| Spike Lee is one of our finest living political filmmakers, yet he's always faltered once the focus of those politics turns to sex. Where Jungle Fever, Mo’ Better Blues and Girl 6 were more forgettable than offensive, She Hate Me has all the contextual mentality of a room full of horny drunken frat boys. Not only has Lee made his worst film, but it threatens our faith in his judgment.
As the most challenging corner of that hallowed New York film directors triad (which also includes Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese), She Hate Me places Lee directly at the bottom of the pile of a once-respected group whose most recent work has been rubbish. While Scorsese is getting ahead of himself with epic material he seems to care little for and Allen's most recent comedies have ranged from intolerable to downright embarrassing, at least these two have kept their focus on areas they've previously proven themselves well-suited to comment on.
She Hate Me is a mess of a movie from beginning to end – I'm not sure even Lee knows what it’s about. Opening with massive U.S. monetary notes curling across the screen like flags, Lee gives us at least one decent sight gag in the image of George Dubya's face gracing a $3 bill (but what's the real joke? "Queer as a...?"). Anthony Mackie sleepwalks through the film as Jack Armstrong – Lee's newest every-(black)-man archetype – spending most of the film wearing an I-just-can't-take-it-no-mo' grimace.
When the medical firm where Armstong works has their attempts at an AIDS vaccine dismissed by the FDA, his bosses (Ellen Barkin and Woody Harrelson) doublecross him (because he's black? – it's certainly mentioned) and the dude's suddenly stuck without a paycheque. Armstrong teams up with his ex, Kerry Washington (Fatima Goodrich), and her new girlfriend, Alex Guerrero (Dania Ramirez), supplying his sperm to lesbians eager for children from good stock.
Where Todd Solondz's Storytelling gained notoriety for a scene in which black teacher Robert Wisdom takes the rail-thin Selma Blair from behind demanding she yell "fuck me nigger" (a scenario deemed so offensive by the studio to American filmgoers that it arrived in theatres completely obliterated by a large red floating square), that sledgehammer-subtle inversion of the Mandingo cliché says a hell of a lot more than Lee's group of cock-hungry lesbians lusting after Armstrong's "man milk" at $10,000 a pop. Where Storytelling questions and mocks the idea, She Hate Me sophomorically comes to embrace it. Within Lee's already tangled and confused web of hot-button topics and sexual preaching, the giggly scenes of lesbians discovering the joys of big black cock (no other way of putting it, really) are shockingly bad.
Given Lee's obvious warmth for Armstrong, it's fair to take that character's words as Lee's own. Like few other directors, Lee's films have always been as much about him as they are about his characters. When Armstrong exclaims, "Don't give me any of that gay gene shit, I wasn't given any choice!" it's downright shocking to see the ignorant stance Lee has. That She Hate Me's only use for its crew of lesbians, next to thrusting against Armstrong's muscled chest (on top, natch), is in a soft-core male-fantasy kitchen sex scene between Goodrich and Ramirez is more than cringe-worthy. Is that how lesbians really have sex, flopping on the kitchen counter, slapping their bits together and screaming? In Lee's mind, at least, I guess they do. In mine it's about as hot as getting slapped across the face with a raw salmon. Lee's sloppy solution for the film's central love triangle is more than lame – it's insensitive and gross.
While Lee's faults have usually kept him interesting and prompted debate, now, for the first time, he appears to have no idea what he's talking about. Totally out of step with society, science and even good taste, if the dykes weren't bad enough, John Turturro's cameo turn as an Italian mobster makes even less sense. Performing a scene from The Godfather in its entirety (very funny Spike), Lee and Turturro turn the film’s sights onto gangsta rap in a monologue far less intelligible than Lee's inspired mockery of the concept in Bamboozled. While in previous films it was easy to give Lee some latitude with the occasional stereotype (for he is indeed a man who does everything in his films for a reason), this time around it's inexcusable.
When the American Pie films have more to say about sex in America today (and can say it far better), you know Lee's in trouble. |
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