Bamboozled and ideas of historical racism

I found that watching Bamboozled demonstrated a plethora of issues surrounding representations of race in the media. There are so many facets in discussing the intersectionalities at play in the film but one of the clearest aspects of the film are the historic depictions of African-Americans on screen. As Hall says so sufficiently “there was a concern not simply with the absence or marginality of the black experience but with its simplification and its stereotypical character” (442). As the characters in the film develop the premise for the television show all sorts of discussion occurs regarding what images of black characters will appeal to the white boss, Thomas Dunwitty (and by extension a white audience). Ultimately, it is the absurd and reductive pitch of grotesquely limited characters that wins over the boss and gets green-lit for production. As Pierre (or De La as he is so affectionately known in the film) explains his failed attempts at selling concepts for shows the audience quickly realizes that his stories about middle class and wealthy African American families did not earn the interest of Dunwitty. What we see from the interactions between De La and Dunwitty is that the concerns of De La in representing different and complex images of African Americans do not match the concerns of Dunwitty.  So in order to win over Dunwitty Pierre draws from racist depictions of previous film and television programs. “Racism, of course, operates by constructing impassable symbolic boundaries between racially constituted categories, and its typically binary system of representation constantly marks and attempts to fix and naturalize the difference between belongingness and otherness” (Hall 445). What appeals to Dunwitty are the limits previously constructed in racist images and the way the film shows the progress of the television program seems to imply that many believe these stereotypical depictions belong in media. The in studio audience for the television show initially is unnerved by the premise of the show but by the end of the show the audience members are wearing blackface and brought to a frenzy by the antics of the show. It feels like on one level the film makes it explicit that racism still captivates and controls the circulation of media images, but on the other hand this is destructive and many of the characters end up dead as the film comes to a close. The final montage of historically racist images led me to question just how embedded are media images? From a cultural standpoint how does one address issues of racism both depicted in media content and in reviews of media texts?