Activity 4 – Spike Lee

I agree with Spike Lee’s opinion on films staring black people must be directed by a black person to some extent. I think that Spike Lee has the right to be critical of people misrepresenting or misappropriating black culture or black individuals, however, I personally don’t believe that ONLY black people can create an authentic experience of a black character in film. Most directors,no matter their race, want to convey a good story, and i believe that if there has been proper research and planning carried out, especially in a film about black people in the past, that directors should not have to limit themselves in terms of how they cast and portray a character. Just because films like Django Unchained(Tarantino, 2012), or Detroit (Bigelow, 2017) star black people in leading roles, does not mean that their culture or race has been misrepresented. To conclude, I believe that it is understandable that Spike Lee thinks that his race is being misrepresented, and i do believe that there are a lot of films out there which do misappropriate black culture, however, just because a director is white, it should not limit them from the kind of films they should make, and similarly i believe that black directors can use white actors to portray characters in their films.

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