I just got around to seeing this film on DVD. I missed the original release back in October, but I consider Spike Lee to be one of the greatest filmmakers working today (along with Coppola, Spielberg, Scorcese, and Allen.) While watching the film, I noticed a similarity to another satire on racism: Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS. Obviously, Brooks' film was played strictly for laughs, but parallels in the scenarios struck me as unmistakable. First, there is the main character who is mild-mannered, well-educated, and coming to get his job done (Wilder in THE PRODUCERS, Wayans here.) Then, you have the boss who ends up getting them involved in some horrible project (Mostel in PRODUCERS, Rapaport here.) There is the hope that the incredibly offensive program will flop, but then it ends up a success, much to the horror of its creator (like SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER in THE PRODUCERS.) These parallels may not seem important but they do show two people of minority groups standing up against racial intolerance through the use of satire. I thought the supporting cast was excellent, especially Michael Rapaport, who I'd only seen before in Woody Allen's MIGHTY APHRODITE and SMALL TIME CROOKS, playing a dimwitted boxer in the first and a slowwitted truck driver in the latter. Here, he plays the network executive equally brainless, but much more harmful. Rapaport was really good in this film, and it's a pity he isn't used in film more often. My only qualm was the target that Lee chose to use for his satire. Lee could have made a much more powerful statement, I believe, if instead of tackling the minstrel show, he had gone after the countless, late-nite sitcoms that are just as demeaning as anything in a minstrel show, except that they use genuine black actors instead of white actors in blackface. As a viewer, I get a mixed message being told that a comic like Mantan Moreland or the TV Amos and Andy are unacceptable, but virtually the same material played today is not. If the material is truly offensive, then it shouldn't matter when it was made-it should be taken off the air. But if people have no problem with today's comics doing the material, then talented performers of past decades should not be censored. This has never made sense to me, because the tone of "acceptability" seems completely erratic. Then again, as there are more and more positive portrayals of blacks in films, TV, etc. today, the more demeaning comedy is counter-balanced by these positive examples and giving viewers a wider view of the culture. All in all, BAMBOOZLED was a film that I enjoyed very much because it was obviously well-written by one of today's top moviemakers, but that I felt tackled an easy and obvious target and could have gotten beneath the surface of the "modern minstrel shows" in today's culture.