5 - Bamboozled, Nihilism, and the Problem of Exit
Manage episode 349898853 series 3422763
In a second discussion of Bamboozled, I continue a discussion of the film's pessimism and elements, small and suggestive only, that direct us towards paths of exit. I focus in particular on how minstrelsy haunts the film, our culture, and the possibilities of expressive life in an antiblack world - with specific reference to the scene in which the minstrel coin bank begins working on its own, without Delacroix's hand. The ghostly character of minstrelsy articulates how the past forms cultural production in the present, leaving us with an arc of nihilism. Are there paths out of that nihilism? I suggest at the end that Junebug, played by Paul Mooney, shows us a path out: Black humor dedicated to articulating the fallible elements, the humor, of Black humanity, and performed for Black audiences. But Junebug is no liberated character. He drinks to forget. He's fading with exhaustion.
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