20. Angie &...

Lyrics
Angie, Angie, when will those clouds all disappear?
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, Angie, you can't say we never tried
Angie, you're beautiful, but ain't it time we said good-bye?
Angie, I still love you, remember all those nights we cried?
All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke
Let me whisper in your ear:
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?

Oh, Angie, don't you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet
I hate that sadness in your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it time we said good-bye?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, I still love you, baby
Everywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain't a woman that comes close to you
Come on Baby, dry your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it good to be alive?
Angie, Angie, they can't say we never tried


There is not much I can say about the Rolling Stones that hasn't been said countless other times in much better ways. They are a really great band, though I prefer their slower songs like this one or As Tears Go By over their 'harder' stuff like Satisfaction and Sympathy for the Devil. To me their best song though is You Can't Always Get What You Want. The lyrics of this song are fairly generic. There are countless movies about unsuccessful relationships. So I chose a movie about a failed relationship involving an Angie, even though this relationship isn't the sole or even main focus of this movie.

The Movie: Jungle Fever (Spike Lee, 1991)

For an unfortunately short while in the 1990's the duo of Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes was seen as a formula for success in Hollywood. This produced the wonderful White Men Can't Jump in which Harrelson and Snipes play a bunch of goodhearted hustling street basketball players. After that they made the enjoyable Money Train, which flopped and subsequently both men went their own way. For Harrelson everything turned out more than okay. Unfortunately Snipes is now pretty much forgotten, playing in movies that go straight to DVD. And when he is in the news it is because he's being charged for tax evasion. And that's pretty unfortunate. In the early 90's he was a very pleasant actor who played intelligent fast-talking characters in some pretty good and sometimes underrated movies. His performance in Jungle Fever, one of the most underrated and best movies of the 1990's, is his best though. And he is not the only one. The movie is filled with now-famous actors who were then just at the start of their career, giving wonderful energetic performances. It is a joy to see Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro, Spike Lee, Halle Berry and many others be so energized. And it's not only a joy to see them. It's also fantastic to listen to them speaking their wonderful dialogues. Furthermore the film is filled with a lot of humor, and almost every scene is enriched by some wonderful song.

Wesley Snipes is Flipper, a happily married man who one day cheats on his wife with Angie, an Italian American woman who is a temp at his office. He does intend to stay with his wife, but she finds out and is enraged. Not only did Flipper cheat on her, but he cheated on her with a white woman. After he leaves his wife he and Angie try to have a working relationship. Whether this relationship will work depends on whether they truly care for each other or just have a case of 'jungle fever', which means that they are only fascinated by each other because of their different skin color and want to explore the myths about white and black sexuality. Unfortunately they never get the chance to truly explore their relationship. They spend too much time defending their relationship to their friends and family who seem absolutely certain that Flipper and Angie are only together because of their differing skin color. Considering that Flipper and Angie aren't really sure of their feelings for each other they are easily persuaded by the arguments of the people around them and their relationship fails. If they would seriously start a relationship they would burn many bridges in their communities. They will never again be a true part of their community. And while life in their community may not always be great, they at least know what to expect from it. Entering a relationship would be stepping into uncharted, potentially dangerous, waters.

Spike Lee uses this relationship to make a larger point about how hard it is to break through the stereotypes of our own subculture. It's problematic enough that we all have a stereotypical view of the subcultures we don't belong to. But What Lee argues here, and what is even more problematic, is that on top of this each subculture has a stereotypical view of itself. The individual members of each subculture thus face social pressure from within their own community to adhere to the norms, values and social conventions of the subculture they belong to. This is obviously problematic, but it's not illogical. People try to create homogenous communities, among other things, in order to bring order in their lives and to feel safer. This matters to everybody, but especially to those (communities) that have less power in society. It is not surprising then that the black women feel threatened by Flipper and Angie. If it's now suddenly possible and acceptable for a black man to start a relationship with a white woman, it might be harder for them to find love. It doesn't only mean that that there are now suddenly more options for black men, but also better options. After all a relationship with a white woman is also an entrance to the 'white world', with more possibilities. To the Italian American community Flipper is a threat, because they fear that if it is suddenly acceptable for Italian American women to sleep with black men, more and more Italian American women will do this, because of the myth that black men are very good in bed. And obviously both communities feel threatened by the relationship because it means that they might have to deal more and more with people they don't know with different norms and values that could forever change their familiar, traditional culture.

As the most prominent black American director Spike Lee is sometimes criticized for racism. These critics argue that he likes black people more then white people, and that he blames white people for every bad thing that happens to black people, while absolving black people of all blame. I have now seen four films of Spike Lee and can say that these arguments are complete nonsense. In Jungle Fever for example there is an incredibly harsh scene where the black women criticize both themselves and the black men very honestly for everything that is wrong in their lives. It is also interesting to note that while Samuel L. Jackson plays a crackhead in this film, Spike Lee has made it utterly impossible for anyone to argue that his character is using drugs because of a lack of opportunity for black people. After all Jackson plays Snipes' brother, so they were raised with the same opportunities and under the same conditions. Snipes became an architect.
As for the second argument, what makes Jungle Fever a really good film is the fact that Lee has enormous and understanding for every single character in his film. In fact I think that there isn't any other filmmaker now who has more sympathy for (all) his characters. This is perhaps most obvious in 25th Hour which I will discuss in some later post. I find that one of the best films I've ever seen and it is about a white protagonist.



I didn't discuss Samuel L. Jackson's character of Gator much, but this is the best scene of the film.