Quote

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
Thinking
Ignorance
Backward
Turn
Peers
Getting
Criminal
Turns
Proper
Black
Criminals
Kids
Speaking
Around
English
Championed
Young
Intelligence
Ridiculed

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I've been blessed with the opportunity to express the views of black people who otherwise don't have access to power and the media. I have to take advantage of that while I'm still bankable.
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Those that'll tell don't know, and those that know won't tell.
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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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As we move toward the millennium, the year 2000, the most powerful nations are not those that have nuclear bombs, but those that control the media. That's where the battle is being fought that is how you control people's minds.
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I tend to favour films that have multiple plot and story lines, multiple characters and ensemble pieces.
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I don't think my films are going to get rid of racism or prejudice. I think the best thing my films can do is provoke discussion.
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There’s always been this hocus-pocus or magical, mystical thing associated with the making of film that sort of psyches people out and makes them think that this cannot be done that this is a craft that cannot be learned.
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Sex and racism have always been tied together. Look at the thousands of black men who got lynched and castrated. The reason the Klan came into being was to protect white southern women.
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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 may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night.
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You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me.
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A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.
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I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.
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I like people to look like they're floating.
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I ain't Martin Luther King. I don't need a dream. I have a plan.
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Do the Right Thing' was my first union film. I looked at the rosters, and for the most part, it was white males. Especially the Teamsters. So we had some conversations.
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I'm surprised that Hollywood and networks have not been diverse as other industries.
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I've always tried to - when I've been able to - support young artists, no matter what medium.
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I want to tell stories, I don't really try to get boxed in by a specific genre.
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Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.
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