Once this is established, a sequence of scenes reveal to us that the vaccine has been rejected by the FDA, that one of the main scientists has committed suicide, and that higher-ups in his company are guilty of blatant insider trading. His character, Jack Armstrong, works at a pharmaceutical development company whose aim is to develop an AIDS vaccine. His acting is tight enough to be convincing, but imperfect enough to purvey the affected sense that runs rampant throughout the film. Anthony Mackie is somewhat of an acquired taste in the lead role. The choice not to mention this subject, which has (unnecessarily?) asserted hegemony over a queer rights agenda, leaves way for Lee to touch on topics that receive far less mainstream attention, such as alternative understandings of the family, or how the (literal) commodification of the black male body resonates across a number of frameworks. Case in point: In a film that is so mired in present-day political discourse and broaches the subject homosexuality for a great deal of its duration, not once is the issues of gay marriage touched upon. We learn a lot more by what Lee chooses not to include than from what he includes. The description, furthermore, is characterized by omission. And while at first glance it might seem that Lee is playing the same role he does courtside at a Knicks game - shouting his arse off at action of which he has marginal influence at best - Lee's multiple divergent jeremiads are far less prescriptive than they are descriptive.
Structuring the movie as such derails the thesis, transforming it from a coordinate plane to a topographic map with very queer landmarks. In this mess of a film, campy vignettes sprout up as tangential arguments surrounding a main thesis. But somehow, Lee saves this one, making it provocative rather than tired.
The underdeveloped crack baby conceived in a one night stand between (1) half-baked racial politics and (2) a convoluted cultural agenda that manages to reinforce the same norms that it calls into question. The overwhelming hubris the transparent messaging the muddled, almost blunted inside joke that leaves you on the outside. And for the first half hour of "She Hate Me," that's exactly what I got. Admittedly, what allowed my curiosity to get the better of me and coerce me in to shelling out the AMC 25 Times Square's ridiculous $10.50 ticket price was an inner desire to witness the gruesome end to the train wreck that has ravaged Spike Lee for the past five year or so (before you stop me, I didn't see 25th Hour, which I heard from credible sources was pretty decent leave me alone).
The reviews of the new Spike Lee joint went from bad to worse (Entertainment Weekly gave it an F, for whatever that's worth), so I purchased my ticket to "She Hate Me" with more than a little bit of trepidation.