Representation was in my opinion a big part of the movie bamboozled getting it's message accross. Representation is how something is associated with symbols or sign systems. In this film black men were all stereotypically represented as dumb, uneducated, desperate, and oblivious to someone trying to make them look bad. They actors were represented by being poor, which walks hand in hand with not having an education. They also didn't have jobs, were tapp dancing in the street to have money to eat, which represented them being desperate. They also didn't realize until the very end of the movie, what the producers were making them, and all sorts of people like them, look like.
Identity also played a big role. The identities that the characters took on were many. The bossman, the white guy, took on a bigget/ racist role. He called them very derrogetory names and made fun of them on many occasions. The secretary, who was made out to be so good, actually had an identity of a desperate, foolish woman who slept with her boss to get a job. The identity of the main character manhan was one of desperate, needy, hungry, and very guilable. This movie was filled with identity, stereotypes, representation "some good but mostly bad", and mythology.
The bosses role in my opinion wasn't trying to be racist or bigoted, he just thought he was akin to a black man, and that he had grown up in that life. So in making fun and using racial slurs he was trying to be one of the "homeboys" teasing one another, which made his behavior acceptable and made the fact he could produce a television show like this "OK" in his eyes.
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