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Emphasis mine.

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Well, it's just part of the film's premise, and that doesn't say that Spike personally believes a minstrel show would be a hit with white audiences.  In fact, in the movie, the minstrel show is a hit across the board.  So as is often done by his critics, you've taken something in his film out of context to take a swipe at him.

But, oh lawdy, let's make sure we protect Mark Twain because he uses "nigger" with the best intentions.  But mean old Spike Lee, that's another thing.  So this is important: have you seen Bamboozled?  Yes or No

Because anyone who has (and on this board, that's probably just me and one or two lurkers) would understand that in the context of the film, the minstrel show is something like a plot device to bring up themes that Spike often uses in his film:  how African-Americans present themselves to the larger culture; a lack of understanding on the part of young African-American entertainers of both cultural and general history; entertainers not turning themselves in modern minstrels just to become famous.

The movie is not about the hit minstrel show, but is actually about black artists, entertainers, and performers working in industries that may that may be hostile towards blacks or simply be willing to do anything to make money regardless of how it affects the larger soceity.

Honestly I think "the South"had it survived would have been a hideously poor and backward place trying to keep a virtual feudal system alive in the 1870's to 1910 would have been hideous. They wouldn't have been able to industrialize enough to capitalize on WWI and yet they still would have suffered throught he worst of the depression in the twenties thirties(because farmers got the depression about ten years earlier than everyone else did). I think that Maryland, Kentucky and Delaware would have quickly abandoned their slavery stance and moved on. I think Texas would have lost a lot of land posibly up to the neuces in border struggles with Mexico. More if Maximillian had managed to keep Juarez out of power with the help of France.

In fact I expect that the economics would have gotten so bad that the Confederacy would have seen a lot of emmigration to Mexico and the Union. Pretty much anyone who didn't own land would have left. They probably would have had a truly cataclysmic slave rebellion eventually.

This might have abated somewhat when oil was eventualy discovered sout of Pennsylvania. Then the South, in a universe where the Confederacy actually survived the Civil war, might politically look a whole lot like the modern Middle East. A few very powerful families that are rich as hell would be elevated to the status of royalty with absolute power over the mineral rich regions. They would have a lot of their own personal thugs posing as a middle class, and a lot of starving satellites all around begging for a crumb. And they'd probably have a government propped up by the Union to keep oil prices low-ish. Of course Islam would be replaced by a Baptist or Methodist clergy so the people could be stirred up or simmered down by revivalist preachers in pay of the crown as situations might demand. 

I think that Maryland, Kentucky and Delaware would have quickly abandoned their slavery stance and moved on.

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Wouldn't that be a moot point since none of these states were in the Confederacy?

Leroy wrote: ...Because anyone who has (and on this board, that's probably just me and one or two lurkers)...

That's an unfair statement. One that, ironically, given the subject, paints most of us with the same brush.

For the record, I have seen "Bamboozled." I understand Spike Lee's intent, and the film is interesting. I don't think it's one of his best works, frankly. And, again touching on the subject of irony, the montage of old film clips takes some things out of context to prove a point.

Case in point: A clip shows Stymie of "Our Gang" walking into a classroom wearing man-sized clothes. Well, Lee didn't show that Wheezer and Deborah, Stymie's young friends were also wearing parts of a man's outfit. You see, the small children found some clothes belonging to the brother of their teacher, Miss Crabtree. Her brother had went for a swim, skinny-dipping, and some of the older children stole his clothes and hid them. The younger children discovered the man's clothes and walk into the class, each wearing a different article of the clothing, showing what they had found to the teacher.

The clip, out of context, is suppose to show that Stymie is being portrayed in a clownish manner, I suppose. Why else is that clip there, I wondered? Stymie, as a character, as much as any black child in the "Our Gang" shorts, were mostly shown as equals with the white kids. I can't say that there was never any jokes based on race in the twenty-plus years of the series (It was still a product of its' time), but it was ahead of its' time on its' portrayal of race relations.

Spike Lee is a talented director. I usually enjoy his visual style, though it seemed to be missing some punch in "Bamboozled." I also thought that film was heavy-handed, but I think it's worth watching at least once.

Dan, Vince works for Atlas Van Lines in the graphics department. As far as I know, he is not currently working on any comics, but he does still draw the characters. He gave me a nice print of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four a few months ago. Hopefully, Vince will have a chance to work on a comic again in the future. 

I am aware that Delaware and Maryland and Kentucky did not rebel. Nonetheless I was making the point that if the Confederacy had survived I doubted very much that they would have maintained an agrarian slave labor economy. I was unclear by putting them in the text of "what would have happened if the Confederacy had survived". But I was trying to suggest that they would not have been encouraged to quit the union and join the confederacy. Kentucky and Delaware certainly did not want to secede and Maryland got garrisoned when the Confederacy formed to prevent them from breaking away. My point was supposed to be that agrarian slavery sucks as an economic base compared to an urban industrialism which the North had adoptend in its nascent form.

Not after the emancipation proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the rebel states.  Slaveholding border states (and territories) were exempted.

Slavery itself was actually outlawed Nationwide by the 13th ammendment AFTER THE WAR.

I was trying to suggest that they would not have been encouraged to quit the union and join the confederacy. Kentucky and Delaware certainly did not want to secede and Maryland got garrisoned when the Confederacy formed to prevent them from breaking away.

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I understand your point now.

The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the rebel states.  Slaveholding border states (and territories) were exempted.

Slavery itself was actually outlawed Nationwide by the 13th ammendment AFTER THE WAR.

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My error.  My point was that slavery would not have existed in the US after the war even if the South had won.

Unless "Bamboozled" was made in the 1920s or thereabouts -- and, somehow, I don't recall that it was -- it is entirely "another". Mark Twain wrote of and in a specific time and place. His work reflects this. The same cannot be said, in this instance, of Spike Lee.