I detest Spike Lee, because in his movies, when there is a black/white conflict, usually the ONLY identifiable white ethnics are Italian Americans, and they are ALWAYS negative, unsympathetic, and generally racist.

"She Hate Me" now joins Spike Lee's previous trilogy of super negative portrayals of Italian Americans, "Do the Right Thing" (1989), "Jungle Fever" (1991), and "Summer of Sam" (1999),

"because two of his (Spike Lee) previous films depicted tensions between Italian and Africans, some people have found it easy to believe that his chief aim here ("Summer of Sam") is to excoriate a white ethnic group" (Harrison, LA Times, July 16, 1999).

"Race Baiting" sniped the Entertainment Weekly. "Race baiting" echoes the alternative weekly New Times.

"It's a racist movie", says Joe Coffey, the cop who arrested Berkowitz, "and if I were Italian American .. I would picket or boycott.."

"A racist runt" snarls the father of one of the victims.  A cover story of Esquire in 1992, "Spike Lee Hates Your Cracker Ass", perhaps explains it best!

Ironically, the "Son of Sam"..."chronicles how David Berkowitz terrorized an Italian-American section of the Bronx during his 1977 killing spree" (MrShowbiz News, Times, April 2,1999 ) with 6 victims dead and 7 wounded.

The Italian Americans were the victims of an obvious "ethnic assault" that terrorized their neighborhood for months. But, does he deal with the trauma of the victims? NO, he "victimizes" them again (and the greater ItalianAmerican Community), by an onslaught of the most negatively stereotypical despicable portrayals possible.

What would be Lee's reaction to a film based on the Klu Klux Klan terrorization of a black community for months, that resulted in 6 killed, and 7 wounded?  But the entire focus of the film is examining all the negative stereotypical "imperfections" (lazy,drug-prone,welfare-dependent,promiscuous,breeding machines) of the "victimized" community, and it's "overreactions" (defensive, angry, vigilante) under a "siege" mentality.  And what would his reaction further be, knowing that the same director had "visually brutalized" the black community in two previous films???

He has "demonized" Italian Americans in all four of these movies.

He excuses these general devastating "characterizations", by citing one "good/ sympathetic" Italian American character in each film, or at least one who for a moment was "good/sympathetic".

His "tortured" excuses, justification, and rationale for his continuing AntiItalian American depictions, are beyond contempt.

As Steve Persall, Times Film Critic pointed out in his July 23, 2004 review.."the movie traipses through topics that have gotten the filmmaker into hot water before - gay and Italian portrayals, sexuality and race..

"Italian-Americans who bristled at perceived stereotypes in "Do the Right Thing" and "Summer of Sam" get John Turturro as a Mafia don quoting lines from The Godfather".

Persall observes that "Not a single frame of She Hate Me suggests that Lee's sensibilities have been affected by past controversies"

Lee validates Persall's observation by obliviously stating: " I've never thought that I've presented stereotypical images of anyone in the past".

All the worse is that, Lee as a black "activist" attempts to show the mistreatment, and mischaracterization of his race, and yet engages in much the same behavior toward Italian Americans that he criticizes in others!

It is difficult for me to feel his pain, when he is inflicting the same sort of pain on me.

"In She Hate Me", Jack, our Black hero, an unappreciated corporate whistleblower (Anthony Mackie), inexplicably becomes a stud who is hired to impregnate lesbians at $10,000 a pop.

Jack is approached by and "obliges" a Mafia princess, Simona (Monica Bellucci), the beautiful lesbian daughter of hulking, stereotypical Don Corleone-imitating father mob boss Don Angelo Bonasera (John Turturro), who sends thugs after Jack to break his legs. . . .

Since "She Hate Me" is yet more of the negative Italian image, I'm relieved and delighted to read the reviews, that "trash" this film, as you will be. See below.

CRITIC CONSENSUS: She Hate Me can't decide if it wants to be a commentary on corporate greed or a sex farce.

ROTTEN RATING 28% Grade on a 100% Scale Avg. Rating: 4.2 out of a 10
THEATRICAL RELEASE: Jul 28, 2004 (Limited)
NUMBERS: Box Office: $81,367

"... may be the worst movie of the year."-- Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER

  "When a Spike Lee film doesn't fly, it sinks like a stone. This one is Gibraltar."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

  The latest film by SpikeLee  - -  "She Hate Me"  - - -  is his worst movie of all, a self-absorbed, indulgent, unedited and unending piece of glop
-- Roger Friedman, Fox News Channel

  "Deeply offensive, staggeringly unfunny, pretentious and, at 140 minutes, about 135 minutes too long..." -- Peter Sobczynski, CRITIC DOCTOR

  "While this presumably all makes sense inside Spike's head, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever onscreen."-- Wade Major, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE

  "This gonzo 140-minute omnibus reserves a scene or two for any social or political concern you'd care to mention."  -- Eugene Novikov, FILM BLATHER

  "At 2 1/2 hours running time, you get more than you bargained for in sheer befuddlement."-- Jan Stuart, NEWSDAY

  "Targets 'the decline of ethics ... from the boardroom to the bedroom,' and misses on both fronts."   -- Jon Strickland, L.A. WEEKLY

  "If you're going to make a political statement, back it up. Don't give us this half-baked, atrociously acted, tin-eared, five-films-in-one, everything you want to know about sex, three's company, heather has two mommies fiasco."
-- Joshua Tanzer, OFFOFFOFF

  "She Hate Me is more like an automobile accident designed to get liberal-minded looky-loos to crane their necks and survey the wreckage."
-- Glenn Whipp, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

  `Hate' could have been mo' better film-- James Verniere, BOSTON HERALD

  "Lee's shrill, juvenile polemic crams ideas about corporate greed, same-sex parenting and racial stereotypes into a narrative torn from the video store's adult-movie section."  -- Maitland McDonagh, TV GUIDE'S MOVIE GUIDE

  "maybe She Hate Me’s title does make sense – as foreshadowing for the reaction it’ll receive from real-world lesbians" -- Nicholas Schager, FILMCRITIC.COM

  "An ambitious but undisciplined mess of a movie...goes all over the place and winds up nowhere."  -- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION

  "Forget the politics, bawdy humor wins out."
-- Kent Turner, FILM-FORWARD.COM

  "Spike Lee is taking shotgun-blast aim at, well, everything--from corporate injustice to racial stereotypes to lesbian issues. And with his scattershot approach he misses all of his targets."  -- E! ONLINE

  "This 140-minute I-don't-know- what-it-is unravels like a ball of yarn after a bout with a tiger on Colombian catnip."  -- Mike Clark, USA TODAY

  "Manages to be at once racist, homophobic, utterly fake, and unbearably tedious."  -- Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

  "Ankle-chained to the ball of Jack's depression, She Hate Me lurches from cartoonish didacticism to glum slapstick." -- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

  "How can a director as savvy as Lee make so many errors of judgment regarding taste, tone, intention and dramatic structure?"
-- Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

  "The mélange of plots, subplots, reveries, gags, cartoons, dirty bits, and hissy fits points to a work that is structurally modelled less on the classic narratives of cinema than on, say, a portion of Russian salad."
-- Anthony Lane, NEW YORKER

  "For all his irreverence, Lee still seems uncertain how to convey deep, adult feeling without seeming obligated to feel." -- Wesley Morris, BOSTON GLOBE

  Where to start? It feels like four films in one, each one as unintentionally hysterical, ridiculous, and desperately reaching as the other... -- REEL.COM

  "A distillation of rhetoric that never gets properly shaped, compounded by various on-screen speeches that leave the audience feeling taught, talked down to and criticized."   -- Todd Gilchrist, FILMSTEW.COM

  "Most contracts are negotiated with John Hancocks, but in She Hate Me, deals are sealed with hot lesbian action."    -- Ed Gonzalez, SLANT MAGAZINE