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I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I've meant to watch this documentary for quite some time, primarily because Spike Lee cited it as a major influence on his own narrative film, Bamboozled. Classified X is good, especially in its presentation of 100 years of movie representation of African Americans. I especially like its useful designation of periods in film history (the decades of independent black cinema, the "new Negro" period, the "no Negro" period, etc.).There are a few times when I wish the film provided more careful explanation of how the discrimination against African Americans generally and African American films specifically happens. For example, near the end of the film, Van Peebles says that, with movies like Malcolm X and Panther, theaters siphon off the profits at the box office. I'd like to know what that means. Is it a problem of how many screens the movies are shown on? Or how many screens are hogged up by movies that the studios support more wholeheartedly? I plan to use this movie in a college course about race in the mass media, and I think it will be provocative and educational, but the occasional lack of detailed explanation will be a slight stumbling block for my mostly white, mostly middle class students (as it is at least a minor disappointment for white, middle class me!). Perhaps this movie will simply be a bold starting point for a longer and sometimes difficult learning journey.

Melvin makes a lot of good points in this movie, and it becomes painfully obvious that in cinema, racism has festered over time. Lately, the casting and representation of blacks in films has improved greatly. However, the tone of the film was too bitter. I could easily mope around and lament about how upset it makes me that the white actor was always portrayed as a wealthy landowner or action hero, and cite just as many examples as he does. After I saw this film, all I could muster was a "Yeah, and...." I guess my point is that Van Peebles is trying to muster up sympathy for black cinema actors while pointing the fingers at the mostly white movie studio and casting executives of that time, and, taking from his example, I could make a film which musters up sympathy for the white actors that were portrayed as extremely racist or prejudiced landowners or business people or action stars or in any other bad light just as easily.

I saw this documentary and thought that it was well presented. It raised issued long past forgotten. Although he did not mention new directors we must understand that the majority of viewers at the time was White America and the treatment of Black Professionals was being portrayed as "Stupid". To compare this I recommend "Scandalize My Name" which comments on the "Black List" and how it affected the image and careers of famous black American. The director newcomers did not have the fight that was being waged in early cinema, their achievements are the results of past battles. The Black image was being shaped and forged through the most influential mode-Cinema. Nowhere could you stigmatize, demoralize and stereotype a people than the cinema.

A compelling movie. Van Peebles provides a lot of interesting historical information. He argues that while the portrayals of black characters have changed over the years, they are still as racist as ever, and that Hollywood suppresses black filmmakers. I find it a bit difficult to sympathize with him since he seems to think that the only movie in history that had any value is one he made himself. He barely gives Spike Lee and John Singleton a passing mention.