Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

An independent film with the title Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. It consists of a single reel of color 16mm acetate film with optical sound. The film, which is famed director Spike Lee's first feature film, was submitted as his thesis while attending New York University's filmmaking master's program, and features a musical score composed by his father, Bill Lee. It tells the story of a barbershop owner who must decide whether to make a deal with a local gangster in order to keep his shop open.

When Joe (Horace Long), a barbershop owner and numbers game racketeer, robs local gangster Nicholas Lovejoy (Tommy Redmond Hicks), he is tied to cinderblocks and thrown into Manhattan's East River. The barbershop's manager, Zach Homer (Monty Ross) inherits Joe's barbershop after the homicide. However, he struggles to retain customers with the cessation of the illegal numbers game. Concurrently, Ruth (Donna Bailey), Zach's wife, introduces Teapot (Stuart Smith), a local delinquent youth, to her husband and advocates for Homer to employ him in the barbershop.

Later in the film, Mr. Lovejoy's gangsters kidnap and assault Homer while Lovejoy himself coerces him to use the barbershop as a point of sale for the numbers game. At home, Ruth inquiries about Homer's wounds and implores him to diversify the hairstyles he offers at the barbershop or move with her to Atlanta, to which Homer replies that he will do neither. Later that evening, Lovejoy appears at the Homers' residence unannounced and, once again, implores Homer to join the numbers game. After Homer reinstates the numbers game, customers return to the barbershop and business begins booming once again. However, this entrepreneurial success is short lived as Homer, like his predecessor, robs Mr. Lovejoy and attempts to flee with his wife to Atlanta.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1983
• Directed by: Spike Lee, American, born 1957
• Written by: Spike Lee, American, born 1957
• Produced by: Spike Lee, American, born 1957
• Composed by: Bill Lee, American, born 1928
• Subject of: Monty Ross, American, born 1957
• Subject of: Tommy Redmond Hicks, born 1962
• Subject of: Donna Bailey
• Subject of: Stuart Smith
• Type: sound films
• Type: color films (visual works)
• Type: feature films
• Type: 16mm (photographic film size)
• Medium: acetate film
• Dimensions: Duration: 53 Minutes
• Dimensions: Length (Film): 1900 Feet
• Place depicted: Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York City, Kings County, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Place made: United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Barbershops
• Topic: Business
• Topic: Communities
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Independent films
• Topic: Urban life
• Object number: 2017.55.22.1a
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Transferred from the DC Public Library
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © Spike Lee Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.