Jungle Fever 20 Years Later
From Uptown Magzine — When Spike Lee released Jungle Fever in August 1990, in just a couple of hours, he single-handedly addressed an issue that had been raising eyebrows for years: interracial dating.
Even though in the early ’90s, interracial couples represented only 1.9 percent of the population, according to U.S. Census Bureau, there seemed to be a fascination, and for some, a disgust over interracial dating, specifically between African-American men and white women. Set in New York City, Flipper (Wesley Snipes), a married architect began an affair with his assistant, Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra), an Italian-American.
The affair seemed to stem from both characters’ deep curiosity about each other’s race, more so than mere physical attraction, from the contrast in their skin colors–his dark complexion to her pale, “lily-white” skin to their upbringings, which were worlds apart. After disclosing his secret affair to his best friend, Flipper confessed, “I have to admit I’ve always been curious about Caucasian women.” The friend declared that he had “the fever, Jungle Fever,” described as an attraction between two different races.
Then there’s the memorable scene where Flipper is scolded by a waitress played by Queen Latifah when she refuses to serve the couple while out on a date. There was outrage over an African-American man leaving his black wife for an Italian woman onscreen because movie-goers saw it happening in real life, but the story was deeper than just black and white.
dating anyone because of their skin colour is always negative which is why i never thought this movie was that great.
The point is that Flipper realized that they came together out of curiosity and not because of common interests. At the end you see the black lady and the white guy at the coffee shop (I think it was a coffee shop, haven’t seen the movie in a long time) who have been interacting with each other and seem interested in each other, they have a chance of developing a relationship based on something real and not something superficial. I think the point of the movie is that you can’t build a lasting relationship based on racial curiosity, there has to be something more.
Epic Scene from Jungle Fever…the roundtable with the wife and her girlfriends. I agree with @Emmeaki not much has changed. We’re still milling over the same…
Jungle Fever: Black/ White Relations