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We've got to turn this backward thinking around where ignorance is championed over intelligence. Young black kids being ridiculed by their peers for getting A's and speaking proper English: that's criminal.

Spike Lee

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Spike Lee
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: March 20
Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Mascot
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Television Producer
Atlanta
Georgia
Sheldon Lee
Shelton J. Lee
Shelton Jackson Lee
Mars Blackmon
Turns
Proper
Black
Criminals
Kids
Speaking
Around
English
Championed
Young
Intelligence
Ridiculed
Thinking
Ignorance
Backward
Turn
Peers
Getting
Criminal

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I wouldn't be doing motherfu**ing films for almost three decades if every time I did something that someone didn't like I went in a fu**ing cocoon and just hid there and didn't make my art.
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I don't like to use the word 'remake', I think reinterpretation is a better word. It's just a matter of respecting the source, and then trying to make your own film, and trying not to be inhibited by being so beholden to every single thing... We respect the source, but we make changes to it.
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I never understood the concept of showing everything in the trailer. Why go to a movie if there's no surprise? I can't do it like that.
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I don't like acting not in front of the camera.
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My people, my people, what can I say say what I can. I saw it but didn't believe it I didn't believe what I saw. Are we gonna live together? Together are we gonna live?
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American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.
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Those that'll tell don't know, and those that know won't tell.
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I didn't dream about being a director. I didn't know I wanted to do something with film until the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Morris College in Atlanta, Georgia.
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I don't see any negativity with what Brad Pitt is doing with his Make It Right Foundation, or what Sean Penn is trying to do in Haiti.
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I consider Madonna a friend, and she sure knows how to work the publicity machine. Of course, I don't have breasts. If I did have, I'd be in the number one spot over Madonna.
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I'm trying to keep up with what's happening in this turbulent world.
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Amongst black people, you have always heard it said that once a black man reaches a certain level, especially if you are an entertainer, you get a white trophy woman. I didn't make that up.
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My grandmother lived to be 100 years old. Her grandmother was a slave, yet she was a college graduate in the Spellman class of 1917. She taught art for 50 years and she saved her Social Security checks for her children's education.
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I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.
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You know that first of all your films have to make money no matter who you are.
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I'm an independent filmmaker with complete creative control of my films. I hire who I want. I have final cut. But at the same time, I go directly to Hollywood for financing and distribution. I find it's best for me to work within the Hollywood system.
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'She's Gotta Have It' was shot in twelve days and two six-day weeks.
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I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they're just extra sensitive.
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