#johnwitherspoon

Over at the I Know What You Did podcast, where Millie and Danielle have spent the month of February focusing specifically on Black creators in honor of Black History Month, the films covered have been mostly serious, as compelling as they’ve been.  Imagine my surprise at the fact that, for the final episode of this stretch, the focus would turn to not only one of the most prolific Black families of creators out there, but quite possibly the current first-family of funny, the Wayans family.  While Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is not my jam, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is and always will be, and with that DVD already positioned for a Black History Month viewing, it jumped from being on the list to a position at the top.

Jack Spade (Keenen Ivory Wayans) returns to Any Ghetto, U.S.A. after a tour of duty to find his brother Junebug has lost his life to a case of “overgold”.  Jack vows to care for his mother Belle Brown-Spade (Ja’net Dubois) and Junebug’s widow Cheryl Spade (Dawnn Lewis), but after the women are threatened by Leonard (Damon Wayans) and Willie (Kadeem Hardison), henchmen to the notorious Mr. Big (John Vernon), Jack makes the choice to eliminate the negative element from his neighborhood.  He reaches out to former hero John Slade (Bernie Casey) for assistance, and initially Slade refuses, but after Leonard and Willie make an attempt on Slade’s life, he decides to join the fight.  In hopes of evening the score, he enlists the help of some of his former vigilante friends : Hammer (Isaac Hayes), Slammer (Jim Brown), Flyguy (Antonio Fargas) and Kung Fu Joe (Steve James).  With both sides at full power and intent on removal of the opposition, tensions rise and bullets fly.

Outside of the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker camp, I haven’t seen anyone pull off trope-based humor the way that the Wayans family has been able to, and it all started with Keenen Ivory Wayans and his early Hollywood work.  I’m Gonna Git You Sucka embraced two different sets of tropes, shuffled them together like a deck of cards, and dealt them out to audiences in a manner where everyone got a winning hand.  First and foremost, the film is an ode to Blaxploitation classics, and all of the earmarks of the genre are present, up to and including ex-soldiers returning home, the impact of drug dealing on the Black community, the role of vigilantes stepping up to protect the ghetto when police are absent or corrupt, and so on.  Normally, this genre of film takes itself deadly serious, but Wayans pours heaps and heaps of comedy into the mix, with running jokes, physical comedy, tons of sight gags, hilarious subversions of expectation, and even extremely base-level seriousness making the film as memorable as it is funny.

The real power of the film, however, comes in its lasting legacy in terms of how it served as a stylistic and generational bridge between the stars of the past and the promise of the future.  Keenen Ivory Wayans pays direct homage to the past by including some of the biggest names from the Blaxploitation era in key roles, and he uses the rest of the casting as an opportunity to not only showcase the talents of his vast family, but also open doors for a wealth of hilarious up and comers (many of whom are still working to this day).  The issues that plagued the Blaxploitation era are given a modern day equivalent, with drugs and sexual exploitation replaced with the embracing of hip-hop and gangster culture, but this substitution does not cheapen the strength of the narrative, despite the film’s comedic intentions.  The film is even deceptively poignant in the way that it exposes systematic oppression and police corruption.

In terms of production value, everything is more than acceptable, but from what I can surmise, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka wasn’t created to be a cinematic masterpiece.  The main aim of the film is clearly humor, and Keenen Ivory Wayans obliterates the bullseye he targeted.  The music cues all work, even the ones that are direct references to films of the past, and even some of those cues are used for humorous sight gags.  Wardrobe-wise, the film is surprisingly strong, with the costuming providing memorable outfits from the modern era, Blaxploitation era, and even a few ridiculous over-the-top costumes (including those outrageous goldfish platforms).

Keenen Ivory Wayans definitely had a lot on his plate as the writer and director of the film, but all of those obligations didn’t take away from his ability to play a comically inept version of a leading man with pinpoint precision.  Ja’net Dubois takes the trope of protective mother to new and outrageous heights, while Dawnn Lewis plays the damsel and distress with incredibly comedic nuance.  Bernie Casey is too cool for school, which makes his sharp one-liners and punchlines even funnier due to their curveball-esque delivery.  Isaac Hayes, Jim Brown, Antonio Fargas and Steve James are all able to take character aspects that made their careers and flip them on their ears, turning them into jokes without them feeling like they are the butt of said jokes.  John Vernon brings a sense of gravitas to his antagonist position, but like everyone else in the film, he manages to keep it humorous without going too ridiculous... instead, he allows the ridiculousness to come from Damon Wayans and Kadeem Hardison as his henchmen.  The list of cameo appearances reads like its own solid comedy film, with the likes of Clarence Williams III, Clu Gulager, John Witherspoon, David Alan Grier, Eve Plumb, Robin Harris, Kim Wayans, Nadia Wayans, Hawthorne James, Gary Owens, Tony Cox and more popping up, and even Robert Townsend and Peggy Lipton providing uncredited roles.