February 20, 2004

By Mike Emery
Staff writer

Spike Lee’s awareness of America’s past is evident in his films.

From the explosive dialogue of “Do the Right Thing” to the biographical “Malcolm X,” the director’s knack for history often shapes the characters and situations of his movies.

His recent presentation at the University of Houston, “Filmmaker as Historian,” allowed Lee to offer his views on popular culture, politics, education and, of course, history.

“George Washington, the first president of the United States of America, was a slave owner,” said Lee. “I bet they didn’t teach you that in school.”

Lee also pointed out how black Americans are often an “afterthought” in many historical films, especially those concerning the Civil War. He cited the Oscar-nominated “Cold Mountain” as an example of a movie set during the slavery era but with few black Americans.

“This film has 12 or 13 Oscar nominations,” he said. “We (black Americans) are not even in that movie. We’re in the background.

It’s set during the Civil War, but it’s like they’re fighting … just to be fighting.”

Lee then recounted how his elementary school took his class to see “Gone With The Wind.” While he found the characterizations of the slaves in that film somewhat disturbing, he admitted that the two primary black American actresses brought a sense of dignity to their roles.

“Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen put humanity into that film,” he said. “Both ‘Gone With The Wind’ and ‘Cold Mountain’ romanticize the South. But you could say that ‘Gone With The Wind,’ which was made in 1939, is more progressive than ‘Cold Mountain,’ which was released in 2004. We’re going backwards. In ‘Cold Mountain,’ we don’t even exist. They just write us out.

That’s the power of the medium.”

At age 47, Lee is familiar with the Civil Rights movement. He recalled a time when young African-Americans aspired to be educated in contrast to today. These days, he said, younger African-Americans look down upon school and those who excel in their classes.

He added that because of peer pressure and the thug and gangster imagery promoted by popular music and films, young black Americans are at risk of losing their identities and giving in to media stereotypes.

“If you make good grades, some people will call you ‘white’ or a sellout,” he said. “But if you’re standing on the corner, hanging out, you’re black … you’re down. Our value system has changed. These young, black minds today somehow equate intelligence with being white and ignorance with being black. That is genocide.”