Director
Spike Lee
Leading Actors/Actresses
Damon Wayans, Savion GLover, Jada Pinkett Smith
Supporting Actors/Actresses
Tommy Davidson, Michael Rapaport
Genre
Satire, Comedy, Drama
Language
English
Awards
N/A
Date of Release
2000
Producer
Jon Kilik, Spike Lee
Setting and Context
America - 2000, at the television network CNS
Narrator and Point of View
POV and Narrator is Pierre Delacroix
Tone and Mood
Satirical, Dramatic, Serious
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist are Sloan and Delacroix. Antagonists are Dunwitty and (depending on perspective) Delacroix
Major Conflict
Delacroix has been granted a green light to create his show which was meant to get him fired. It is a new minstrel show which degrades black people.
Climax
Manray is killed on live tv by the Mau Maus, and Sloan shoots Delacroix for his role in allowing the show to continue. He takes the gun from her in order to make it look like he shot himself before dying.
Foreshadowing
Delacroix's show being picked up foreshadows his selling himself out for money.
Understatement
It is understated that Delacroix will accept the show deal.
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
N/A
Allusions
The film is an allusion to the choices we make in creating entertainment, in the sense that everything we submit ourselves to creating for television has a profound effect on the movement of our culture; either going forward or back in time.
Paradox
Delacroix is pitching his Mantan show in order to be fired, knowing that it is offensive, racist and degrading to black people.. Paradoxically he agrees to carry on when Dunwitty loves it and puts it into production, and Delacroix simply calls his work a satire.
Parallelism
Delacroix wearing blackface at the end of the film as he lay dying parallels Manray and Womack wearing it for his "satire". It represents how he is choosing to brutalize the identity of black people.
