Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy: A Pre-MCU Anthony Mackie Puts It All Out There in Spike Lee's 'She Hate Me'

<< Blog | Editorial Features Thursday, December 10, 4:00 PMThu, 10 Dec 2020 @ 4:00 PM by Jake Jizzenhall

Throughout cinema history, there have been some iconic nude scenes that have transcended the bounds of the films in which they appeared. Our weekly column Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy will take an in-depth look at these scenes, their history, their deeper meanings, and their legacy. This week, a full decade before joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Anthony Mackie goes the full monty for Spike Lee in 2004's She Hate Me.

Anthony Mackie was a marginally familiar face by the time 2004 rolled around and he landed his first leading role in a major motion picture. He had made his big screen debut two years earlier in Eminem's 8 Mile, and played a villain in the summer 2003 action flick Hollywood Homicide. Mackie also had a major supporting part in Jonathan Demme's Manchurian Candidate remake, which opened on July 30, 2004, the same day as Spike Lee's She Hate Me, the aforementioned first leading role for the then-26-year old.

Landing the lead in a Spike Lee joint is a big deal for any actor, but it can be a make or break moment for someone on the cusp of stardom, like Mackie. If anything, the failure of She Hate Me both critically and commercially may have actually—at least temporarily—harmed his career. Mackie kept working over the next several years, but it really wasn't until his supporting turn in Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker in 2009 that her truly bounced back.

Mackie wasn't the only one reeling from She Hate Me's as Lee had just come off some of the best reviews of his career with 2002's The 25th Hour. Following the failure of this flick, he ran into the loving arms of a nice big box, big budget studio movie. Thankfully for Spike, Inside Man became the biggest financial success of his career and he was able to bounce back much quicker.

So why did this film's failure leave such a stink on its leading man? Lots of films come and go without much fanfare and you'd be hard pressed to really speak to anyone who remembers this film when it was in theaters. Mostly the people who hate this film are incredibly vocal about their hatred of it and they're well within their rights. The film is prickly, as all of Lee's work is, but it's also got some pretty twisted views of sexuality. It masquerades a bit as sexually liberated, but it's got some fairly heteronormative views of the world.

The basic gist of the movie is that Mackie's financial broker character takes the fall for an embezzlement scam that was actually orchestrated by his partner, who killed himself when exposed. Desperate for money, he concocts a scheme with his ex-fiancée (Kerry Washington)—who, not incidentally, is now out and engaged to a woman—for him to impregnate lesbian couples in exchange for $10,000 a pop. Because he is a virile specimen, the various high rolling lesbian couples that run in his ex-fiancée's circles are sure to leap at the chance.

This leads to a meat market-esque gathering of several lesbians to see Mackie's credentials up close for themselves...

Obviously, Spike is aware of all the many connotations such a scene brings with it and that's not really what we're here to talk about, so let's drop that. What's so great about the scene is that it shows a young leading man in the hands of an esteemed director, putting his full faith in that man not to let him down as an actor, and they both deliver. The film's problematic sexual politics aside, this scene works because Mackie lets himself be ogled and treated like a piece of meat by a group of women who have zero sexual interest in him.

It's nice that there's a gender reversal at work in this scene, what with all the women wearing clothes while our vulnerable young protagonist is exposed, emotionally and literally. That the film goes to some rather upsetting places with the premise is among the least ofShe Hate Me's problems, but it does work in fits and starts, such as in that moment. Beyond that, it's a lot of twisted gender politics and questionable sexual definitions that mar the film's standing some 16 years on. Its sexual mores looked bad back then, but they are borderline appalling now.

Mackie is now on the brink of his biggest bout of stardom yet, as his character Sam Wilson was officially handed Captain America's shield at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Having an African-American actor play the hero most associated with our country is going to be a huge moment in pop culture. Inevitably that will also become a cultural dividing line, because here in America, we politicize everything. I think it's nice to know that at the very least, we'll have a Captain America who has also shown his dick on screen, something the previous occupant of those spandex tights still hasn't done.

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Catch up with ALL of our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy...

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