The Power of Spike Lee's Film, Malcolm X

The Power of Spike Lee's Film, Malcolm X

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. (Milan Kundera)

[1] Malcolm X's life revolved around his desire for the voices of himself and his people to be heard. He struggled against those who worked to keep him silent. In the end, those forces succeeded to a certain degree, but not before Malcolm left us with enough of his words to keep people talking for centuries. In fact, in his autobiography, Malcolm left us a permanent loudspeaker, eternally shouting out against injustice and oppression. Spike Lee's film Malcolm X is another timeless work that strives to keep Malcolm alive and speaking despite all the efforts to silence and marginalize his memory.

[2] Most white people who lived through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's will often place Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. side by side as representations of Black activism: the former, a model of Black rage and confrontation, uncompromising in his stance; the latter an example of the peaceful, non-confrontational method towards achieving equal rights -- the "right way." Martin has been seen as the good guy and Malcolm as the bad. While Martin usually occupies a few pages in history books, Malcolm is usually found in only paragraphs. Even after his assassination, Malcolm's detractors seek to keep him quiet. I visited my high school in Connecticut back in February, Black History Month, and asked my sister and her friends what they knew about Malcolm X. Those that knew anything replied that he hated white people and that he was assassinated. When I asked several history teachers about how Malcolm was taught, they admitted that he takes a back seat to Mar...

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...ks to show the depths from which he rose to achieve self-liberation. Malcolm is presented as everyman. If he can do it, why can't we?

[16] This film is important because it introduces Malcolm to the public as he was -- a man. Malcolm X doesn't introduce a one-dimensional figure to the public as some might say. Rather, the film focuses on one dimension of a complex man while presenting his life as flawed and complicated. This allows the audience to identify with the faults of character; but, more importantly, people focus on the one dimension of the film and the man that is stressed: the power that one has within one's self to change and to grow. This power, we find, results in a greater sense of self-respect, and that is the true path to freedom.

Works Cited

Lee, Spike, with Ralph Wiley. By Any Means Necessary. New York: Hyperion, 1992.