All language subtitles for How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company

♪♪ (patriotic)

♪♪ (man singing in French)

♪♪ (continues)

♪♪ (ends)

(man speaking French)

(speaking French)

Sweetback set a tone
where people are
really considering,

"Well, maybe you can
beat the man."

MAN: For Melvin
to come when he did and show
a film where we were the victor

and came out heroic
and dignified at the same time,

you know, that's monumental.

There was a fear of blackness,

and Melvin saw blackness
emerging as a commodity,

as a commercial aspect
of popular culture.

His career's been built
around that--

knowing how to make noise
and making controversy
work to his advantage.

Melvin had guts.

He wouldn't have cared
what anyone else thought.

MAN:
At some point in life,
my dad threw the rule book out.

He said,
"I'm gonna do what I wanna do."

MELVIN:
What happened with me
is if I don't see it,

then I do it myself.

That's what happened with film.
That's what happened with music.

That's what happened
with writing.

I didn't see
the type of things
I wanted to see,

so I did it myself.

(speaking French)

I started, um,
I guess you call life

as a-- as a painter
and sculptor.

What I discovered
as time went on

was that I didn't feel
that painting allowed me

to talk to the people
I wanted to talk to.

So I said, "Shit.
I'll go into movies."

I knew nothing,
absolutely nothing, about film.

Most short films--
most independent films
at that time-- were squiggles.

You know,
squigg, squigg, squiggle.
(speaking gibberish)

Nobody wanted
to go near anything
that smacked of Hollywood.

Um-- But me, all I ever wanted
to do was tell stories.

MAN:
The filmmaking business for him
is not an end in itself.

It's a way to get
where he wants to get.

If he could reach
a wider audience
for what he wants to say

by being the world champion
of the hundred meters,

he'd probably be
the world champion
of the hundred meters.

Cut!

♪♪ (fanfare)

NARRATOR:
Chicago. The Windy City.

The metropolis
of America's middle west.

There's where Melvin Van Peebles
is born in 1932,

on the city's
rough-and-tumble South Side.

Young Melvin excels in school
and stands out
among his classmates.

Melvin's daughter
recalls an outfit
he was forced to wear.

It was lemon yellow
and lime green,

satin little shorts,
with a beanie.

Now, the South Side of Chicago,

you put this
on not a very attractive,
knobby-kneed little black boy,

they stick out like--
(whistles)

No wonder he spent
his time in the library.

NARRATOR:
As a teenager, Melvin attends
a large suburban high school,

one of Thornton High's
few black students.

Tennis, anyone?

Mary McCall,
describe your former classmate.

He wore glasses, and he looked
kind of geeky, really.

He had orange shoes,
and they were squeaky.

And he'd get up
and he'd walk down the aisle(shoes squeaking)

and across the front of the room
to sharpen his pencil,

and then he'd squeak
on his way back.

And it was real amusing
to everybody.

NARRATOR:
College is next.

Melvin takes advantage
of an ROTC scholarship

to study art
at Ohio Wesleyan University.

He graduates
at the tender age of 20,

an officer
in the United States Air Force.

Congratulations, Lieutenant.

Are you ready
for your first assignment?

And what an assignment it is.

The young navigator
immediately sees action
on a B-47,

circling the globe hauling
one precious piece of cargo:

the atom bomb.

Let me just say this.
It's a good thing
he wasn't the pilot.

'Cause these days, you know,
Mississippi and Alabama
would be rubble.

NARRATOR:
His air force commitment
behind him,

Melvin takes flight
to the city by the bay--
San Francisco.

There we find him
driving a cable car.

Hop on board.
Let's go for a ride.

Melvin writes a popular story,
The Big Heart,

about his life
on the cable cars.

One admiring passenger,
a Hollywood producer,

encourages Melvin
to make movies.

Yet, despite the book's success,
Melvin receives some bad news.

MELVIN:
The director of the cable car

was someone who didn't think
blacks should read,
let alone write.

So I was fired.
Why was I being fired?

He said because I fit
the psychological profile

of someone who's probably
going to have an accident.

NARRATOR:
Undaunted, the budding director
shoots a few short films,

with the hope of breaking
into Hollywood.

When the studios
show no interest,

the former navigator
sets a course for Holland.

There, he studies astronomy
at the University of Amsterdam.

But something else
is in the stars for Melvin.

His movies have found
some fans in France,

where he's invited to
the world-famous Cinémathèque.

So it's au revoir, Amsterdam,
and bienvenue, Paris,

where Melvin Van Peebles
would soon make his mark
on the City of Light.

MELVIN:
This is Henri Langlois.

Why all film museums
all called cinematheque

is in honor of Henri Langlois,
who started the first
cinematheque.

And this guy
and his significant other,
Mary Meerson,

that's-- these are the ones
who looked me up
when I was in Holland

and invited me to France.

(honking)

I had no money and--
but my little cans of film,

and they swept me up
and drove me to a big car
in the Champs-Élysées.

Took me to
a private screening room,
and they showed my films there.

And everybody ooh'd and aah'd,
and we came downstairs

and they kissed me
on both cheeks

and got in their car
and drove away.

And there I was in the middle
of the Champs-Élysées, couldn't
speak of work of French,

two wet cheeks,
three cans of film
and not a penny in my pocket.

But I had been given
that glimmer of possibility,

and I decided that, okay,
I'm gonna make it in film

or-- or die on the route.

I was a beggar for a while,

and, um, then I became
a street singer.

And little by little,
I learned a little French.

I discovered there was a law

that said
a French writer could have
a temporary director's card

to bring his own creation
to the screen.

So as I was learning French,

I always had this
in the back of my mind,

and I turned myself
into a French writer.

(typing)

(man speaking French)

(man speaking French)

(Gébé, French)

(TV announcer speaking French)

(Melvin speaking French)

GÉBÉ:

WOLINSKI:

I must have met Melvin--

must have been '63, '64.

I-- Melvin was a big fan
of the Montparnasse cafés.

Somehow I had never noticed
that he was around before,

which is kind of unforgivable
because you notice Melvin.

And I was sitting at the Dôme
one night with friends,

and this guy came rushing in,
stopped at the table,

said, "Bonjour,"
in his good French,
and said, "Who are you?"

Stopped in front of me,
and said, "Who are you?"

And I said, you know,
"I'm me. I'm Janine."

He said, "Oh. We're going
to see each other again,
but not now."

We lived together
for four years,

which was a fabulous,
exhausting, heartbreaking
experience from time to time.

Paris fitted him
like a well-fit suit.

Paris was made for him,
but the Paris
of the little people,

the Paris of the bistros,
the Paris of the street.

The '60s were marvelous.

There were a lot
of expatriates in Paris.

And the black musicians--

the Art Ensemble of Chicago
was in Paris,

Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp--

all the great jazz musicians
were in Paris.

BOURNE:
There's a history in
the black intellectual community

of artists leaving the shores
to clear their heads

and to get opportunities
they couldn't get in America.

MAN:
Paris said, "Come to us."

You just got this sense of--

that there was
freedom of thought
and freedom of action there.

He did in France
a lot of the things that
he could not do in the States.

Although things were very hard
for him at the beginning.

(fingers snap)
They didn't come like that.
I mean, he had to learn French.

I mean, you don't become
a writer or journalist,

a film director
if you don't fight for it.

WOLINSKI:

GÉBÉ:

JANINE:
I used to say,
"You can't say that.

Verb comes and adjective
and pronoun and--

I mean, there are laws."
"Forget about the laws."

I said, "You know, you can't.
It's impossible."

Well--

Obviously, it was possible
because it's been published.

TV HOST (speaking French):

(speaking French)

MELVIN:
I started writing these novels.

Eventually, after I had
published four novels,

I go to the Centre du Cinema,

and I say to the guy,

"It says that a French writer
can have a temporary
director's card

to bring his own work
to the screen.

I write in French,
so I'm a French writer, right?"

And the guy looked at me
and said, "Yes."

And that's how...

I got to make
my first film.

Monsieur?

Un bier?
Oui, monsieur.

MAN (speaking French):

(man speaking French)

Action!

THIVAT:

MELVIN:
The first time I was
on the set of La Permission,

I'd never been
inside a studio before.

No one knew that except
the director of photography

who said, "I got your back.

You tell me what you want
and then I'll be able to do it."

And then after a while,

I was able to take
what he would say to me

and be able to say it myself.

(laughing)

Turner, hi.
Hi.

What are you guys
doing here?

Oh, nothing much.
Just a little
Sunday sightseeing.

WOMAN (speaking French):

(chattering)
Ooh-la-la.

TURNER:
You guys, this is a friend.
Miriam.

Miriam, uh, these are
some of the guys
from the base.

Hello.

MARTINEAU:

We'll let you
get back to your thing.

But we'll tell
everybody we saw you.

I guess I just lost
my promotion.

THIVAT:

GÉBÉ:

(Turner laughing)

THIVAT:

MELVIN:
When I get to San Francisco,

nobody knew I was an American,
let alone black.

I get off the plane.
I hear this voice call,

"Melvin Van Peebles, délégation Français.

Melvin Van Peebles,délégation Français."

And there's
this little old lady,
blue-hair type.

And I go up to her
and I say, "Ma'am."

She says, "Don't bother me, son.
I'm busy.

Melvin Van Peebles,délégation Français."

I said, "Hey, lady.

I'm Melvin Van Peebles."

The eyes rolled back
in her head.

And of course
she checks me out."Parlez-vous Français?"

And I spoke French.

And she said,
"Well, your limo's
waiting for you."

I went on to win the festival.

Hollywood began
to swarm around and said,

"Well, why you over there
with those frogs?

Why aren't you here
making films here with us?"

Eventually, I got the script
of Watermelon Man.

The guy who sent it to me
named some actors
that they've been looking for--

Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon.

But I said,
"The guy's black."

He says, "Yes,
but he starts off white."

I said, "He's only white
maybe four minutes of the film,
just during the credits.

Why don't you get a black guy
to play it in whiteface

instead of a white guy
to play it in blackface?"

He says, "Is that possible?"

Not even understanding
the inherent racism--
any black--

The king can play a valet,
but the valet couldn't
play the king.

Oh, man.

The things
they put me through to do that.

(screaming)

The story is this
obnoxious white guy

one day gets up
to go to the toilet,
and he's turned black.

How now

brown cow.

MELVIN:
In the original script,

toward the end of the movie,
he's turned white again.

I thought that implied
that being black
was just a bad dream,

and I wanted him to have
to live with it and stay black.

But we came to a compromise.
We'd shoot it both ways.

Well, I was born at night
but not last night.

So I agree.

"Sure, guys, okay.
We'll do it that way."

Ha!

ALL: Ha!

Meantime, I got a call
from the editor.

He says, "Melvin,
I can't locate the other ending
where he turns white again."

I said, "Oh, Lawda mercy,
you know, I gwan forgot dat.

I forgots to shoot it."

ALL: HA!

That's how we ended up
with the way I wanted it.

The thing I'm probably
most comfortable with
is the unknown,

because everything
I had usually gone into,
I didn't know anything about.

So it's not as frightening to me
as it may be to someone else.

♪♪ (singing in French)

I wasn't deeply into music
at that time.

It came out of just necessity.

The films that I did,

I couldn't afford
to pay anyone to do
the music and the soundtrack.

And that's how I got
into music, literally.

Um, I first started off
by humming on a comb
and, uh, you know, the kazoo.

- ♪ Zzzzz ♪
- ♪♪ (kazoo)

JANINE:
Melvin's favorite songs--

he can sing all the repertoire
of-of all the great singers
of the '30s.

He adores it.

♪♪ (singing in French)

♪♪ (man singing in French
on recording)

WOLINSKI:

♪♪ (continues)

When I came back to the States,

I was shocked by the fact
that the political movement--

There were no black songs.

I mean,
there was "We Shall Overcome,"

but there weren't songs
describing the condition--

There was Dylan,
what he was doing.

There was Baez,
and there were the other people.

But there were not
what I felt things that
mirrored the black experience.

A-one, two, three.

♪ Lum di lum di lie ♪

♪ Lum di
lum di lie ♪

I felt that the black experience
had been hijacked musically

to simply being
rhythm, beat and melody,

and the words were getting lost.

♪ This cat named Mickey
came from out of town, yeah ♪

♪ He was spreading
a new dance all around ♪

And so that's when I sort
of invented this style

that used words to carry
the message and the melody,

and I wanted to give voice
to those voiceless people.

I think that Melvin brought
storytelling back into fashion.

And anybody who wanted
to tell a story

and make
a strong narrative point--

all your early rap people,
like The Last Poets
or Gil Scott-Heron--

they had to be aware of Melvin.

SCOTT-HERON:
You will not be able
to stay home, brother.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS:
Whoo!

You will not be able
to plug in, turn on
and cop out.

WOMAN:
Yeah!

The revolution
will not be televised.

SCOTT-HERON:
With folks calling me
the godfather of rap,

I've had to, like, uh,
try to indicate the fact

that there were influences
that I picked up on
before I started,

uh, in particular,
Melvin and Oscar Brown Jr.
and people of that nature

who made sure there was
a story inside the things
that they were talking about.

MELVIN (on recording):
Don't jump, folks.

Take them looks off your face.

I ain't one
of them dope addicts.

That's a teenybopper bag.

Whoever seen a junkie
as old as me?

I just want my taste, you see?

My story's sad, ain't it?

Believe you me.

How about a little something
to show your sympathy?

Have a little pity.

What you say, folks?
You got a little booze for me?

MAN: One of my favorite albums
of all time
was the Brer Soul record,

which was released
September 26, 1968
by A&M Records.

It took the idea of someone
on the margins of society

and people's, you know,
um, conventional notions
of who that person might be.

And Melvin was trying
to do something with narrative

that would fire
people's imaginations.

Why does a play
have to be on a stage?

Why does a record have
to be listened to
instead of read?

There's no real reason.

A record like Brer Soul,
when you close your eyes
it's still in your head.

You know? I mean--

That record is probably
best listened to
in the dark, in a way.

Uh, because, um,

it's so visual, in a sense,
you almost don't need pictures.

(bell ringing)
MELVIN (on recording):
I got five bad beans

looking for trouble.

Five first presidents
backing a brother.

Looking for five more
backing the other.

Five uppity beans
just waitin'

for somebody to try
and put 'em in their place.

I got the blood.
Who got whitey?

I got the soul.
Who got whitey?

I say brother
gonna whip some behind.

The other stud
got 11 pounds on him.

But Brer gonna stomp him
limb from limb.

Don't be shy.
Come on. Make me a lie.

Who got those five beans
gonna make a fib out of me?

I'm takin' the blood.
Who got whitey?

I got the soul.
Who got whitey?

Black ain't only beautiful.

It's bad too.

It's fast, classy,

name-taking
and ass-kicking too.

I'm lookin' for five beans
that sayin' it ain't true.

When he said he was going
to write his own music,
I thought, the man is crazy.

Have you
ever heard Melvin sing?

I mean, it is monstrous.

I adore music.
Melvin adores music.

But to listen to him sing
is a punishment.

When I first heard him,
I said, "Geez, the guy
got a unique voice."

It's something like--

Hmm. Uh--

A frog on crack.

(rapping)
♪ Now, once upon a time ♪

♪ If your mouth slipped up ♪

♪ And said what
Mother Nature herself ♪

♪ Had put on your mind ♪

♪ Quick as a wink,
you'd be dead meat ♪♪

The quality of his voice
you can really argue about.

You know what I mean?
You really can.

I mean, it's not like bad.
It's just unique.

So you got to say, "All right."
You've got to deal with it.

The next thing to to--
The real next thing to do

is for you to come in here
with the headsets on
and act your foolish self

and so then we have
the damn thing done.

All right, okay.
I'm going-- I'm going--

I'm going in
to "play" and "record." Okay?
Got it.

♪♪ (rap beat)

MELVIN:
♪ Everybody ♪

♪ Get down, chillins
Get down ♪

You see that thing
in front of you there?
Yeah.

That's called a mic.

If you don't do it
into the motherfuckin' mic,
it does not record.

Because we've got the gate
and everything else on,

you've got to do
"Mm-hmm," "Oh, yeah"
and so forth.

It's too loud
to come to the gate.

But not only that,
you turn your head
half the time.

Listen to the music.
Don't try to read.

You know you
motherfuckin' can't read.
I'm tryin' to count.

Well, okay,
but you got to bob--

Who you think you are,
Stevie Wonder?
Shit, motherfucker.

(chuckling)

I go into loc 1, right?

Loc-- The bottom two.

Loc 1, yeah.

You stink, Mel.

MAN:
He was showing me some music.

And I said,
"Have you ever studied
any real composition?"

He said, "No, I have
never studied composition."

He said, "I just got
my own little way
of doing it."

He writes by numbers,

and then I'll take it
and put it into notes.

He'll sit at the piano
and go--

♪ Da-da-dum ♪

♪ De-dum ♪

Which is--
♪ 1-2-3 ♪

♪ 6-5 ♪

So he'll write like that.
He'll write 1-2-3.

♪ 6-5 ♪

♪ 7-6-5 ♪

♪ 4-3-2-1-5 ♪

This is the Sweetback theme.

6-- This is 6.

And this will be 6 1/2.

So it goes--

♪♪ (playing notes)

CHORUS:
They bled your mama!

They bled your papa!

SWEETBACK:
They won't bleed me.

Niggas scared
and pretend they don't see.

Just like you, Sweetback!

Just like I used to be.

Work your black behind
to the gums.

And you supposed
to Thomas till he done.

You got to Thomas,
Sweetback!

They bled your brother!

They bled your sister!

BOURNE:
With Sweetback,
Melvin's role as provocateur

had succeeded
beyond all reasonable means

because everybody
had something to say about it.

Everybody had something
to disagree about it.

And--

But nobody could deny its power.

(siren blaring)

Black films or, that is,

films they called
"black films,"

were never shown first-run.

I said, "Why is that?"

"Because a black film
has never made money."

"Well, how would you know?
You've never made a black film.

You've made white fantasies
of what you hoped
black people would take."

♪♪ (funk)

It's just one of those films
that really hits.

It was the timing, you know.
It was the turbulence.

We were still dealing
with what happened in the '60s,

with the whole shift,
socially, in this country.

We were--
We were no longer Negroes.

We were discovering who we are
and celebrating this.

MAN:
We were just coming
from the era of nonviolence.

And so, as the movie depicts,

a brother standing up
for justice, you know--

because in the movie,
what sets Sweetback off

is the fact that the police
is brutalizing this young
Afro-American brother,

and he couldn't turn
his back on it,
so he stood up for him.

OFFICER: You drunk?
OFFICER #2:
He looks like a sniper to me.

WOMAN:
It was something
that I had never ever seen.

I had never seen in film
a black man go up
against authority.

He just fought the system
and went up against the citadel

and just kept going back
and kept going back.

And he was just full of rage.

And the system
was just against him,
no matter what.

(screams)

BOURNE:
He is challenging,

engaging core issues
in American life--

issues that people
don't even wanna talk about.

And then he does it in a way
that's not simplistic.

Here's a guy who kills a cop
with his own handcuffs

and says he's right to do it.

It was the embodiment
of what the Party was about.

So finally we'd seen somebody
capture our thoughts,

our gestures, our ideology.

So the concept is this,
basically:

The whole black nation
has to be put together
as a black army.

And we gonna walk
on this nation.

We gonna walk
on this racist power structure.

And we gonna say
to the whole damn government,
"Stick 'em up, motherfucker.

This is a holdup.
We come for what's ours."

JENNINGS:
Huey Newton made everybody
in the Black Panther Party

go see the movie.

And he put
a revolutionary analysis
to this movie in our paper.

And I don't think
Van Peebles knew and told
how powerful this movie was

until Huey put
the analysis to it.

When I see this photo,
it reminds me of Nat Turner

or someone, like,
from the slavery days,
running for their freedom.

And when he talks about
"feet don't fail me now,"
he's talking about--

That's the only thing
black people had at that time--

their feet
and their ability to survive.

Fuck.

(barking)

At the very end, you don't know
if Sweet Sweetback
is dead or not

when they sic the dogs on him.

When you put dogs
on black people,

black people will react
in a very hostile manner

because of what's been
happening historical
to black people.

So everybody was, like, angry,

and they was cussing
at the screen

because everybody thought
it was going to be the end
for Sweetback.

So when we seen
that projected on the screen,

all it did was help
to empower us even more.

"Yeah, this has
finally got it right."

I thought there were probably
a lot of people
out there like myself

who just got tired of us
always going to the lynch mob
with a Bible and a hymn.

And, um, I wanted a movie

that black people could
walk out of standing tall,

and, uh--

at least
street black folk.

Now, there are a whole lot of
people who, um, decided--
elitists-- that, um,

they had the key
to our salvation,

and if you went
any other way you were--

you were a dirty,
rotten traitor.

Um, I won't deal with that.

Either you loved it
or you hated it.
There was no in between.

My parents, you know, hated it.
They wouldn't even
talk about it.

They'd just read things
about it. "Oh, it's terrible.
It's terrible."

And then some people
just said it was disgusting.

Yeah, baby.
(farts)

You gonna have
to be awful cool,

'cause what you do
reflects on all the rest
of our little employees.

We can't have that
'cause we got
a good operation going here.

BOURNE:
The black middle class tends to

project itself and the race
as a positive image.

The idea was to show
that we weren't degenerates.
We weren't weirdos.

Well, Melvin running around,
getting down with white women
on motorcycles,

that's not
a positive image, you see,
so they freaked out on that.

Woman:
Oh! Sweetback!

MAN:
There's a fear of blackness.

And Melvin saw blackness
emerging as a commodity,

as a commercial aspect
of popular culture.

He's playing on
black sexual stereotyping

and using that to
his advantage.

I read an article about
how blacks could move
into the mainstream

if they could only remember
their manners, et cetera.

And I wrote an article--
the guy wouldn't publish it--

but I sent it back
to the magazine.

It was entitled
"How to Eat Your Watermelon
in White Company and Enjoy It."

Well, if I like watermelon,
I'm gonna eat watermelon.

Why should I not eat it
because of this--
Hey, forget it already.

In fact, that sort of judo

was one of the major
elements of Sweetback.

I took every stereotype
and stood it on its head.

The consummate huckster,

I mean, sort of
the African-American
P.T. Barnum--

and I don't mean that
in a bad sense.

I remember seeing the ad
in the paper as a kid.

If Melvin were this black,
you wouldn't be able to see him.

Nothing but the mustache.
It was in silhouette.

It just sort of
popped off the paper.

And then the line,
"Rated X by an all-white jury."

He made himself
Bobby Seale, Huey Newton and
Eldridge Cleaver all in one.

All my life I had seen
X-rated movies,

if X-rated means damaging
to young minds.

Well, there was Tarzan.

There was King Kong.
There was Mantan Moreland,

There were all
these Stepin Fetchits,
et cetera, et cetera.

And I can't find, in my mind,
anything more devastating
to the psyche

of a young
African-American or minority
than those things.

You don't call those X?

I think you've lost
your credibility to judge.

And so,
I wouldn't go to them.

And then when I wouldn't
go to them, that meant
I had an automatic X.

That's when I made these
T-shirts and the slogan--

"Rated X by an all-white jury."

Valenti, he went ballistic.
"You can't say that. Race has
nothing to do with it."

I said, "You're all white,
right?" "Yeah."
"So what's your problem?"

And it was partially
because of that stance

that the ratings board now
is more diversified.

Melvin's a great marketer.
(chuckles)

That was a marketing tool.

They-- They did him a favor
by giving him an X rating.

Whatever they did to him,
he turned it into a positive.

BOURNE:
He is bullheaded,

and he has a clear vision
of what he wants to do.

And if you get in his way,
you're gonna get knocked over.

I was on a panel
with Melvin in Ohio,

sponsored by
a black-studies department.

And we were all holding forth
about, you know,
theory and cinema

and positive images
and, you know, the need for
a revolutionary cinema.

And the night before,
they had shown Sweetback,

and a community brother
in the audience, he says,

"Look, Melvin,
I saw your stuff last night,
and it was all dark, man.

You really messed up
on the coloring.
It's too dark."

So Melvin, he says to him,

"Look, these are
artistic decisions that I made.

I'd like to hear
how you react to 'em,
but they were not mistakes.

Everything in that film
was thought out.
There's a reason for it."

And the guy says,
"Man, as far as I'm concerned,
I thought it was fucked up."

Melvin leaps off the stage,

wades through the audience
and punches the cat out.

Oh, that's it, motherfucker.
Bap!

And this is academia, you know.
This is not supposed to happen.

What I used to have
in my office
was so funny.

And I regret to this day
I didn't buy 12 canisters of it.

Somebody came along
selling watermelon spray.

And sometimes when I had people
come into my office,
I would spray the office.

And they would come in and say,
"Gee, Mel, what's that odor?

It smells like,
uh, uh, uh, uh, cantaloupe,"
or something.

No white folk wants to say--
(laughing)

(French)

MELVIN:
When Sweetback came out,

only two theaters in
the entire United States
would show the thing.

But it went on to become
the highest grossing
independent film up to its time.

I owned everything.
I owned the music.
I owned the publishing.

I owned the whole damn thing.

That's-- You think,
"Oh, that's smart."
I was some financial wizard.

No.

Nobody would
come in with me.

BOURNE:
When Melvin made Sweetback,
nobody could deny the power.

But what happened was
the classic American process.

What Hollywood said,
"Wow. A lot of people
like this stuff.

Let's take the formula for it,

take out the politics

and give 'em
a wave of these films."

And essentially,
blaxploitation is
the bastard child of Sweetback.

My name's Coffy.

MAN:
They made Shaft.
They made Superfly.

There was a chance
for black actors

to get some work
in leading-man roles.

But there was also
something else going on.

What they did was
they perverted the message.

Bobby Rush, ex-Panther,
Congressman Bobby Rush,
said to me,

"One of the things that your
father's film Sweet Sweetback's
Baadasssss Song did

was it made being
a revolutionary hip.

And the Panthers made
being a revolutionary hip.

But Superfly made
being a drug dealer hip."

Big difference.

That impact of Superfly
and a lot of these movies
did a lot of damage.

And eventually, if you
make enough shark movies
or enough Vietnam movies,

people will get tired
of going to them.

And what they did
was they shut the economic doors
in Hollywood, and they said--

They didn't say
"Those action-y movies
aren't making money anymore."

They said, "Those movies
with those black people
aren't making money anymore,"

and they shut
the economic doors.

My dad said to me later on,
he learned from that process
of doing Sweetback

that it was very important
that the big boys win
when you win.

If they don't win when you win,
they have no interest
in you winning.

In fact, they have an interest
in you not winning, and
they'll resent your winning.

He didn't get another job.

Here's a man that produced and
directed an independent hit--
acted in it--

and didn't get other
acting offers, and didn't get
other directing offers.

Twenty years later, kids that
grew up on that stuff,

kids like Spike Lee,
kids like Mario Van Peebles,

kids like the Hudlin brothers,
kids like John Singleton, uh,

who grew up seeing those movies.

"Hey, I want to do that."

Because they were shown
it was possible.

My dad, he didn't open doors.
He blew them off the hinges.

Uh, what are your interests
for the future as far as
music and film is concerned?

Well, my interest for the future
is just like my interest
for the past, man.

Whatever I think can
further the consciousness

of the disenfranchised
third-world folk.

If cinema no longer becomes
relevant to the struggle,
I ain't gonna make another film.

Um, if music,
for some unforeseeable reason,

no longer is the message,
or one of the methods

of reaching the folks,
then I'll have to put it down.

Um, it does not--
The media does not dictate
the message, man.

The need dictates the media.

♪ Just don't make no sense ♪

♪ The way my corns
are hurting me ♪

♪ When a man
runs his game ♪

♪ Lord knows he sure
runs it mean ♪

♪ Four buses gone by
for them ♪

♪ And not one
gone by for me ♪

♪ Hey, cruise on
in your bad ride, brother ♪

♪ Let the world know
you is somebody, yeah ♪

♪ No, no ♪

♪ Just don't make no sense ♪

♪ The way these corns
are hurting me ♪♪

You've had, uh,
tremendous public--

and it's irrelevant what kind of
financial success you've had
from Sweet Sweetback and--

Well, it's not irrelevant.
It's very important.
I mean--

- Well, it's personal also.
- No, it's not personal.

You know, Ellis,
you're very kind

because the money aspect
is usually a thing
not to be discussed

because people who've made money
usually get very uptight.

I have no qualms
about the money I made
because the money is power.

The money has allowed Ain't Supposed to Die
to stand there.

MAN:
The first--
Probably the first hard-nosed

black scream
ever done on Broadway.

Black theater was--
There was Raisin in the Sun,

and the musical Raisin,
and Purlie Victorious--

but there was nothing
that came from the stomach,

no visceral black theater.

Melvin wrote something

using jazz riffs

about various people

living in a ghetto
and their pain.

The postman who goes crazy,

the guy that's being executed,

the bag lady,
the black cop on the street,

the kid that's running
away from the cop.

Come on, feet.
Do this for me.

AZENBERG: He thinks that
because he can run fast
he can outrun a bullet.

As the bullet hits him
and he dies,

the feet never stop running.

Those were people that had
no voices in the society,

and Melvin gave them a voice.

What I'm trying to do
is train,

or make opportunities
for other blacks, um,

to-- to explore
wherever their heads lie,
so there is a broader thing.

One of the complaints leveled
against Sweetback--

It was, um, all blacks
weren't like that.

Well, absolutely not.

Just like any of the 19 segments
in Ain't Supposed to Die
a Natural Death

is not blackness in itself.

Even the ensemble of
all those things do not
represent the mirrored facets.

Uh, the only thing to
do about that is get more
brothers and sisters up there

where they can express
where they're coming from
and what they know.

WOMAN:
When the show started,
the house lights are on.

And the set is visible.
There's no curtain.

And the band plays
"The Star-Spangled Banner."

And this is the early 1970s,

and people are having to
define themselves

by hearing
"The Star-Spangled Banner"
in a theater

like they hear it
in a baseball game,
and they don't know what to do.

Did it mean if they stood up
were they with Reagan or Nixon?

And if they sat, did it mean
they were aligning themselves
with the militants?

It was a very,
very profound statement.

AZENBERG:
We just thought,
this is what you do.

You're supposed to produce plays
that are meaningful,

that have something to say,
it's about something.

So we did it.
We didn't know,
nor did we think--

There weren't even the terms
marketing in those days.
We just did it.

What turned
out is that an audience

that had heretofore
never gone to the theater
started to show up.

MELVIN:
The audience did not know
what a hard ticket sale was,

and people would buy their
ticket, they'd come early,
sit down and wait an hour.

Then somebody would say,
"You're sitting in my seat."

"What do you mean,
I'm sitting in your seat?
I've been here an hour."

They didn't realize
each seat had a number on it.

(shouting)

AZENBERG:
Some numbers were devastating.

The last number in the show
was Minnie Gentry,
who plays a bag lady.

She'd been wandering
around for the entire evening
on the street,

and then she turns to
the audience and says,
"Put a curse on you."

Put a curse on you!

May all of your children
end up junkies too.

Your mind been
tricked by the power
to buy that ounce.

Your young daughters
give rich old dudes

head in limousines too.

Put a curse on you.

AZENBERG:
The audience went crazy.

I-It spoke such pain
that people screamed and yelled.

People were weeping.
It was a killer.

Ain't got
nothing else to do.

BONUS:
When the lady at the end says,
"I put a curse on you.

May all your children
end up junkies too"--

And I'm sitting there
and I'm thinking,

I had an interracial marriage.

When my daughter's father left
and my marriage fell apart, um,

everything I believed in
fell apart

because people divided in
my life on a racial basis.

And, um--

And when I went to see Ain't Supposed to Die
that night

and heard these voices

saying what I felt
and what I was experiencing

and what I knew my daughter
was gonna experience, um,

I was really
shaken to my core

that the truth could be said
in such a way that--

You know, the people
that got uncomfortable

when they sawAin't Supposed to Die,
they were shamed

because it told
the truth about America.

(shouting)

WOMAN:
There was no reconciliation.

It's so Melvinesque,
not to have a reconciliation

where everybody comes together
very happily,

and the addict goes to rehab
and this goes to that.

No. It was
it's going to continue.

AZENBERG:
The New York Times roasted it.

Clive Barnes found it offensive,

and he wrote this awful notice

and then apologized
on the radio the next day.

And he said, "I missed it.
I missed its pain."

It helped for a while when
we got the seven nominations.

But for the most part,
the white audience
was afraid of it.

They don't want to be yelled it.
White people wanted to come to
the theater for entertainment.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, from
the stage of the Broadway
Theatre in New York City,

the League of New York
Theatres presents

the 26th annual celebration
of the American Theatre Wing's
Tony Awards.

With scenes from
Jesus Christ, Superstar,

No, No Nanette,

Ain't Supposed to Die
a Natural Death,

and the musicals
of Rodgers & Hammerstein.

(applause)

Ain't Supposed to Die
a Natural Death

is a series of songs
and musical sketches

which surround us
with the heartbreak
and the humor,

the frustrations
and the lifestyle
of the urban black ghetto.

In the writing, the book--
in other words,
the music and the lyrics--

they are all
the passionate work of one man,
Melvin Van Peebles.

And as the critic
of the New York Times
said in his review,

"New York and its friendly,
neighborhood ghetto

has moved away somewhat
from Damon Runyon,

and Mr. Van Peebles
is taking note of
the transition.

I suspect," the Times continues,

"that this is a fair picture
of a 1971 street scene,

not, dear friend, on
the street where you live"--

AZENBERG:
Did it have lasting impact
on some people? Sure.

You just tap the sensibilities
of somebody, it stays.

And, uh,

it certainly opened the door
for other "black theater."

♪ Oh, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ You cut up the clothes ♪

♪ In the closet of my dreams ♪

♪ You pulled on the sleeves
and ripped out the seams ♪

MAN:
Here's how I found out
about Dont Play Us Cheap.

Melvin asked me to come by
the office and pick up a script.

In the office
was Manny Azenberg,

and Manny had the same script
in his hand.

And Melvin looked at the two
of us, first at me, and he said,

"Jerry, is that a film
or a play?"

I said, "It's a film."
And he looked at Manny,

and he said,
"Is that a film or a play?"

And Manny said, "A play."

And Melvin said,
"You're both right."
(laughing)

He said, "Tell you what
we're gonna do, guys.

We're gonna make this
as a movie,

and we're gonna rehearse
the movie as if it was a play.

We're going to record
the soundtrack.

We're going to shoot the movie
after it's well rehearsed.

Manny, you will have
built a set

and prepared
the Broadway production
and sell the tickets.

We'll start running the play.

We'll take three or four months
to run the play

while I go back
and cut the film,

and when the play is beginning
to need a boost,

we'll release the film."

MAN:
The major impact
of Dont Play Us Cheap

and Ain't Supposed to Die
a Natural Death--

Because at one time, both was
running at the same time.

It was one of the few times
in the history of the American
theater

a black writer had--
probably the only time--

had two shows on Broadway
at the same time.

But while you may have

more blacks on Broadway
than ever before in the seats,

it is not enough
to pay the bills
that Broadway demands.

We struggled every week
to get through.

But we got through each week
for a year.

We didn't think hit.

You can't think of doingAin't Supposed to Die
a Natural Death and think "hit."

He made no money onAin't Supposed to Die

and no money onDont Play Us Cheap.

BOURNE: He has a saying--
A setback is just an opportunity
in work clothes.

He always says that.

So, you know,
I think that's what he feels.

He says, "Listen, it can be done
if you have a setback.

It just means
you're gonna have to find

another opportunity
to do what you want to do,
'cause you will do it."

I mean, he's just indomitable.
That's the way he thinks.

He talks about
the art of the possible.
The art of the possible.

And-And-And being bold
and direct in attaining it.

He's the same way, you know,
sort of coming on to women.

Everybody's always
asking me about girls
because, um--

And in Cosmopolitan,
I was named
the bachelor of the month.

- Oh.
- And the girl came and
asked me. She interviewed me.

She asked me, you know,
my philosophy of women,
et cetera, et cetera.

And I explained to her
I like girls who didn't tell,
didn't yell,

didn't swell
and were grateful as hell.

And she put, "Articulate."

♪ Come on, feet ♪

♪ Cruise for me ♪

♪ Trouble ain't no place to be ♪

MAN: His morning run consisted
of a series of stops
that he'd make along the way.

He had six, seven different
women he had to "keep happy"
during the week.

And while he did this,
he had to visit them.
He had to pay attention.

One was a contortionist.
He'd go to her.
He'd get that going.

The next one he'd talk about--
more of a domestic woman

who would cook him
a pancake breakfast,
and then he'd take care of her.

Then he'd be on to the next one.
He was taking care of them along
the way along this route.

Like the bee going from flower
to flower, you know,
taking a little from everywhere.

WOMAN:
He keeps them
really well organized.

If you are Tuesday night,
you're Tuesday night,

and don't come or call
on Wednesday evening.

That's my father.

ALLEN:
If you want to be a part
of Melvin's world,

you really have to understand
his life and his work.

There are clear boundaries.
There is work and there is play.

And if one minute
after 6:00 work begin?
Play stops at 6:00.

You know, and there is no way
to get him back to play.

♪ Yeah, must have run all day ♪

♪ Sure have a bitch ♪

♪ Must have run all day ♪♪

DWELLINGHAM: There's a day
when we were gonna go on down
to Philadelphia.

My wife was with me,
so Mel said come over to the
office and wait for me.

So we're sitting in the office,
and this woman come in
to interview Melvin.

Nice looking blonde woman.
Nice body. The whole thing.

Next thing I hear,
the woman in there moanin'.

I said, "Now what the hell
is happening in there now?"

Then I hear the woman,
she getting louder and louder
and everything.

Melvin in there
doin' the woman.

I said,
"Damn it.
Did he know that woman?"

This is when
I had just started
working with him.

That's when I really found out
how this guy was, you know.

And he was in there
doin' the woman.
The woman moanin' and groanin'.

They goin' at it like crazy,
you know.

And my wife say, "Did he know
that woman?" I said,
"No, he didn't know that woman!"

Melvin had no problem
with my porn career.

Uh, often showed up
at some of my shoots, uh,

and chatted up the models.

Um, one of my publishers used to
give me a certain amount
of money every month

to make big parties
to promote the magazine
and to do shoots.

We had all kinds of
strange goings-on,

and naked people and models
at those parties.

Uh, I don't think Melvin
missed too many of those.

My love belongs to you.

♪ My love belongs to you
Mm-mmm ♪

♪ My love belongs to you
Mm-mmm ♪

♪ My love belongs to you
Mm-mmm ♪

Well, the first thing you do,
you go in bodacious on 'em.

You know what I mean,
don't you, fellas?

You throw 'em off balance,
you dig?

♪ Forever, we're through ♪

♪ I don't mean just yesterday ♪

♪ I'm talkin' about today ♪♪

MARIO:
He doesn't take himself
too seriously.

He's the one that said,
"Man, you've got four stages
in your life.

There's Mario who? Get me Mario.
Get me a young Mario.
And Mario who?"

So do something
you're proud of
while you're here.

MAN:
He's made a hit movie and been
nominated for nine Tony Awards.

So what is Melvin Van Peebles
doing on the floor of the
American Stock Exchange?

MELVIN:
I tend to hang with
businessmen quite often

because they deal a little more
where the rubber meets the road.

We were going to put money
into a project,
Henry Jarecki and I,

and we were arguing
about the rate of return.

And I said one thing,
and he said another.

MAN:
My memory is that
there was a bet.

I don't even remember
what it was that we bet about.

Come on, Henry, give me a break.
What's the vigorish of the bet?

I mean, you know--
And the vigorish--

that is, the interest of
the bet on his side
was if I lost,

I'd go to work
on Wall Street.

MAN:
To become a market maker
down there,

you need to put your time in
and really learn
over a period of years.

It takes a while to assimilate
all that material
and to learn the language.

You're using a different
language to trade in.

(babbling)
I didn't know what
they're talking about.

Everybody who'd been there
had worked their way up
for 15 years, et cetera.

I understood nothing.

And so two days later
I took the test,
and I didn't pass it.

And so I was off the hook,
more or less.

But then, that sort of
got my goat, et cetera.

And so I hired myself
out as a clerk.

I was probably the oldest clerk.

And after a while,
what sounded like Greek

began to sound like
Old English,

began to sound like
Shakespearean English,

and then began
to make sense.

So the next month I took
the test again, and I passed.

And two weeks later,
I was a trader on Wall Street.

And on
the American Stock Exchange,
I was the first black trader.

NICHOLS:
He would do it in his own way.
Even down to--

In the very beginning,
he'd give me
these trade tickets.

And you were supposed to write
what you bought.

You bought a January call
at whatever price.

And Melvin had a whole shorthand
that wasn't regular shorthand.
He made it up.

Hey--
What are you talking about?

No more of them remarks.

NICHOLS: Melvin would come
walking in with this real crazy,
complex kind of trade,

and get the specialist going,
"What is this?"
and scratching their heads.

And while they were scratching
their heads and saying,
"Where'd you get-- What's this?"

Melvin would start
engaging them in conversation,
tell them a joke,

get them distracted.

He got them to do the trade.
He'd walk away having
the order filled,

and the specialist is sitting
there scratching their head,
"What is this all about?"

MAN:
The fact that he came from
a theater background

almost actually
was his saving grace.

Because when you would walk
into these crowds,

it was a performance.

You would walk in and there
would be maybe 10, 15
people standing there,

and you would announce
what you wanted to do.

And there was a certain
theatrical nature to it.

And these are not, you know,
just nice people.

These are, you know,
these seasoned,
veteran traders

who have been down there
for 10 years,

and they all have
an ax to grind, and you had to
have some presence.

And he had a lot of presence.

WOMAN:
He would wear very wide,
out-of-fashion ties,

And the reason he wore
these out-of-fashion ties

was that became the joke on
the floor of the exchange.

What kind of tie
is Van Peebles wearing today?

And, "Hey, Van Peebles,
where'd you get that tie?"

It was his way
of giving people an opening
to be friendly with him.

He didn't have the kind of style
that the floor traders did,

but he was very sensible
and thoughtful

and a big help in getting us
to think about it.

And he ultimately
even did a book about it.

Uh, I think the two of us were
staggered to see a book on
options trading

from Melvin Van Peebles.
Right.

Four years later, I turned on
the TV, and there's Melvin
on Channel 5 or whatever,

talking about, you know,
as a financial options analyst,
talking about the market.

I was flabbergasted.
I couldn't believe it.
Right.

How did he do that?

MELVIN:
Is Wall Street a vital link in
commerce or a rich man's bingo?

Actually it's both.

Wall Street is the center
of trade and, as such,
it serves a vital function.

On the other hand,
it's a booming, fertile casino.

Melvin came from Wall Street, so
his first bunch of commentaries
were about Wall Street.

Then he could go on
any other ideas

and crazy spots
that he had in mind.

Tonight, Melvin's going to
tackle, uh--

Well, he's going to be
talking about--

I'm going to let you
figure it out.

I have the housing solution.

Here goes--
hookers and the homeless.

The homeless need beds, right?

A bed is not much
when you got one,
everything when you don't.

There are beds, hundreds
of them,

little used, relatively
speaking,

scattered conveniently all over
the city.

Rooms of prostitution-- cribs.

Every hooker should be assigned
a homeless person

who gets the mattress
when she's not using it.

And those ladies or gentlemen
or in-betweens of the evening

will do their bit, gladly,
without a fight,

seeing as how they all--
everybody knows--
have hearts of gold, right?

I'm Melvin Van Peebles.
Good night.

♪ All I wanna do-- do
is have some fun ♪

♪ I got a feeling
I'm not the--
I'm not the only one ♪

Yeah. Wh-What's up?
What do you want?

Thank you.

MAN: Since he works
on 50 projects at a time,
one has to come.

One has to happen.

If he goes
into a meeting and-and

you practice your song
and you don't like it--

"It's all good. Don't worry.
I have another one. Here.

I have another one."
You know what I'm saying?

He's always ready
for the next move.

WOMAN:
It comes from that session.
♪♪ (piano: jazz)

It comes from--
Yeah, but I'm thinking we can do
something like Count Basie.

♪♪ (hitting notes)
♪♪ (scatting)

♪ All I wanna-- ♪
You know, just each note--

You know, "blee-dink"
or "bleh-dink."

♪ All I wanna-- ♪

MAN: Tell me more about
the cabaret show.
MELVIN: It's pretty eclectic.

I use a lot of
the American songs,
and a lot of my own songs.

And people get to hear 'em again
in a way that they've
never heard them before.

♪ Don't tell my heart ♪

♪ My achy breaky heart ♪

♪ I just don't think
he'd understand ♪

♪ Don't be a dog ♪

♪ But if you tell my heart ♪

♪ My achy breaky heart ♪

♪ He might just blow up,
kill this man ♪♪

MEGAN:
There is a lot of patience

that my father has
that a lot of people don't see.

Like with this new movie,The Bellyful.

Um, that's a novel

that my dad has wanted to do
for 33 years.

(French)

(gasps)

(French)

Très bien.
Perfect! Perfect!

MILNER:
There's a part of Melvin
that really is an enigma,

and nobody
will ever know the roots of
so many things about him.

When I asked him once
how he came to be so good
at deal-making,

uh, he said that when
he was a little kid
in his father's tailor shop,

his father used to give him a
little toy wagon to go out with

and pile on the clothes
that were not claimed
by customers and sell them.

"If I asked too much money
for the clothes,

then the big boys
would beat me up
and take the clothes anyway.

And if I asked too little money
for the clothes,

my father would beat me up
when I got home."

He said, "So I learned
how to make deals where
everybody came out a winner."

These are some of
the little clues you get
about Melvin's early life.

He made himself
an early promise about sex--

that he was going to get
plenty of it.

And, uh, sometimes I tell him
now that this promise he made
to this 11-year-old boy,

maybe he should ease up on it
a little bit now.

(laughing)
But, uh,

he stays faithful to those
vows he made to himself

when he was very small
and he was going
to overcome the world.

MELVIN: There are 50 billion
things that I want to explore,
that I want to understand,

that I haven't had
a chance to do.

I had to deal with
the pragmatic--
making it work.

And since there was
no infrastructure,

I had to be
a one-man infrastructure.

I thought of myself
as sort of like on a unicycle.

Remember that song
"Joshua Fit the Battle
of Jericho"?

Well, what actually happened
my Joshua of the situation is--

I'm on a unicycle. I go--
(imitates horn)

I blow at this end.
I pedal real fast to
the next side of the wall.

(imitates horn)
And people say,
"Jesus, we're surrounded!"

It's just one guy out there
on a fuckin' unicycle.
You know what I mean?

That's what I did.

(no audible dialogue)

They did a good job.

Pretty close, huh?

MAN:
He taught me it's possible.
And he taught me it's possible.

And he taught me
you have the choice,
and you have to make it.

But you have the choice
to make your life what
you want it to be.

You don't have to let it be
imposed to you.

MARIO:
My dad didn't change
his lifestyle.

He early on recognized the power
in keeping a low overhead.

He realized that there is
a line, a balance between
having what you want

and doing what you want.

And the more you have
what you want, the less
you're gonna do what you want.

So once he said, "Hey, man,
I've got three jackets,
two jeans and some boots,

I can make anything."

(no audible dialogue)

MELVIN:
I'm not really interested
in the outside part of it,

the-- the accolades of it.

I'm-- I'm just really fascinated
by the people of it.

(chattering)

MAN:
Melvin Van Peebles,

on behalf of the president
of the French Republic,

and by virtue
of the powers vested in me,

I hereby make you a knight
of the Legion of Honor.

(cheering)

MELVIN:
I'm fascinated by people.

And, as such,
I want to know them.

I want to see
what they're doing.

And I find notoriety,
in many ways,

is an extreme hindrance

to, um--
to really deal with people.

So I prefer-- if possible--

to sort of, just like they say,
just "lay in the cut"

and watch things pass.

That's what I prefer to do.

And, um, I don't really feel
any major urge

to be out there,
to be, um--

to be in the limelight,
other than

it's nice to get paid
for your work.

But outside of that, eh,

I'm a happy camper
just hiding in the shadows,

watching the world turn.

MELVIN:
♪ Excuse me, lady, but you
foolin', ain't you? ♪

♪ Where can I be?
This ain't America, is it? ♪

♪ Oh, Lord,
where can I be? ♪

♪ This ain't America, is it? ♪

♪ Naw, this ain't America ♪

♪ You can't fool me ♪

♪ This here's
the home of the sheriff ♪

♪ Not the land of the free ♪

♪ In America, folks don't
run through the streets ♪

♪ Blood streaming
from where they been beat ♪

♪ And the parks
are for the people ♪

♪ And the cops
In the good old USA ♪

♪ Don't think they're
some kinda gods either ♪

♪ Naw, this ain't America ♪

♪ You can't fool me ♪

♪ If you don't spit
the right image ♪

♪ They just pull out
their DDT ♪

♪ If they don't like
the way you look ♪

♪ They just law and order
and trick and trip

♪ Name and frame and blame ♪

♪ Just legislate
and club away ♪

♪ And just laugh
louder and louder ♪

♪ Naw, this ain't America ♪

♪ You can't fool me ♪

♪ Naw, this ain't America ♪

♪ You can't fool me ♪

♪ Love ♪
♪ That's America ♪

♪ Open arms
for every creature ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ That's America ♪
♪ Open arms for every man ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ That's America ♪
♪ Joy and peace
and harmony ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ That's America ♪
♪ Children
with laughing eyes ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ Love,
that's America ♪
♪ That's America ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ That's America ♪
♪ Our old eagle
soarin' again ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ That's America ♪
♪ The old eagle
wearin' a grin ♪

♪ Love ♪

♪ That's America ♪
♪ Our old eagle soarin' ♪

♪ Oh, yeah ♪

♪ Love, that's America ♪

♪ Love, that's America ♪

♪ Love, that's America ♪

♪ This here's
the land of the sniper ♪

♪ Love, that's America ♪

♪ Not the home of the brave ♪

♪ Oh, say can't you smell?
Are you too smug to see? ♪

♪ Greed done pulled the plug ♪

♪ Your democracy's
defrosting ♪

♪ Something gone rotten ♪

♪ Smells like
justice and liberty ♪♪