I’m here to set the record straight.
Akeelah is not a bumble bee. Akeelah and the Bee is not an animated feature movie. This is a family movie about an 11-year-old girl who makes it to the national spelling championship and the hurdles she faces on the way.
I was disappointed in the lack of support by the general public, particularly African Americans. The movie, co-produced by venerable actor Laurence Fishburne, who is also one of the main actors, could have been used as an entertaining teaching tool for literacy and achieving school success. Even with a spectacular cast, including newcomer child actress, Keke Palmer, the movie never made it past the #8 slot it achieved its first week out.
This spells doom for any movie. That’s why I always try to support a movie of my choice that opening weekend. The Bee made a little over $6 million, and it was downhill from there. (X-Men debuted at #1 its first week and made over $103 million. The DaVinci Code raked in over $77 million its opening weekend.) The capitalists don’t play; it’s all about the Benjamins. Within a month, the Bee went from about 2,200 theaters to under 500. In a minute, people will be asking Akeelah who?
Black folks, myself included, often complain about raunchy movies rife with sex, cussing and violence. Here we had the chance to support the efforts of writers, producers and actors going against that grain to present a movie with a message. And what did we do? We ran to the sex and violence, giving that movie genre further validation with our dollars. We gave disincentives for those who tried to give us a clear alternative to smut.
I admit there were some parts of Akeelah that were a bit corny, but not unrealistic. There was plenty of realism to counteract the corn, like Akeelah being ostracized by most of her peers because of her spelling ability despite the fact that she had little interest in school overall. Director and screenwriter Doug Atchison manages to redeem most of the characters, even the local thug who gets into the community act of preparing Akeelah for the nationals with flashcard sessions.
In addition to a movie with an inspirational message, there were also a number of promotions around the movie. For a specified week, AMC theaters gave teachers free admission. Students who collected the most movie stubs could win $100,000 for their school. The movie would have made a great field trip for classes, but adults flunked this assignment.
Another movie with a somewhat misleading title came to town last weekend, CSA: Confederate States of America. By its title, one might think this is the usual take on the Civil War. Kevin Willmott, a black film professor at the University of Kansas, joined forces with Spike Lee, to produce this spoof on what it would have been like today if the South had won the war.
The British “documentary” is interspersed with commercials of real products, once part of the American landscape, like Darkie Toothpaste and Coon Chicken Inn. It also uses archival photos and footage to make good on its political parodies. You’ll see Abraham Lincoln hooking up with Harriet Tubman to escape to Canada and a slave shopping channel. Some of the political and social implications of Southern domination have shades of reality to them.
This controversial film, which received great reviews at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, is also struggling for an audience. Get to the Tivoli Theater and see it before it’s real history – as in past tense and in the cultural trash can.