To understand the reception to Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” when it hit theaters 30 years ago, it’s important to understand the evolution of Lee himself – not just as a filmmaker, but as a public figure. When he burst onto the scene five years earlier with his debut picture, “She’s Gotta Have It,” he was dubbed, by more than one publication, “the Black Woody Allen.” It was a reductive label, to be sure (and these days, an insulting one), but it wasn’t a complete stretch; it was based on one film, and that was a black-and-white, jazz-scored, New York-set picture with a keen interest in the male/female dynamic.

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