Jungle Fever: Race Traitors and One Bedroom Apartments (Part One)

Just so we’re all on the same page, jungle fever is a term used to describe a white person lusting after a black person. Yes, everything about it is racist. Black folks don’t (all) live in jungles. But what’s the term for a black person lusting after a white person?

Oddly enough, that idea was discussed during one of the final Party Down episodes from a few weeks back. Any number of answers like, Continental Fever and Euro-Fever work, but not too well.

Regardless, Spike Lee’s 1991 film Jungle Fever discusses not necessarily the lusting after one another part of this, but the curiosity felt by whites and blacks about the other race. Lust isn’t totally removed – there is a scene of in-office, desk sex – but there are lengthily discussions by all of the film’s major players as to what attracts them to this ‘cultural other,’ white or black.

Lee, endlessly criticized for anything critics can muster, may have turned in an adroitly plotted commentary on race relations in the States. The problem is, the last forty minutes or so of the movie refutes the beginning. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

Over the two hour run time – a persistent problem with Lee’s films – Jungle Fever basically  explains that everyone on earth is confused about what race means, what’s attractive or repulsive about someone that doesn’t look like you and how different cohorts of people deal with these issues.

Using the work place environment to first aptly display these hang ups and perceived notions, Lee places Spike Lee’s Flip Purify in a design firm, which he’s had a hand in making successful. When viewers first find him, Flip’s in the process of being handed a new assistant. A white one. Immediately, Flip meets with his bosses in private and asks why, since he requested a black assistant, did he get a white women? An Italian women named Angie.

Made to cope with the problem, Lee begins working late nights with his new assistant and everyone knows where that’s headed. Two things, though. Being emasculated at work and made to take what he’s given instantly makes the racial component to the film more immediate than simply leaving it to the amorous side of the plot. More importantly, since we all know racism exists pretty much everywhere, what does the name Flip mean about the character – that he’s a race traitor?