Lee, Spike (1957-)

Beginnings

Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Lee was exposed to ethnic diversity throughout his childhood given the multiculturalism of his neighborhoods and schools. He has characterized his childhood and growing up in these communities as enriching and as raising his awareness of race and ethnic relations. Occasionally, Lee and his family would experience the effects of racist attitudes. For example, on the first day of moving into the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, his family was called “nigger.” However, most of his interactions and relationships cultivated with Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Blacks were not filled with conflict; rather, they were felt to be mutually rewarding.

Many early experiences shaped Lee's interest in becoming a filmmaker. His father, a jazz musician, exposed him to ideas and to the process of creating one's voice through art. His mother, a teacher, encouraged constant exposure to the arts through attending the theater and museums. Later, Spike graduated from [Page 842]Morehouse College with a bachelor of arts degree in mass communication and went on to graduate from the New York University (NYU) Film School with a master of fine arts degree.

Authentic Representations of African Americans

In 1986, the year Lee debuted as a filmmaker, there was still a dearth of diverse images and representations of African Americans. His first three films, She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, and Do the Right Thing, signaled a departure from the blaxploitation genre that had dominated films portraying Blacks since the early 1970s. Blaxploitation films gave Black filmmakers and actors opportunities to work; however, the films were a hyperbole of urban ghetto life, with characters depicted as hypersexual and hyperviolent. Overwhelmingly, stereotypes of African Americans were reinforced, as were those of Whites.

Lee's films deviated from the formula of blaxploitation and sought to depict African Americans in their everyday lives. Moreover, he used his films as a platform to wrestle with the ways in which race and racism shape people's identities and interpersonal relationships. In a sense, Lee returned to the roots of cinema initiated by filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, who in 1919 became the first African American to make a film. Lee has credited Micheaux as one of his most significant influences and as a model of how to address race and challenge stereotypes in film.

In addition, all of Lee's films have tapped into a social consciousness to reflect the relevant social and political issues of the times. His first student film, The Last Hustle in Brooklyn, captured images of people looting during the New York City power blackout of 1977. At NYU, his student film The Answer nearly got him dismissed from the program for challenging D. W. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. In The Answer, Lee selected some of the most degrading images of how African Americans were depicted to demonstrate how stereotypes about African Americans were perpetuated. In challenging the status quo and the iconic work of Griffith, Lee provoked controversy by addressing issues of racism. His later films continued to push the status quo by addressing a range of taboo topics, from intragroup racism, interracial relationships, and ethnic relations to retelling U.S. history in the form of historical dramas and documentaries.

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