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By Ted Baldwin

Summer Of Sam

Sorry to say, I can offer an opinion on Lee's latest...

Reviewed:
Started 7/9/99 Concluded: 11/26/99

FIVE POSSIBLE

In a not-too surprising interview at Cannes, Director Spike Lee commented on the "racism" apparent in The Phantom Menace. That is to say, that George Lucas used a "Stepin Fetchit" character to consciously demean blacks everywhere.

In his opinion, he recounted how the character Jar Jar was racist, then added that George Lucas didn't care cause he had more money than God. And that Lucas was using the young black actor who would do anything to make Lucas happy, even sell out his own racial pride. In effect, the young man was too stupid to realize he was playing into the hands of the "racist". (This was reported on the Cinescape Online web magazine, by the individual who talked to Lee. If minor details are in error, please forgive me, but the essence of the intent is as I stated. Look up the Cinescape archives for more info on Lee's statement.)

And this salient view was based on the "word of friends who saw it, and in whom he could trust." Mr. Lee did not even see Phantom Menace before passing his judgement.

And no one reporting on Mr. Lee bothered to question his ability to judge second hand.

QUESTION: What if George Lucas offered any opinion on "Summer of Sam" - let alone making charges of racism -without having seen it? Or even having seen it?

ANSWER: Lucas would have been pilloried at least. Damned, certainly. And the press would not have been blase' and friendly about it.

This dear reader, is what is known as a "double standard".

Wouldn't this be a better place if there were a single standard?

Well, that is not Lee's fault. But the content of "Summer of Sam" is, presumably.

Sorry to say, I can offer an opinion on Lee's latest, and while I stop short of labeling it a racist exercise (I understand some Italians are pretty upset about the stereotyping), I can assure you that if a white director attempted to offer up such a pastiche of half-baked cliche's and characterizations about African Americans, they would be hung out to dry. And the film is supposedly about intolerance!

But, let's give Lee something he was unwilling to give Lucas -the benefit of the doubt.

In his defense, I guess, Spike Lee appeared on Fox News, with one of the authors, an Italian-American. He seemed a lot nicer on the O'Reilly Factor than he had ever seemed before, and he seemed out of his element. Or I should say, Lee did not seem combative, but perhaps a little flustered at the negative attention he was getting. (Some Italian American groups raised a hue and cry at the portrayals in Summer of Sam.)

Lee tried defending his position on the film, but really only dug himself in deeper. I came to regard him as someone who catapulted into fame early, without the "foundation" (as one of my dear friends puts it) to support his work.

Maybe he really cannot see the venom in this film - I pray that is so. Believing that this was an intentional slam against Whites and Italians would be too sad. For the world.

Stylistically, Summer of Sam aspires to the new wave of hip and fashion-laden direction. There are moments in the film, but it seems like every time Lee starts to go somewhere, he bogs it down in reprehensible and noxious stereotypes - or just wildly inappropriate behavior. Its as if a bunch of guys sitting around a coffee pot said "Cool! That's really outrageous - put that in there!" about a thousand times. With no cohesive rhyme or reason.

And the moment when the dog actually speaks to Sam? Which I wanted to see earlier in the film than when it appears? All I could think of was the "Davey and Goliath" Son of Sam parody on MAD TV. Lee's rendition of Sam was so bad as to be laughable. Which, at that point, signaled the death knell for whatever respect I had for the film.

I wanted to be shocked and outraged the way I was during the good first hour of "Natural Born Killers" (that was going to be the best film of a generation until minute 61). Instead, raw disappointment. Oh well.

Un-amusing Sidebar on Observations of the Behavior of Characters in "Summer of Sam".

Being an impressionable young man, I came away from "Summer of Sam" with my eyes opened about my race and the subset that has origins in Italy. To Wit - this sidebar of observations.

Unfortunately, not being as well appointed as Mr. Lee, I did not have a bunch of respected friends who had seen "Summer of Sam" that I could trust to tell me what to think about it. So I had to sit through the movie, and try thinking for myself. What did I observe about white people in this movie?

1. White men are bad lovers.
2. White men are liars, for no reason.
3. White men are cheats.
4. White men are drug addicts.
5. White men are drug dealers.
6. White men are mean to all minorities, especially fairies ("gays").
7. White men are stupid.
8. White men are murderous.
9. White men are into cocaine and Quaaludes.
10. White men are into starring in porno flicks.
11. White men are disloyal.
12. White men are unkempt.
13. White men 'prefer the back door and other perverted sexual acts' (not my wording).
14. White men are unable to discern right from wrong.
15. White men verbally and physically abuse people because they are different.
16. White men use people.
17. White men are poor workers.
18. White men are poor dressers.
19. White men don't know how to treat women.
20. White men listen to dogs.
21. White men can't be trusted.
22. White men are untalented.
23. White men have no aspirations.
24. White men are whiners.
25. White men abuse women.
26. White women are victims.
27. White male mobsters are stupid.
28. Whites only care about murders when it's "on whites".
29. White people can't dance.
30. Whites can't play ball.
31. White men can't handle their liquor.
32. White men can't hold jobs.
33. White men can't trust anybody.
34. White men don't like sexy wives.
35. White guys like performing in sex shows for old men.
36. Whites think black transvestites are unusually strange.
37. White fairies are easy victims.
38. White fairies are unable to judge character.
39. White fairies rat on people.
40. White fairies are nauseatingly effeminate.
41. Old white fairies like sex with younger sex show stars.
42. Whites don't know how to treat family members.
43. White women are whores or virgins, but never sexually fulfilled humans.
44. White women are sex starved animals.
45. White killers are treated well by police.
46. White police-force spokespeople are inanely stupid.
47. White waiters are stupid and unable to defend people they know.
48. White people are disloyal to childhood friends.
49. White people are always looking for trouble.
50. White people kill without remorse.
51. Dogs talk to white people.
52. White people are vindictive.
53. White cops are especially stupid.
54. White priests are powerless over mobsters.
55. White Vietnam vets are powerless over mobsters.
56. Whites will attack one of their own on merest suspicion.
57. Whites need drugs to cope with stress.
58. Whites don't know when they are screwing up.
59. White women need abusive boyfriends.
60. White women can't get enough.
61. White people say cruel and evil things to people they love for no reason.
62. White people like swinger's clubs.
63. White people can't communicate with each other.
64. White people can't keep promises to God.
65. White people can't keep marriage vows.
66. White people can't resolve conflicts.
67. White people can't feel for other people.
68. Older Italians are mobsters.
69. Italians say faggeddaboudit.
70. Italian girls are sex kittens.
71. Italian girls are for passing around.
72. Italian guys aspire to the mob.
73. Everyone is afraid of Italian guys.
74. Fairies simper and whine and are outcast until they are needed to drag some ridiculous plot point to a messy and ignorant conclusion, then they are magically accepted as part of the pack.
75. Whites form packs to hunt and hurt people.
76. Non-Italians either are queer or wear punk garb and dance at CBGB's.
77. White police are inept and incapable of doing good work.
78. Italians carry resentments.
79. Italian mobsters eat Italian food and act like no one else is familiar with it.
80. Italian mobsters invoke debts at the slightest whim.
81. Italian cops are outcasts and beggars.
82. Italian guys hate the name Guido.
83. Italian guys bust up people for no reason.
84. Italian guys dress poorly (in a bad way different from other white guys).
85. White fathers of wives know better than husbands.
86. White businesswomen screw their employees.
87. White businesswomen scream at employees in front of customers.
88. White restaurateurs can't make a go of it.
89. Whites are openly confrontative and intolerant in public places.
90. Whites peddle stolen goods and misrepresent their quality.
91. Whites don't got good educations.
92. Whites are selfish.
93. Whites cannot subdue their passions - are slaves to them.
94. Black cops should know better than to trust their white partners.
95. Whites have no sense of humor. (Like me.)
96. Whites are generally unhappy.
97. Whites are immodest.
98. Whites who swing get to ride in big limousines.
99. Whites are vigilantes.
100. Whites are ripe for the picking.
101. You name it.

To put too fine a point on it, these are actions of characters in the film. And while they speak virtuous words at times, they do not act that way, nor they do not offer counterbalance against any virtuous character. Pretty much everyone in the film (with an embarrassing cameo by Lee as a TV reporter) is unsympathetic, and low-class.

Maybe that is the way it was in that neighbor hood at that time. (People have come forward to say it was not.) Maybe all of the people were as unprincipled as these. But we were not treated to any particular insight into these behaviors - they were just chronicled in the heat of the summer night. And considering everything, it is not a vision I care to trust.

This review was "lost" when the lightning struck in July. I managed to finally find the file after a day of drive reconstructing - but it took me until now (Nov. 26) to get the time to hunt for it. I am sure there was more written, but I got the 100 points back - that was the truly irreplaceable part. Still, five months after seeing the film, I cannot be soft on it. I thought back on what I saw to ask myself if I was being too hard on it - and I was on Lee. I have cooled of a lot since the screening. So this review reflects a moderated opinion based, in part, on the Fox News show interview with Lee. I actually think he might be an OK guy if he weren't caught in the crush of international race relations. That affects his every move, and how he is looked at, and I am sure there are many and mighty expectations of him. Hard to be free when you become an icon. But what he put on film will last for many centuries after we are gone, and canonization of that is what I take issue with...

I wish Mr. Lee well, and I hope he finds his stride.