 159–174. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Adorno, T.W. (1969). Scientific experiences of a European scholar in America. In D. Fleming and B. Bailyn (Eds.) The intellectual migration: Europe and America, 1930–1960, pp. 338–370. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Alaniz, M.L. and Wilkes, C. (1998). Pro-drinking messages and message environments for young adults: The case of alcohol industry advertising in African American, Latino, and Native American communities. Journal of Public Health Policy 19(4), 447–472.
Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.
American Civil Liberties Union (2008). Soldiers of misfortune: Abusive U.S. military recruitment and failure to protect child soldiers. http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/humanrights/crc_report_20080513.pdf
Ansen, D. (1989, July). Searing, nervy and very honest. Newsweek, pp. 65–66.
Ansen, D. (1991, August). The battle for Malcolm X. Newsweek, pp. 52–54.
Arndorfer, J. (1997, December). A-B sets $70 million hike in ‘98 ad spending. Advertising Age, p. 68.
A-Salaam, Y. (1989, July 22). Does Do the Right Thing have the wrong emphasis? New Amsterdam News, pp. 23, 50.
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Or login to access all content.- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Media Saturation and Media Culture
- Questioning Spike Lee
- Overview of Subsequent Chapters
- Chapter 2: The American Film Industry, Race, and Spike Lee
- Development of the American Film Industry
- Black Filmmakers and the American Film Industry
- Black Stereotypes in American Film
- Black Independent Cinema
- The Emergence of Spike Lee
- Popular and Academic Reception of Lee’s Films
- Artistic and Cultural Merit
- Representing Race, Class, and Gender
- Lee’s Political Agenda
- Chapter 3: Theory and Method: Media Culture, Ideology, and Spike Lee
- Mass Society and Mass Media
- Contesting Paradigms I: Media Effects and Critical Theory
- Media Effects
- Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School
- Contesting Paradigms II: Critical Theory and Cultural Studies
- Limitations of the Frankfurt School Approach
- British Cultural Studies
- Celebratory Cultural Studies
- Contesting Paradigms III: Cultural Studies and Political Economy
- Origins of Ideology
- Marxist Perspectives on Ideology
- Althusser on Ideology
- Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony
- Mainstream, Alternative, and Oppositional Media
- Mainstream Media
- Alternative Media
- Oppositional Media
- Applying Critical Theory to the Films of Spike Lee
- Why These Films?
- Critical Film Theory
- Semiotics and Structuralism in Film Studies
- Methods of Ideological Analysis and Spike Lee
- Chapter 4: She’s Gotta Have It, but He Already Got It
- Production Background
- Narrative Structure
- The Beginning
- The Middle
- The End
- Coda
- Critical Reception
- Analysis of Structural Oppositions in She’s Gotta Have It
- Men/Women and the Privileges of Gender
- Defining Morality/Immorality—Enculturation Through Modern Myth
- Chapter 5: The Undecidability of Doing the Right Thing
- Production Background
- Film Narrative
- Critical Reception
- Structural Semiotic Analysis of Do the Right Thing
- Indeterminacy—Complex Moral and Ideological Positions in Do the Right Thing
- Harmony/Discord
- Ideological Choices and Contradictions in Do the Right Thing
- Male Agency/Female Spectatorship—A Continuing Theme
- Chapter 6: Lee Goes Big: Identity and Ideology in the Epic Malcolm X
- Production Background
- Narrative Structure
- Part One—Detroit Red
- Part Two—Malcolm X
- Part Three—El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
- Coda
- Critical Reception
- Structural Analysis of Malcolm X
- Identity—Detroit Red/Malcolm Little
- Identity—Malcolm X/Detroit Red
- Identity—Malcolm X/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
- Hollywood Iconography—Race and Ethnicity
- Hollywood Iconography—Gender and Sexuality
- The Invisible Dimension—Class and Class Consciousness
- Chapter 7: Spike Lee and the Paradox of the Alternative Mainstream
- Gender and Sexuality—Spike Lee’s Marginal Women, Violent Men, and Repulsive Gays
- Race and Racism—“Us vs. Them”
- Class Struggle—The Missing Dimension
- Spike Lee—Advertising Man
- Chapter 8: The Mainstreaming (?) of Spike Lee: Challenge and Incorporation
- Challenge and Incorporation
- The Conservative Tendencies of Media Culture and the Marginalization of Dissenting Voices
- Afterword
- Notes
- References
- Index