Wednesday, July 14, 2004

I just saw Spike Lee's movie "Bamboozled" a couple of nights ago. I don't think there's anything comparable for Mexican-Americans to that movie. Maybe "Zoot Suit" qualifies, but this was a whole different level. It's like this: "Do the Right Thing" was a slap upside the head. (And a lot of people reacted just like that - "hey, don't slap me! I didn't pay seven dollars to be slapped upside the head!") Bamboozled was like a punch in the stomach. When you see the whole twin histories of African America laid out like that, it's stunning. The twin histories, meaning the actual history, and the cinema/tv/pop culture history. Seeing the lawn jockeys, the cast iron banks, the posters and film clips, and how much that dehumanized caricature still sticks with people. There are a lot of people who see all blacks through a filter that says "thug." Or "animal." Or "clown." And like any good brainwashing technique, if you're told for a hundred years that you're nothing but a caricature, you start to accept it. Live the caricature. Do what they expect. Amos and Andy. Method and Red. Dre and Snoop. We got our own caricatures. I mean, Cheech Marin better be collecting hell of a lot of Chicano art. He's got a lot to make up for. My identity: I'm a middle-class second-generation Mexican-American. Mexican father, French-Canadian mother. So I claim latino (I don't claim "hispanic" unless I have to, because Hispanic is a made-up word that just sounds silly.) I think I see things more as a mixed-race American than as a latino, truth be told. So I wasn't watching "Bamboozled" from the perspective of my culture being disrespected. It was more like watching a documentary on cultural assassination. I was watching the whole history of this country, how it can destroy an entire people. I was reading a news magazine that had an article about "The Alamo" movie. Shame on anyone who saw that movie. The title of this article was "Mexicans? Bring 'em on!" I can't believe someone didn't get fired over that. 9:21:20 PM    comment [] Pimp This Pimpin' ain't easy? Jay-Z talking about "ladies is pimps too?" Fitty Cent and his P.I.M.P. party song. I'm sick of it. The word "pimp" drops out of people's mouths way too often these days. I think I hit my limit when I saw the MTV show "Pimp My Ride." In the episode I saw, there was a teenage girl that was gettiing her car "pimped out." Wasn't the phrase "tricked out" two years ago? Everything's about pimp this, pimp that, and it's just too much. Look, I never lived in the big bad city, but I know what a pimp is, and I know how he kept his stable in line. Pimps were like crack dealers, like bank robbers. You know. Criminals. And yeah, they wore some outlandish wardrobe and acted all big and bad. But you can't only accept part of the history of a word. Why aren't women up in arms about all this? Where the hell is Sister Souljah when you need her? Where's Bill Cosby jumping up and down about how the word "pimp" has infiltrated the language? Anyway, this teenaged kid was all excited, because MTV had come to town and "pimped out" her ride. And part of the show was kind of interesting - the whole "American Chopper" deal where they talked about the new rims and the modifications to her engine. But I was just slackjawed at watching this naive (or maybe not) teenager getting all excited about getting "pimped out." I know I sound like an old man. I don't take it as a reflection on me. I think it's extreme to take a word like pimp and make it a metaphor for style. It's happened over the last ten years or so - between Snoop and Method Man and now MTV, pimpin' somehow became all cuddly and cute. 9:08:19 PM    comment []

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