Rosie Perez says Spike Lee exploited her
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Celebrities and Controversy, NSFW, Cinematical Indie
Remember that scene in Do The Right Thing? No, not that one – the one with Rosie Perez, and the ice cube, and Rosie Perez' nipple? In an interview published in Spike Lee's sorta-memoir, That's My Story And I'm Sticking To It, the actress says that she still feels "exploited" by the sex scene, which Lee both directed and starred in opposite of her. The 1989 film was Perez' debut, and according to the actress, she wasn't exactly comfortable with the experience. "I had just lost my virginity in college. I found [the scene] much more
exploitative than what I had read [in the script]. Eventually I burst
into tears and I said, 'Don't keep filming.'" I've thought a lot about that scene ... no, not like that. It's just rare that a filmmaker has the audacity to write, direct, and star in a scene that requires him to rub ice cubes all over an ingenue's naked body. In fact, it's kind of surprising that it's so rare – one would think that a lot more young men might suddenly become interested in filmmaking if they knew this kind of activity could potentially be involved. I kid, but Rosie's not laughing. "It was irresponsible to put me in that position," she says. "He was the older person, the captain of the ship." That's kind of a copout, don't you think? Sexual politics are complicated, but once you're naked in front of a movie crew, things have a way of sort of reducing down to black and white. The best thing about 70s and 80s feminism is that it really made that whole "our bodies, ourselves" thing kind of hard to ignore. Couldn't Ms. Perez have walked her body off the ship if she didn't like the way the captain was steering things?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-01-2005 @ 12:53PM
Finished.Law.School said...
I find Rosie's argument much more persuasive than that presented by Sharon Stone a few years ago when she was complaining about "that" scene from Basic Instinct. Stone just sounded like a crazy person. Rosie sounds geniune.
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11-01-2005 @ 1:00PM
Mimi said...
I don't think Rosie is being at all disengenuous. She's been around Hollywood long enough now to put her experience with Spike in the past into perspective. At the time, she was a newcomer, young and probably naive. It would have been very hard for her to just say no and leave the set. Spike was her director, co-star and the writer... he set up an untenable situation and yes, he manipulated her vulnerabilty for his own purposes.
I guess it's OK in his mind to sexually exploit young women of color, because that's exactly what he did. It's rather sickening. He owes her an apology.
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11-04-2005 @ 5:49AM
Andre S. Belcher said...
This is the complaint you hear when your career is dead... Rosie who?
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11-25-2007 @ 12:13PM
Istlota said...
Rent the DVD of "25th Hour". In the bonus features, there is a documentary on Spike Lee where Rosie is extremely complementary of Spike Lee and also expresses gratitude for Spike giving an unknown such as she was then a big break. I am sure she would work with him again in a NY minute.
Yeah, Spike Lee probably took advantage of the situation to cop a feel. But, it was a case of art imitating life. Clearly, the scene was critical to the development of Rosie's character. The ice cube scene was critical to revealing that Tina and Mookie's relationship was based on sex and guilt. Mookie came around when he wanted to get laid. Tina knew this, but put up with it anyway because that, and guilting him out about his son, was how she manipulated him into spending time with her.
Her character's breasts were her two best assets, in particular "the left nipple" and "the right nipple". The eye of the director saw this and aimed his camera accordingly.
As in the movie, so it was in real life. Tina and Mookie, and Rosie and Spike, used each other to get what they wanted.
As for Spike using a double for that scene -- get real. There is no woman on the planet with such perfect breasts.
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10-31-2005 @ 11:59PM
Christopher Campbell said...
Its been a few weeks since I last saw the film, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the scene shot/cut so that the actual nudity could have been a body double? Damn Spike Lee, fighting for one oppressed people while actually oppressing another.
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