Malcolm X (film) Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Bill Nasson

SOURCE: "A 'Whiteout': Malcolm X in South Africa," in The Journal of American History, Vol. 80, No. 3, December, 1993, pp. 1199-1201.

In the following essay, Nasson discusses the reception of Lee's Malcolm X in South Africa.

In Spike Lee's modest contribution to method writing, By Any Means Necessary, a high-octane account of the making of Malcolm X, we learn that on the Johannesburg shoot to capture Nelson Mandela as a Soweto teacher for the film's final clip, "there was a whiteout of our activities, like we were never there, according to the news organizations of South Africa." There is a nice whiff of radical audacity to this, but it is quite preposterous. With the shooting of Malcolm X no particular danger to the already crumbling fabric of South African society, white English-language papers took rather positive notice of filmmaker and subject. In fact, the only unsporting notes appeared in...
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