12 Years A Slave and Spike

When Spike Lee came out and made his objections known regarding Quentin Tarantino's revenge fantasy film Django Unchained, the master filmmaker was bombarded with cruel and sometimes downright disrespectful comments. From Dick Gregory to Luther Campbell and everyone in-between seemed to have a harsh word for Spike, all because Spike said he had no interest in seeing Tarantino's horrible movie. I honestly couldn't blame him. I saw it on a bootleg DVD because there was no way I was paying to see that.

I hope all the people who thought Spike was wrong, out of line, and felt he shouldn't have judged a movie he hadn't yet seen take their asses to see 12 Years A Slave. Especially those two Negroes I mentioned earlier by name. If they could spend their money on that crap of a movie by Quentin, then they can surely scrape up enough funds to see a film that deals with slavery from a more realistic angle.

This movie, unlike Django is directed by a Black man. Brad Pitt's production company Plan B got the rights to the book and handed it off to acclaimed African American writer John Ridley and tasked him to turn book into screenplay. It was a job well done.  For authenticity, director Steve McQueen turned to award winning writer and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. to make sure they were getting things right. I wonder if Quentin went that route, probably not.

Yes, most of the cast is English but that's bound to happen when the director is from England. That's right, apparently no American born director wanted to direct this film so it took an Englishman to bring a film about America's ugly history to Americans. Isn't that ironic, or is it just sad? You tell me.

I think everyone should see this movie, like those people who think African Americans should "get over it already", something not ever said aloud to the Jews regarding their treatment at the hands of the Nazis. I especially want the African American youth of today to see it. You know the ones, those that invoke the names of Emmitt Till and Rosa Parks in hip hop songs that disrespect those individuals. Those that wear the confederate flag and see nothing wrong with it, and for those that continue to use the N word and think they can somehow foolishly reclaim the word. Pure ignorance. 12 Years A Slave is a must see for those people because they truly need it. And after they see it they should call a press conference and publicly apologize to Spike Lee. Ya dig? Sho nuff!