Spike Lee Courts Controversy Again

August 24 -- Never one to shy away from controversy, director Spike Lee is promoting his newest movie, Bamboozled, with sure-fire attention-getting ads that feature stereotypical, racist images of African-Americans.

The rubbernecking-inducing spots feature a cartoon illustration of a winking black man with huge lips and a huge, toothy smile advertising the fictional ManTan Minstrel Show. That's also the main graphic on the "Step 'N Fetch It Pictures" site (www.stepnfetchitpictures.com) — where the nonexistent CNS network touts the minstrel show and other un-PC programs.

The ManTan Minstrel Show is the subject of Lee's Oct. 6 film about a black writer who joins the writing staff of an all-black TV sitcom that's previously been written only by whites. The movie stars Savion Glover, Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson, and Michael Rapaport.

"Spike Lee's ad is an eye-opener and it is going to raise racial anger again — which is his trademark," Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, commented to the New York Post about Lee's shock-tactic ad campaign. "It is obviously intended to shock and to generate free publicity about the next Spike Lee joint.

"This will bring [Lee] even more fame and notoriety as the film chronicler of America's discredited racial past," said Meyers. "Still, the anger attendant to this recycling of racial trash, I bet, will not be worth the price of admission."

Lee's last dramatic film, Summer of Sam, was criticized for its subject matter (the 1977 Son of Sam killings). The New York-based filmmaker also dishes out the criticism, slamming this summer's American Revolution summer flick The Patriot for its mostly lily-white cast, and calling George Lucas "out of touch" for creating the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks character, which many critics called a throwback to the hated "Stepin Fetchit" stereotypes of the past.