The Bus As Petri Dish

Lee uses the close space of the bus whose ingredients, due to the space, are allowed to hyper-interact. These ingredients consist of the many overt “types” of black males within the black community: the overly-macho heterosexual misogynist, two homosexuals – one conservative and one liberal, the student-athlete, the spiritual elder who has kept some of the more traditional roots alive, etc. All of these characters exchange ideas and sentiments about what it means to be “black” in America, which is what the whole Million Man March is basically about.

In this sense, Lee successfully reduces a massive event into a microcosm that allows the conversation of the march to continue on screen and –  due to film’s ability as a medium to be stored away and re-watched and re-referenced – continue on forever as an important artifact in the progression of intraracial relations.

I think support of this idea also stems from the fact that Lee includes actual footage of the march. It reemphasizes the connection between what happens on the bus  and what is happening in the larger political sphere of blacks in America. The bus acts as a capsule, ironically emphasized by the shape of the metal bus, that obligates the varying degrees of characters to confront each other.