Sorry for the delay. Forgot to even check back up on this.
@MartialHorror
MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA wasn't even that bad---I will admit it did have its flaws--big time---but they didn't detract that much from the main story,and despite those same flaws,I still think it's one of Spike's best films. And racism is STILL thriving like it always has in this country---I don't know what makes you think it just suddenly up and magically disappeared just because we now have a black President----hell,there are still people who have NOT accepted the fact that he IS our President to this day,and never will,simply because he IS black,period.
I didn't say racism has disappeared, I'm saying racism isn't as prevalent as it was during the 90's (where Spike thrived the most). If you like the movie, good for you. I hated it. I thought the characters were poorly written, there were too many unnecessary scenes/subplots and even the way the narrative was framed came across as pointless. To me, it's a total mess.
But if you liked it, you liked it.
I also have SOME suspicions that Spike Lee might be racist himself (I stress SOME). I was always bugged by this plug for that Katrina documentary where he says he's doing "this for my fellow Americans, especially my fellow african americans" who suffered during Katrina. He probably didn't mean for that to sound kind of racist, but I don't get why he had to be so....divisive about it. "Fellow Americans" should be enough.
As for the Clint Eastwood debacle, well,Spike DID have a point there---just because there was segregation back then didn't mean Eastwood had to leave the fact that there were black soldiers fighting out of the film. Hell, he made a pretty good film about World War II from the Japanese point of view (LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA) so why couldn't he have made one about those same black soldiers from their point of view,too? They still fought in the war like everybody else despite being segregated and being treated absolutely like s*** while doing it. The problem I've had with even current World War II films is they completely leave out the fact that not only black Americans fought in the Second World War, but so did Asian-Americans,Native Americans,and Hispanic-Americans (see Ken Burns' documentary THE WAR for all of the above) so that's why Spike made MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA in the first place, because,frankly, you rarely see that in films about World War II anymore.
This bothers me as I can flip it around. Why doesn't Spike make a WW2 movie about Japanese-Americans? They got it worse than the blacks and the only movies I've seen surrounding them are B-movies.
You also overlook that there ARE African Americans in "Flags of Our Fathers". They just weren't the main characters, as the movie followed the people who raised the flag (and weren't black). Also, do I even need to point out that a Native American was a main character of that movie? So that "white man's movie" or however Spike paraphrased it is wrong even if there weren't any blacks.
Spike was only doing that for attention, but as I said, he didn't acknowledge his mistake. He acted like a pretentious ass instead, later blaming the media even though if they misreported anything he would've said so from the beginning.
Part of the reason I think Spike might be racist is he only concerns himself with black problems, not with the problems of any other race. He's silent when Tarantino exploits the Jews in "Inglourious Basterds", but "Django Unchained" is apparently 'offensive'. But once again, I can't shake that "especially my fellow African Americans" line.
my reviews of martial arts and horror films
http://freewebs.com/martialhorror
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