Is this for real?

Slate posted a conversation with Spike Lee. Here's the thing... It feels kind of Onion-y to me. For instance:

Slate: You know, I go to a Clint Eastwood movie, and I see that time after time, Morgan Freeman is playing Clint Eastwood's sidekick. Everyone loves these movies; they always win awards. But nobody complains about that. There's no black group that complains and asks, 'Why can't Clint Eastwood be Morgan Freeman's sidekick?' Would you like to see a black uproar over that?

SL: Oh, man. We have more things to have an uproar about than Morgan Freeman. But the point that you make is true, that we just don't have the lobbying power that other groups have, and it has to do with political and financial clout. So, that's that.

Don't you get the feeling they're fucking with Spike? Or how about this one:

Slate: Do you think there's a difference between a black acting style and a white acting style?

SL: No, I'm not gonna—no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not. Nope.

Slate: Because I look at a great actor like Jeffrey Wright—do you like his stuff?

SL: Yeah, I love Jeffrey.

Slate: And I see that he's not an actor in the mold of, say, Brando, or Sean Penn. Wright disappears into his characters like a British actor, and I see a lot of African-American actors doing that—Cuba Gooding, I think, does that also.

SL: You're putting Cuba Gooding in the same league with Jeffrey Wright?

Slate: No.

SL: Oh, thank you.

"Oh, thank you." Classic.

And where was the Rent question? Spike worked for years to get a Miramax-funded version into production; I'd love to hear what he has to say about what finally made it to the screen. (I get the feeling that Spike is probably a huge fan of Chris Columbus's oeuvre.)