Bamboozled

Bamboozled is a 2000 American satirical black comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the resulting violent fallout from the show's success. It features an ensemble cast including Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett Smith, Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, and Michael Rapaport. The film was given a limited release by New Line Cinema during the fall of 2000 and was released on DVD the following year. Critical reception was mixed, and the film was unsuccessful financially, becoming a box office bomb. Despite its initial reception, Bamboozled later achieved cult film status for its satirical look at stereotypical depictions of black people in both historical and contemporary American film and television productions. Plot Pierre Delacroix (real name Peerless Dothan) is an uptight, Harvard-educated African-American man in the employment of television network CNS. At work, he endures torment from his boss Thomas Dunwitty, a tactless, boorish white man. Not only does Dunwitty use African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and the word "nigger" repeatedly in conversations, he also proudly proclaims that he is more black than Delacroix and that he can use "nigger" since he is married to a black woman and has two mixed-race children. Dunwitty frequently rejects Delacroix's scripts for series that portray black people in positive, intelligent scenarios, dismissing them as "Cosby clones".