The Burden of the Summer of Sam

Last night Henry Giroux pronounced his disgust during break for Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s last film. He thought the movie to be about the privileged “white” male and misogynistic among other criticisms that failed to address anything of interest for him. He also felt betrayed by the Jonathan Rosenbaum review of the film that affirmed his curiosity to see the movie.

These ideas of his assessment in of itself prompted me to reevaluate another controversial movie Summer of Sam in terms of the reading, an interview from Cultural Composition: Stuart Hall on Ethnicity and the Discursive Turn with Julie Drew. Hall states that, “I’m expected to speak for the entire black race on all questions theoretical, critical, etc., and sometimes for British politics, as well as cultural studies.” This is said in relation to address his burdens of representation, which pertains to questions of the privileges and obligations of being a black public intellectual. For Hall, his reluctance to assume a position of leadership, to attempt to represent the life experiences of others was something he felt called upon to do. His experience of going to Oxford and his middle class education is not representative of those refused housing and decent public services. But this is not to say that Hall shirked any responsibility to identify himself with this class.

I think of this example being somewhat similar to the doubled edged sword that director Spike Lee faces by his critics. Previous to his new film Summer of Sam Spike dealt with accusations that his films often portrayed the black perspective of the black experience exclusively. Lee often defended his position and vision as his cultural imperative to give voice to the oppressed and the conditions of such oppression. Often he hit upon sensitive white nerves in his criticism of the white dominant power structure because he accepted the expectation of his role as an artist to advance a political and moral position in his films. Through his specific cinematic scope, Lee is part of this pedagogy to question the conditions that come to bear on issues of race and its politics, thus effecting the voice of the other that gives “body” to these issues.

So when movie critics dismiss Summer of Sam, is it because as an African American Spike Lee is unqualified to make a film that shows the Italian American living in the Bronx in the disco era reacting to the crisis of a serial killer on the loose?

I recall a noticeable number of African and Latino Americans who got up and left in the middle of this movie. Were their preconceptions or expectations of the film skewed into a specific category of what a Spike Lee movie should be i.e., a film about Black culture? The question then becomes ironically, is it only viable for Spike Lee to only make movies about African Americans and their concerns? Is he damned for “selling out” by these people who walked out? What about other directors of color who choose to cross race lines?