I'll Take The Obama High Road

Let me just start off by saying, I'll take the Obama high road.

In his latest tirade against a fellow filmmaker, Spike Lee called out Clint Eastwood for not representing black soliders in Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima , while promoting the forthcoming Miracle at St. Anna in Cannes, which details Lee's telling of an all-black American unit fighting fascism during WW2 in Italy. While it's true that 900 black men served at Iwo Jima, as referenced in a 2006 editorial in The Guardian titled "Where have all the black soldiers gone?", Lee seemed to miss the point that the focus of Eastwood's films were the individual stories of the soldiers (one of which was Native American, natch) propagandized by the USO to sell war bonds and the individual Japanese general who wrote letters home to his family during the battle respectively.

While Eastwood could have included black soldiers as extras on the Japanese island to account for their presence, Lee's accusations that Eastwood purposely shortchanged history is irresponsible. I respect Lee's effort to honor the 1 million African-Americans who served WW2 in St. Anna and look forward to seeing it (I studied with one of the nation's leading African-American historical scholars during college, thank you). I regret that the so-called John Wayne version of historical events doesn't always credit the work of black men; but I get bothered that Lee criticizes Eastwood's defense by saying, "The man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," further going on to say, "even though he's trying to have a Dirty Harry flashback, I'm going to take the Obama high road and end it right there."

If Lee were to, indeed, "take the Obama high road," he would not continue to use hateful accusatory racist and ageist metaphors to get his point across, but that's a lot to ask the founder of 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks. Lee again misses the message. When Obama distanced himself from his "spiritual advisor" Reverend Wright for saying "God damn America" and other choice expressions describing the negativity African-Americans far too often have encountered and continue to experience, it was for good reason. Obama personifies progress in America with his very success as the Democratic frontrunner to take on War, Inc. To paraphrase Obama, Lee's comments are destructive and show little concern for Obama and what he's trying to do for the American people.

To give Lee proper credit, he is one of the greatest living filmmakers and should be commended for his imagination which has "enabl[ed] us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared," as J.K. Rowling stated in her recent Harvard commencement speech, titled "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination" . He is definitely someone I admire for his advancements to the world of cinema and I respect his work. I just wish he would not be so quick to point out the flaws in other artists' work while touting his own, particularly when someone like Eastwood has himself contributed a great deal to popular culture.

While I promised to also take the Obama high road myself, to play devil's advocate, what's so wrong with having a Dirty Harry flashback? The iconic role for Eastwood showed an authoritative shift in change from society's focus on the accused in favor of the rights of the victim during the turbulent '70's as a cop taking crime into his own hands battling criminals and the bureaucratic establishment when no one else would. (Though maybe that's what Lee, himself, is trying to do). Not to mention, Eastwood directed the Charlie Parker biopic Bird in the late 80's (which Lee reportedly had a problem with) and has a forthcoming Nelson Mandela project in development (which I'm sure Lee will have a fit over).

No one should be victimized in our society, especially not black Americans, particularly by one of their leading artists. I hope Spike will actually listen to the words Obama heeds and focus on positivity and progress instead of fighting the power. He already has the power as one of the most influential moviemakers around but somehow that's not good enough.

In any event, I applaud Lee's filmmaking and enjoy his envelope pushing even though it gets to be burdensome and meritless from time to time. I look forward to the time when we won't have to create seperate "black movies" to share history lessons not included in the mass "white" marketplace. I understand this was Lee's actual point but I wish he chose a better approach. I can't just ask Lee to change. We all have to. Yes, we can. We just have to ask ourselves one question: do we feel lucky?