Manning Marable's "Malcolm as Messiah: Cultural Myth vs. Historical Reality in Malcolm X"

In a racist society, the most profound question which can be raised by the oppressed is the issue of identity. "Who am I, and how can I act on behalf of myself?" It is this quest for critical self-consciousness which explains, in part, the continuing fascination by younger African-Americans with the charismatic and controversial figure of Malcolm X. According to a November 1992 Newsweek pool conducted by the Gallup Organization, fifty-seven percent of all African-Americans polled agreed with the statement that Malcolm X should be considered "a hero for black Americans today." Malcolm X's greatest popularity was found among African-Americans between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, with eighty-four percent of those polled agreeing with the statement. When asked the reasons for Malcolm's popularity, blacks eschewed ideological explanations or theoretical excursions into the history of black nationalism. Eighty-four percent replied that Malcolm X stood for "blacks helping one another"; eighty-two percent responded that the black leader symbolized a "strong black male," with another seventy-four percent indicating that he represented "black self-discipline." With the vast social destruction of our central cities today, with twenty-three percent of all African-American males between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine currently in prison, on probation, on parole, or awaiting a trail, Malcolm X personifies the ability of an individual to overcome the worst circumstances to achieve personal integrity and leadership.

It is in this larger social context that Spike Lee's magnificent yet profoundly flawed film Malcolm X must be understood. The massive political and financial controversies in making the film have been well documented. From the beginning, Lee planned a synthesis of recent black social history with the sweeping cinematic style of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. Warner Bros. had agreed to finance a two-hour-fifteen-minute film at a price of $20 million. Lee wanted an epic-sized, three-hour-plus film at a cost exceeding $33 million. Going way over budget, the director appealed successfully to black celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and Michael Jordan to finance his shortfall. Throughout the filming, black critics such as prominent playwright/poet Amiri Baraka charged that Lee was certainly the wrong person to be charged with the political responsibility for interpreting the life and times of a major black figure for a mass audience. Many black activists feared the Lee would focus too heavily on Malcolm X's pre-Nation of Islam career as Detroit Red, street hustler and cocaine user, at the expense of a solid political analysis of Malcolm's ideological and personal evolution as a leader.

The final product of Lee's labors and shameless self-promotion, Malcolm X, is simultaneously a triumph of filmmaking and a justification of Baraka's fears and frustrations. The film's major strengths begin with the truly outstanding performance by Denzel Washington as Malcolm X. Washington's detailed preparation for the role was quite remarkable-mimicking Malcolm's speaking style, even his tendency to place his right hand thoughtfully against his face, with two extended fingers. Malcolm's actual words are carefully woven into the dialogue. Washington gives us a very emotional and powerful depiction of a street hustler who goes through a series of moral and spiritual experiences.

Al Freeman, Jr., and Angela Bassett are also excellent in portraying Malcolm's mentor Elijah Muhammad, the spiritual godfather of the Nation of Islam, and Malcolm's wife, Betty Shabazz, respectively. Freeman successfully portrays the actual autocratic style of the Black Muslim patriarch, illustrating his paternalistic compassion and private hypocrisy. Bassett's role is decisive in providing the story with a central love interest, which shows that a strong black woman was able to open Malcolm's innocent eyes to the truth that surrounded him. The film manages to show the enormous accomplishments of the black nationalist Nation of Islam-pulling thousands of drug dealers, prostitutes, and criminals off the streets, providing moral guidance and self-respect, and giving people denied the opportunity a belief in themselves as capable and productive members of society. The core ideology of the Nation-the "whites are the devils" thesis-was always secondary to its constructive and positive contributions to black working-class and low-income people.

But the film also falls short in many significant ways. Lee would have us believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation began to monitor Malcolm's political activities sometime during the final, chaotic months of travel, reflection, and political struggle. Actually, the FBI began its systematic surveillance of Malcolm X years earlier, long before he had become a national figure. Malcolm's telephone was wiretapped; his mail was monitored; his movements were carefully charted and followed. The New York City police placed double agents, including Malcolm's own bodyguard, inside the Nation of Islam. The FBI also attempted to recruit Malcolm himself to betray Elijah Muhammad's organization by the late 1950s, years prior to the eventual split. Scholars have known for years about all of this police-state surveillance and illegal disruption by authorities. Why does Lee treat this as a minor episode, leaving viewers with the distinct impression that the FBI was at best peripheral to Malcolm's assassination? The wiretapping scenes in the film's final minutes should have begun before the movie was more than halfway finished. Most of the assaults aimed against Malcolm X could have been planned by the FBI or other governmental authorities, and loyalists to Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslims could have easily been manipulated to carry out the state's hatred and fear of the black nationalist leader.

Lee claims to have conducted extensive research in the construction of his screenplay; the film indicates otherwise. The story line is essentially an adaptation of Alex Haley's classic text The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The strengths of Haley's work are its powerful narrative, the moving descriptions of Malcolm's profound epiphanies, the faithful reconstruction of Malcolm's voice, his ambiguities and intensely attractive human personality. Many of these elements are apparent in Lee's approach. But there are deep problems with The Autobiography which Lee failed to comprehend. The book is a narrative biography, related in piecemeal fashion from Malcolm to Alex Haley over a period of several years. Most of the interviews were given to Haley in the early 1960s, well before Malcolm X had become disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. Throughout this time, Malcolm was a bitter critic of Martin Luther King, Jr., his political philosophies of nonviolence, and the civil rights establishment. Few interviews were incorporated into The Autobiography which reflected Malcolm's experience after March 1964, when his entire political ideology had become radicalized.

The Autobiography and Lee's film, for example, suggest that it was Malcolm's 1964 hajj to Mecca which opened his eyes to the fundamental humanity of all people beyond the limitations of race, and that this final epiphany via the universalism of Islam was the basis of Malcolm's newfound tolerance and cooperative spirit. No one doubts that Malcolm's journey to Mecca and throughout the Middle East had a profound impact upon his worldview and political behavior. But I would suggest that the ideological limitations of both Haley and Lee keep their interpretations of Malcolm located on safe religious grounds rather than on the more dangerous terrain of race and class struggle. Haley was a longtime Republican, and a twenty-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. Lee is primarily a product of the post-civil-rights-era black middle class, who never directly participated in the massive black protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Both Lee and Haley ignore the long history of African-American nationalism in the U.S., preferring to see Malcolm as a "reaction" to white racism and prejudice, rather than as the product of a long and right protest tradition.

Lee also consulted Betty Shabazz and some of Malcolm's family members, friends, and former associates. But his approach to Malcolm was the construction of a mythic hero figure, not an actual political hero who made mistakes, accessed his errors, and went in new directions. The battle between Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm is shown grounded in personalities, rather than in differences stemming from ideology and politics. Elijah Muhammad's sexual misadventures and Malcolm's "silencing" for his "chickens coming home to roost" remarks following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are the principal reasons for the rupture with the Nation of Islam.

To be sure, Malcolm was personally disillusioned with the private greed and public hypocrisy of the core leaders with the black nationalist formation, but Malcolm had been moving away from the Nation's focus on spiritual issues for many years. Throughout 1960-63, Malcolm X frequently spoke at hundreds of public forums on public issues, the civil rights movement, and even foreign policy-something completely alien to Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad's brand of black nationalism sought solutions to the black community's problems from within, focusing largely on questions of business development, personal hygiene, and socially conservative behavior. Malcolm's vision was always fixed on the larger world. It was not sufficient to save souls if one could not challenge social injustice.

Another serious weakness in Lee's films is the perspective that asserts that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., were inherently at odds over philosophies, strategies, and tactics in achieving freedom for African-Americans. Viewers obtain the distinct impression that King was an accommodating leader, seeking to reconcile black demands within the framework of white power and privilege. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such an approach ignores the fact that King broke with the Johnson Administration over the Vietnam War, embraced a "Poor People's March" against poverty and hunger in Washington, D.C., in 1968, and advocated a radical restructuring of America's economic system. Simply because Martin failed to match Malcolm X's fiery language and style or refused to depart from nonviolence as a means of public protest and civil disobedience doesn't make him an Uncle Tom. In Martin & Malcolm & America, noted African-American theologian James Cone observed that these two gifted, charismatic figures were complementary: "They were like two soldiers fighting their enemies from different angles of vision, each pointing out the other's blind spots and correcting the other's errors. Each needed each other, for they represented-and continue to represent-the 'yin and yang' deep in the soul of black America."

Lee's Malcolm X is an excellent introduction to this magnificent and articulate black spokesman for liberation, but it is also seriously limited in terms of critical interpretation. The filmmaker's goal was to create a cultural icon, but the black community does not need myths. It desperately requires practical solutions to its pressing problems. Malcolm's feet were always firmly planted on the ground, and he would be the first to reject any notions that his legacy should be praised in a series of baseball caps, T-shirts, and wall posters. The creation of charismatic cultural messiahs may be attractive to a middle-class artist like Lee, but it represents a political perspective grounded in conspiratorial theories, social isolation, and theoretical confusion. If African-Americans conclude that only the genius of a messiah can elevate the masses of oppressed people to the level of activism, no social protest is possible. If the mantle of leadership is elevated at too great a distance from the people, few will have the courage to reach toward that goal. Cone reminds us: "Thus, it is important to emphasize that Martin and Malcolm, despite the excessive adoration their followers often bestow upon them, were not messiahs. They show us what ordinary people can accomplish through intelligence and sincere commitment to the cause of justice and freedom. There is no need to look for messiahs to save the poor. Human beings can and must do it themselves."

To really honor Malcolm X is to extend his political and ideological search into the struggles of inequality, racism, and economic oppression which define black liberation today. Black identity and personal dignity require something more than cultural manipulation of symbols without critical content.

(From: Manning Marable, "Malcolm as Messiah: Cultural Myth vs. Historical Reality in Malcolm X," Cineaste, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 7-9. Reprinted with permission.)