Women In Spike Lee's Bamboozled

Our team chose to focus on representations of women in Spike Lee's latest joint,

"Bamboozled". This theme was attractive to us because we felt the filmmaker

had a powerful message to send his audience after viewing the trailer in class.

Despite the fact that there is only one woman in a starring role, a multitude of

specific and acute ideas are presented by Spike Lee through the film. We were

also eager to take advantage of the opportunity to apply what we have learned

in class to the thought-provoking and controversial nature of his work.

When reflecting upon representations of women, we felt that a continuous

motif of women as puppets is present. The lead female character, Sloan

Hopkins, is played by Jada Pinkett Smith. She comes across as being under

Pierre Delacroix, or his puppet, from her first appearance in the film. The

opening scene of the movie emphasizes this as he is yelling at her for not

informing him of a staff meeting. Sloan continually apologizes but, not knowing

about the meeting, has no reason to do so. Regardless of this fact, she is put

down and silenced by Delacroix. He dismisses everything she says and acts as

the voice of authority with no consideration of the actual circumstances. She is

merely his puppet who has failed. When Delacroix comes up with the "Mantan

Show" idea, Sloan feels strongly against it. However, she is the one who has to

research and come up with historical portfolios for the show. She tries to

educate everyone about what they are getting into by doing such a blatantly

wrong show, but her voice is not heard and her arguments are brushed aside.

She remains a puppet controlled by Delacroix. It seems the only way she has to

get any attention is to agree and go along with the horrible concept. These are

just a few examples of how Sloan acts as a puppet. We would like to move on to

some other representations of women that continue this motif.

Women in the film were also portrayed as puppets for society. This is

demonstrated through the stereotypical roles the characters fulfilled. They were

used as a tool for advertising, in this case clothing and an alcoholic beverage.

Scantily clad and engaging in sexual behavior, the women are used as objects in

advertising to sell products. Another character that is highly sexualized is the

only female member of the rap group, Mau Mau. Her official name in the credits

is Smooth Black, but we will refer to her simply as "Lollipop Girl". She plays the

role of "group slut" and comes across as sexually promiscuous. There is always

a lollipop present with her and it's obviously meant to be a phallic symbol. Her

main response is agreeing with all the men in her music group. This makes her

submissive in the same vein that Sloan bows down to the wishes of her male

counterparts. While these are