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Spike Lee has grabbed a tiger by the tail in his scabrously risky new comedy, "Bamboozled." The wonder is how long he succeeds in hanging on. The nifty concept behind this dangerous free-for-all satire on race, television and black images in the media is demonically inspired and uncomfortably to the point. A black Harvard-educated executive for a failing television network hatches a Frankenstein monster of a program called "Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show." The program, of course, is an instant smash. As its ratings go through the roof, it saves the ailing network, wins its creator some Emmy Awards, and fosters a national craze for wearing blackface. It also ignites angry protests led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran (as themselves). And the Mau Maus, a revolutionary gun-toting rap collective that suggests a comically dumbed-down hybrid of the Black Panthers and Public Enemy, declares war on the show. When "Bamboozled" gets around to presenting portions of the notorious program, it's a raucous song- and-dance mixture of "Amos 'n' Andy," old-time vaudeville and burlesque (minus the dirty jokes). Its co-stars, Manray (Savion Glover), a tap-dancing clown, and his wisecracking sidekick, Womack (Tommy Davidson), are a pair of homeless street performers who are scooped off the sidewalks of New York by the show's debonair creator, Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) and are re- christened Mantan and Sleep 'n' Eat. Mr. Wayans's Pierre is a disturbing if labored caricature. At once suave and stuffy, he speaks in a phony, pseudo-academic voice that's slightly prissy and determinedly above it all. Mantan and Sleep 'n' Eat are supported by a song-and-dance ensemble, the Pickaninnys, who include rollicking reincarnations of Aunt Jemima, Sambo, Rastus and Jungle Bunny. The jolly minstrel band accompanying them is called the Alabama Porch Monkeys.

Despite all the furor, "Mantan" is embraced by critics as liberating -- and by a multiracial audience, who accept the show as a hip, ironic celebration of black culture laughing at itself. Where the movie ventures onto dangerous ground is in its implication that the same impulses have led black hip-hoppers and their white imitators to embrace the word "nigger" (and its gangsta rap variations) as a proud badge of identity. (The use of the word is addressed critically in Stevie Wonder's theme song for "Bamboozled") In one of the movie's funniest and most disturbing scenes, members of the show's live audience, all of whom have put on blackface, pop up from their seats to explain enthusiastically why they are "niggers." No filmmaker knows better than Mr. Lee how laughter can be the surest avenue to painful and scary truths. And "Bamboozled," which takes its title from a Malcolm X speech warning that black people have let themselves be led astray, is at its most provocative when it is fall-down funny. The movie goes out of its way to point out that frankly racist humor can be just as rib- tickling to black audiences as to white, if the comedian telling the jokes is black and the humor comes at the expense of whites. In one of the movie's neat little plot devices, Pierre's estranged father is a raunchy standup comic in the Redd Foxx mode who ekes out a living on the black nightclub circuit breaking up audiences with his hilariously racist sex jokes.

"Bamboozled" rides proudly on the backs of two classic boob-tube critiques, "A Face in the Crowd" and "Network." Pierre's ambivalent relationship with his disapproving assistant and former girlfriend, Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett-Smith), recalls that of Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal in "A Face in the Crowd." Like Ms. Neal's character in the 1957 film, Sloan is the movie's torn conscience who knows that the hit show is evil and who ultimately turns against Pierre as she watches his ego spin out of control. An even closer relative is Sidney Lumet's satirical "Network," whose punch line, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore," "Bamboozled" appropriates for its own subversive purposes.

But there's still no mistaking "Bamboozled" for anything other than a Spike Lee movie. Filmed in digital video (which effectively emphasizes its television setting), "Bamboozled" is a typically rough- hewn Brechtian collage that hurls ideas onto the screen without striving to be realistic or even narratively coherent. When there is an inspired bit, like a devastating spoof on a Tommy Hilfiger commercial, or a chilling scene in which a coldblooded "media consultant" tells the network exactly how to present the minstrel show, it gets tossed into the mix. The characters' relationships don't have to make psychological sense so long as they balance the film's political equations. Sloan's brother (Mos Def) happens to be a Mau Mau leader who has renamed himself Big Black. She also initiates an improbable romance with Manray, whom she instructs in black history and encourages to rebel against his role. At a certain point "Bamboozled," like so many satires, has nowhere left to go and begins crumbling into melodrama. But it eventually regains its composure with an astonishing coda, a montage documenting the use of blackface and racist caricatures in television and the movies since the silent era. Besides such obvious figures as Al Jolson, this Hollywood hall of shame implicates Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and several beloved cartoon characters. The very messiness of "Bamboozled" lends it an immediacy and heat that a more polished movie couldn't have generated. Its most obvious target is the predominantly white-run television industry. At the same time, it accuses African-American writers and performers in black-oriented comedies (like "In Living Color") of creating work that demeans blacks through caricatures that are not that far removed from "Amos 'n' Andy."

On a deeper level, "Bamboozled" addresses the broader issue of minstrelsy and American culture and poses unanswerable questions about black identity, assimilation and the give and take between white and black cultures. It suggests that the craze for acting black (the figurative putting on of blackface) has never been more pronounced than it is today with the rise of the "hip-hop nation," as hordes of white teenagers adopt black fashion and street argot. But at what point does exaggerated black style, no matter how defiantly self-affirming, become a self- defeating form of minstrelsy? It is a question that's so touchy, with so many different answers depending on who's talking, that few dare ask it. So bravo to Spike Lee for bringing it up. In going where few have dared to tread, "Bamboozled" is an almost oxymoronic entity, an important Hollywood movie. Its shelf life may not be long, nor will it probably be a big hit, since the laughter it provokes is the kind that makes you squirm. But that's what good satire is supposed to do. Out of discomfort can come insight.

"Bamboozled" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has some violence and profanity and raunchy humor. Written and directed by Spike Lee; director of photography, Ellen Kuras; edited by Sam Pollard; music by Terence Blanchard; choreography by Savion Glover; production designer, Victor Kempster; produced by Jon Kilik and Mr. Lee; released by New Line Cinema. Running time: 135 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: Damon Wayans (Pierre Delacroix), Savion Glover (Manray/Mantan), Jada Pinkett-Smith (Sloan Hopkins), Tommy Davidson (Womack/Sleep 'n' Eat), Mos Def (Big Black) and Michael Rapaport (Dunwitty).