Malcolm X
Directed by Spike Lee While welcoming the revival of interest in one of the most famous revolutionaries to emerge in the postwar imperialist heartland, the arrival of Spike Lee's long-awaited biopic Malcolm X should receive a cool response by socialists.
Something is clearly up when we see Bill Clinton jogwhen opportunist entreprebuck selling Malcolm X crisps and Malcolm X car freshener Spike Lee's film was begun with money from the Hollywood studio system and finished with the money of black American millionaires. The Maoist-influenced director, with that solid Marxist adage, "The economics of a film are the politics of a film. Malcolm K is a compromise between the commercial diktats of the Hollywood companies and the political mystifications of the black bourgeoisie.
Spike Lee has a reputation for being a polemical Almmaker. It is, for the most part, entirely undeserved. doubtful whether he is any more of a radical than, say, Oprah Winfrey. in a very particular socio-historical context. A huge ideological battle has been raging for years over the political legacy of Malcolm.
At the same time, class stratifications among American blacks have grown wider and wider. While General Colin Powell firebombs Iraqi conscripts, alienated American youth firebomb Los Angeles. While the mass of black America remains proletarian and disempowered by the capitalist system, a growing black bourgeoisie has been flexing its ideological muscles. The uncompromising revolutionary spectre of Malcolm X haunting both white and confronted and neutralised.
He has joined an iconography of "Great Afro-Americans - from which a monoliidentity has been constructed. singer Billie Holliday equals soul star jackie Wilson equals Martin Luther King Jr equals Malcolm X.
Spike Lee has made six hims in a seven-vear career His first two, She's Gotta Have It and School Daze had a fresh experimentaisan and a praise worthy (if awkward) attempt to sift through some difficult issues of sex, race, and, fleetingly, class Do The Right Thing (1989) made Lee's critical reputation and created his image as a black 'enfant terrible'. It remains his only really satis fying film, employing dazzans brechuan tecaniques to forecast the oncoming of last But from then on, Lee's celebrity status has had a dire effect on his output. Mo Better Blues (1990) was utterly incoherent, and Jungle Fever (1991) was, although technically better, displaying growing signs of a reactionary adherence to a vision of a family-based communal harmony among blacks.
Increasingly, black feminists have grown more weary of Lee's seamless procession of wooden light-coloured fetrayed the initial promise of Shes Gotta Have It's Nola Darling.
Epic
Malcolm X, judged purely on film-making technique, is quite possibly the worst of all his output. Lacking any real acterisations are flat and the script is bland. over-literal and ponderous. This is mainly due to the 'epic style that Lee chose for the film (his inspiratons were Dr Zhivago anc Irying to understand mod through the prism of Lee's Malcolm X is like comprehending the Roman slave revolts by studying Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.
But of course the film will be judged on far wider considerations than its technical life is inspirational enough to guarantee this, despite Lee's uninspiring rendering.
it is for this reason that black British youth (and white youth who have benefitted rom an anti-racist cultural environment) will flock to see this film and respond warmly to it.
But it is the responsibility of socialists to respond more critically than with just liberal Lee. In fact, black radicals and socalists nave been dons dus for a long time now.
The hype over the funding of the mim, largery obscured This revolved from American inner-city acwas quoted as saying 'we will not let Malcolm X's life be trashed to make middle-class Negroes sleep easier!
Spike Lee's work has been perceptively debunked by Ain't no Black in the Union jack), who has accused him of a middle-class colonisation, or "parasitism' of working dass style and art-forms, eg the hiphop culture.
Gilroy makes the crucial point that black America is increasingly trasmenans thre two parts - 'a small middle class that encounters prejudice in its competition with whites for a few professional job opportunities, and a permanent workless 'underclass for is secondary to the institutionalised effects of multiple econ• omic disad vantage!"
Gilroy concludes that the corpus of Lee's work 'projects a neo-nationalist ideology that mystifies the volatile relationship between the two groups. them is thus dissolved in a dewy-eyed representation of kin, blood and communal harmony:"
Lee's films have become progressively more and more devoid of any clear repre sentation of dass dynamies. This is remarkable teat given the condition of the black American working class and Lee's role as the foremost black American film-maker.
Lee's Malcolm X carries on in this classless vein. In dealing with political themes, the film is utterly vague and unchallenging.
Malcolm's more famous speeches are concentrated on, but there is no context and no analysis of his impact on political trends inside the rapidly leveloping black politica movements of the time. The absolute basics are relayed, his abandonment of black separatsm, his continuing adherence o the legitimacy of revolution ary violence and a vague nod to CIA involvement in his as. sassination. No other polítical dias or movamente trinit the narrative.
To socialists, the last year of Malcolm's lift remain a fascinating study in his thought, paracatary ms emoraco or por tical alliances and concepts containing an in-built anticapitalist dynamic. Malcolm even began a dialogue with American Fourth Internationalists, recounted by the Trotskyist, George Breitman, in his book The Last Year of Malcolm X.
But the last year in Lee's film portrays him as increasingly bewildered and fatalistic rictim. Torn from the certainties of the Nation of siam Malcolm has only sparks of the old dynamism and leads a shambolic group of followers Instead of developing his own distinctive ideology of militant resistance, he is shown sleepwalking towards assassination. It is clear oy this point that Lee has lost all interest in Malcolm's life - the only destiny that can be entertained is to be shot and This vacuous portbeen defended many times by Lee with recourse to relativism -there are many Malcolm Xs. I made the film I wanted to make.' His Malcolm is a commodity for mass appeal that perfectly comp lements hic range of X' caps and jackets.
No. 39 Of course, it is better that the 'kids are wearing X paraphemalia rather than the emlems of pro-Republican stars like Amnie Schwarzeneggar and Steven Seagal. The fallout from the film will be highly complex - it will lead many to But the final chapter of Malcolm's life and the true significance of his legacy can only be fully understood with reference to a class analysis. Spike Spike's message certainiy foesn't - in face it is repackraka's words, sleep casier. It s up to socialists to cut through the hype and teach some real history.
The politics of Malcolm X The man and the myth Thursday 18"March 7.30pm Unity Club, 96 Daiston Lane, Hackney E8 BOO AUTK Upoll Cooray March 13, 1993
THE END of almost six defeated when outgoing