It was one of the most highly anticipated films for me as a kid – Jungle Fever. I remember driving (or riding) around town, seeing the billboards of the dark-chocolate-brown hand of Wesley Snipes, interlocked with the peachy-beige hand of Annabella Sciorra, further building the anticipation. For even at the young age of 11, I was already aware that black beauty like mine wasn’t as valued, even by men and boys who shared my history, my background, my culture and my features. Or at least that’s how it felt.
So when that movie came out, I couldn’t wait to see how Lee would address the touchy subject of interracial relationships, in particular those between black men and white women. I wondered if I would get any insights beyond mere attraction.
So, one night, we (me, my mom, sister, aunt and perhaps even my grandmother) set out from Inglewood to the theatre in Marina Del Rey. It was the old Marina Del Rey theatres. The one that was in the same complex as the Friday’s with the arcade next door. A packed, diverse crowd practically sold out our showing by the time we got there. So much so that we sat in close proximity, but not all together.
Once the movie started and played on, insights or maybe just admissions I was hoping to get, like a black man admitting he wasn’t attracted to black women, especially darker-skin black women, wasn’t going to come. As a matter of fact, the film became disjointed, showcasing the drug epidemic in New York City as an interwoven theme. That scene where Wesley Snipes character goes to find Samuel L. Jackson’s character was the first time I’d ever heard Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City,” and I’ve been in love with that song ever since.
I also thought it was interesting to see how dark the white people in the movie were. So dark, in fact that many of them looked Hispanic. Actually I think Anthony Quinn, who played the racist father of a white guy who liked a black woman, was Hispanic. And Anabella Sciorra, who played the white woman who Wesley Snipes character cheated on his wife with, was the same color as his black wife.
What’s more, the racist white people in the movie are Italian, which is probably one of the most discriminated-against white ethnic groups by other whites, perhaps following only Jews. I just found that interesting.
I left that theatre, thoroughly unimpressed with that movie, unsure what to make of it. While I appreciate it more as a whole now, even back then, there was one scene that stood out: It’s the living room scene.
As the scene opens up, the camera is positioned at the top of the stairs looking down into the living room, as if from the vantage point of a child, banished to her room to stay out of grown folks business, yet she defiantly sneaks out to eavesdrop on the conversation anyway.
From there, there’s a cut and we’re brought into the living room, into the thick of it. The discussion that ensues is real, and raw, not always politically correct, and at times even references black men as the sexual objects (like when they talk about going to Africa to get “Zulu dick”) that women so often complain about being reduced to.
But they were saying boldly and out loud, in a theatre of mixed-company, what black women and girls even, were saying and thinking amongst themselves.
I was reading some of the criticisms of the scene, and people – particularly black men – were saying that most black men are with black women. They were also saying how the women were focusing too much on rich or successful men. But the problem with that argument is, the difference between a rich man and say a garbage man (no matter how noble that job is) is that the rich man has options that the garbage man does not.
Who’s to say that the working-class man, when taken out of the hood and into the lap of luxury, would still choose the same woman, or another black woman? Perhaps he would, but the point is there is a perception out there that he will not. Now I don’t know the statistics on that, but from what I’ve seen personally, I understand why that perception exists. Afterall, it was a black man who wrote the line, “And when he get on, he’ll leave yo’ ass for a white girl,” from the 2005 hit rap song “Gold Digger.”
At the end of the conversation, the wife concludes it doesn’t matter what color the mistress is, because her man is gone. While I would argue when a man steps out on you with a person of a different race it stings a bit more, as it could be perceived as a double rejection of you both as a wife and a black woman.
But what I like about her coming to that conclusion is there is nothing anyone can do about it. Black men (or any man for that matter) are going to like who they want to like and date, and marry and cheat on you with who they want to, or stay faithful to you if they want to. The point is, he’s gone. And you can either complain about it, or move on and find someone who loves you for you.
What they were saying in that scene wasn’t the only reason that scene stood out to me, it wasn’t even the most important thing that stood out to me. It was also how they were saying it. Five of them, gathered in a room, there to support their friend who’s husband cheated on her. Black women of different hues and hair textures. Black women, hearing each other out. It was the camaraderie for me. That stood out the most.
That and the dialogue, which I just recently – and by recently I mean like two days ago – learned was mostly improvised. Which makes sense. That type of dialogue where there’s so many characters in a convo is the hardest to write. Yet that didn’t stop me from attempting it.
In my first and only script I’ve written (and am still editing) I have a similar scene featuring five black women. While the subject matter does not revolve around interracial relationships, it is about relationships, with a woman venting to her friends about losing a man to another woman, who in many ways is very different from her.
I’ve seen “Jungle Fever” several times since the first time I caught it in that crowded Marina Del Rey theatre back in 1991. Still it’s been too long ago to give a detailed opinion on the movie as a whole (and luckily I don’t have to because this is movie SCENES I love, not movies), other than to say it is unquestionably art, unmistakably Spike Lee.
Be sure to stop back by next week, when I’ll be posting an excerpt from the scene from my movie script that was inspired by this one.
Until then.
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