Affirmative action, which Mark Watson exploits in the film despite coming from a family of extreme wealth and (white) privilege, was as hot-button an issue as they come - a domestic program Reagan openly opposed.
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The Reaganomics era was in full bloom, promising a trickle-down effect to low-income families that never came and ultimately widened the wealth gap between white and Black Americans.
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I think Soul Man uses it to explode racial stereotyping,” said producer Steve Tisch, who compared the film’s plot the 1982 favorite Tootsie in which Dustin Hoffman dresses up as a woman to advance his career - and whom Lee mentioned called him after he began publicly putting the movie on blast in 1986.īut let’s remember the sociopolitical climate of the mid-1980s. “It used comedy as a device to expose sexual stereotyping. “But our intentions were pure: We wanted to make a funny movie that had a message about racism.” Conversation over, you can’t win,” said Howell. (The poster’s tagline was not nearly as bad as the trailer’s: “He didn’t give up… he got down.”)
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“A comedy with heart and soul,” read the tagline for the film, written by Carol Black (creator of future TV hits The Wonder Years and Ellen) and directed by Steve Miner. Indeed, Soul Man was posited by its creators as exactly that: a well-intentioned comedy that teaches a white man he can’t understand racism until he’s the one being discriminated against. “The whole premise is that he’s passing as Black, and it’s so phony, that means all the Black people in the movie are idiots… that they could think that this guy is Black,” said Lee, who had watched clips from the movie but refused to see it in full. And a young filmmaker named Spike Lee, who was just breaking out with his feature directorial debut She’s Gotta Have It, put it on blast during an uncomfortable appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. “We find the Al Jolson-like portrayal of the main character offensive and trivializing,” wrote the university’s Black American Law Students Association, referencing the infamous blackface performer and star of The Jazz Singer. Students at UCLA protested outside of a theater screening it. Upon its release, the NAACP railed against it. Taking tanning pills to darken his face, wearing an Afro wig and putting on a one-man minstrel show, Watson was the ‘80s cinematic equivalent of disgraced former college instructor and Spokane NAACP chapter president Rachel Dolezal. Here was a film that’s main character Mark Watson (Howell) wore blackface throughout. box office, making it a commercial success that out-grossed other popular films that year like Wildcats, Three Amigos!, Iron Eagle, Spies Like Us, F/X, Flight of the Navigator and Children of a Lesser God. The film, reportedly made for a budget of $4.5 million and distributed by New World Pictures, hauled in $35 million at the U.S. Thomas Howell) who poses as a Black man in order to qualify for a scholarship to Harvard was canceled almost immediately after its release.Īlmost, that is. Released in theaters 35 years ago today, the comedy about a rich white law student (C.
Whether it’s the effects of a continually progressing society or the more diabolical wrath of so-called “cancel culture,” there have been countless movies from decades past - fair or not - being re-scrutinized through a contemporary lens in recent years.Īnd then there’s the case of 1986’s Soul Man. (Photo: ©New World Pictures/courtesy Everett Co)
Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong in 1986's Soul Man. See our list of movies below, and for additional recommendations read our roundup of Christopher Nolan, and Martin Scorsese films that you should watch.C.
In the spirit of Lee’s latest honor, we put together a roster of Lee’s movies that you can own stream on Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and more platforms. The celebration, which was delayed a year because of the pandemic, included an excerpt from Lee’s HBO documentary “Epicenters 9/11→2021½” (currently streaming on HBO Max). Last week, Film at Lincoln Center presented Lee with the Chaplin Award during the 46th Chaplin Award Gala, held at New York City’s Alice Tully Hall. The Brooklyn-born auteur is known for a unique storytelling style, and of course, his signature double-dolly shot (where the character remains stationary while the background moves), which he’s used in several films including “Mo’ Better Blueseppice” and “Malcolm X.” If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Indiewire may receive an affiliate commission.įrom “Do the Right Thing” to “Da 5 Bloods,” Spike Lee’s film catalog is packed with classics that have shaped Black cinema, and film at large.