The acrimonious feud between two of Hollywood's best-known film directors reached a new level of name-calling and accusation at the weekend as Spike Lee invoked America's bitter legacy of slavery in response to Clint Eastwood's comments to the Guardian on Friday.Original. Very original. It's all about slavery, isn't it. Seems to me that meme wore out long ago.
Responding to Lee's criticism of his second world war films for ignoring black soldiers, Eastwood said America's most influential black director, should "shut his face".
It's OK, Clint. It all makes sense when you realize the guy's feeling a bit irrelevant these days.
But after the remarks were reported around the world, Lee hit back, reminding the older man that they were not "on a plantation".
Then he stuck out his tongue and stomped his little feet.
The reference to times when a white man could tell a black slave what to do came after Lee first issued a raft of fresh accusations against 78-year-old Eastwood, who has won five Oscars and boasts a string of celebrated gritty film roles, including "Dirty Harry" Callahan.
Lee, who has been nominated for two Academy awards, has made his own second world war film, Miracle at Santa Anna, which highlights an all-black US army division.
My what a coincidence. I'm sure he didn't seek out that subject out based on race, unlike Clint the Racist.
In responding to Eastwood's Guardian interview, he said: "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either. He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films ... And a comment like 'A guy like that should shut his face' - come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."
Better than an ignorant middle-aged man with a chip on his shoulder. You'll grow out of that someday. If you stop drinking Sharpton's KoolAid for more than five minutes.
Lee's comments to abcnews.com were provoked by the equally blunt interview Eastwood gave to the Guardian last week. Riled by Lee's "whites-only" mauling of his films Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood accused him of historical ignorance before growling his advice to shut up.
He also mockingly implied that Lee's views exaggerated equal opportunities by quipping about his own next big film, The Human Factor, set in post-independence South Africa: "I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."
But, but, but . . . isn't Clint a racist? I wonder what Spike's next film is going to feature. Probably the Swedes or Irish or something.
Now Lee has repeated his charge that black US troops, who fought in a munitions company at Iwo Jima, had not been given a second of the four hours in Eastwood's two films.
Drawing on his two
And I know that if I bother to do some reasearch I am sure I will find at least one black guy who took part in the invasion and for some reason I think that guy should feature prominently in a film made by somebody else [thereby proving that he is a racist @$$hole, of course]. The fact that 99% of the films/MTV-videos I have made have featured mostly black folks is sheer coincidence. And even if it wasn't (which it isn't) it's OK because I'm black and Clint isn't. Neener neener.
Lee accused Eastwood of ignoring other critics who picked up on the absence of black soldiers when Flags of Our Fathers premiered.
Thomas McPhatter, a US marines sergeant who crawled up the landing beach under a hail of Japanese fire, was one of hundreds of black servicemen involved in the attack.
He said: "Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face. This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."
Hey! You must go to the same church that Obama went to!
Lee pounced on Eastwood's derision of the idea that a token black American should have been included in the famous scene, where the Stars and Stripes, on a makeshift pole, is hoisted aloft on the island.
He said: "I never said he should show one of the other guys holding up the flag as black. I said that African-Americans played a significant part in Iwo Jima.
"For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black ... no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film. And because I know my history, that's why I made that observation."
This leaves plenty of further ammunition if the row deepens, as McPhatter, who became a US navy lieutenant commander and served in the Vietnam war, does claim a black American took part in Iwo Jima flag-raising. Not in the actual dramatic moment, immortalised by the Marines Corps memorial at Arlington national cemetery, but by providing a flagpole. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he said.
Thank you for your service and efforts, but I don't see how that part could end up anywhere other than the cutting room floor.
American academic Melton McLaurin has also used interviews in his history of the 35-day battle which suggested that newsreel photographers in the front line "deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by".
How do you know who is about to wander through the camera's field of view when you're busy looking through the viewfinder? Maybe they have a guy whose job it is to watch out for black guys? I'd love to see all the war footage that abruptly ends the second a black guy comes into view.
Lee however promised to draw a line under the bitter war of words, alluding to the tone of the bid for the White House of Barack Obama, who went to see Lee's Do The Right Thing on his first date with his wife Michelle. Lee said of Eastwood: "Even though he's trying to have a Dirty Harry flashback, I'm going to take the Obama high road and end it right here. Peace and love.
Don't forget who started this, Spike.
And if it's so bad, you can always go make your own movie of the events surrounding Iwo Jima and we'll see how well it is received and by whom. And since slavery seems to be soooo relevant to the subject that you can't help but mention it, you can start your movie with the first black slave who was taken from Africa and landed on American shores four hundred years ago by some people that nobody today had any control over, and you can end it with your permanent return to your family's country of origin. Don't forget to include the guy who found that pipe for a flagpole, of course. It makes the whole story so much richer. Or that guy who climbed up the cliff. And of course any other parts that are equally irrelevant to the meaning of the events surrounding the invasion (like logistics, civilian efforts, AWOLs, R&Rs, black military history back to 1776, the kick-a$$ Tuskegee Airmen, etc.) should get equal billing in order to be fair. After all, it's all part of working up to and carrying out an invasion! And make sure you tell the whole tale in two hours. Don't forget the little part where white guys raise that flag thanks to the efforts of all - black, white and everyone else. I don't need to see color to know who was there, nor do I care much. I'll bet you didn't know that one of the guys raising the flag was a Native American. Or were you just about to whine about that when I mentioned it? The correspondent who snapped the photo was Jewish, too.
/rant off
Deep Question: Based on what I have heard about Spike's movie "Do the Right Thing" I wouldn't even go to see it alone. Why would Obama take Michelle there on a first date? Does it offer hope or something?