Spike Lee channels the '70s to look at today
Spike Lee’s latest film BlacKkKLansman might be set in the 1970s but it’s not movie about a time period. One of the more frustrating things about living in the future is how hard old habits seem to die.
Lee is a filmmaker that knows the limits of humanity. He’s shown time and time again through his films that there are no easy answers and everyone has their own hypocrisies and blind spots.
At the same time, Lee has never shied away from holding those hypocrisies to the light, particularly when it comes to white America. His films are often uncomfortable in their honesty.
BlacKKKlansman is no different. The film is peppered with not-so-subtle references to today’s political climate, coming from the mouths of the very worst among us. It points fingers at the Trump administration and, in no uncertain terms, accuses them of using the same racist rhetoric found in the messaging of people like David Duke.
What's sad is that in any other era a film like this one would push the boundaries of political filmmaking, garnering endless discussion about Lee’s fairness to the other side. But today, associating the President with white supremacy is as routine as associating rain with thunder.
This doesn’t make the film any less affecting though. If anything, BlacKKKlansman is all the more powerful.
Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) has always wanted to be an undercover cop. So, when the Colorado Springs Police Department opens their doors for diversity hires, Stallworth jumps at the chance to become their first black officer.
He doesn’t quite make detective on his first go around. Instead, he’s dropped in the records room and where he suffers abuse at the hands of his fellow boys in blue. Eventually, however, Stallworth gets his big break.
Kwame Ture, a nationally known member of the Black Power Movement, has been invited to speak at Colorado College. The white police chief agrees with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that his movement is dangerous and assigns Stallworth to infiltrate their meeting. While the assignment finds nothing, Stallworth proves his worth and is re-assigned to the undercover wing of the department.
Soon, Stallworth finds an advertisement in the paper looking for new recruits for the Ku Klux Klan. Without hesitating, Stallworth calls and secures a meeting with the group. In order to maintain the illusion, Stallworth brings in Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), a Jewish member of the narcotics division, to serve as his stand-in for in person meetings.
Gradually, Stallworth is able to become a full-fledged member of the KKK thanks to the help of David Duke (Topher Grace) himself.
It’s the film’s characterization that makes it work so well. Lee really knows how to write realistic and flawed people. He understands that even ideologies that agree in principal can disagree in action and that the very parts that make up an individual are many times at odds with each other.
Ron is a black man working to bring down the KKK from inside the police department. His girlfriend Patrice (Laura Harrier) is the president of the black student union working to fight racism and empower her people any way she can. Patrice hates the police for their racist enforcement tactics. Ron hates it too but works alongside it.
Their ideologies are at odds when their motivations are the same. Lee also makes a point to show that even when motivations are diametrically opposed similarities can occur. The KKK and the Black Power Movement both call cops pigs. They both chant about their own power in relation to their race. But Lee is not equivocating. It’s just that people are complex and hate is easy.
It’s easy for the unengaged to see the current administration as something to laugh at and ignore. Things like Space Force are patently absurd which leads to easy jokes and memes. But there is something far more sinister to be found in our current government.
Charlottesville did not happen in a vacuum and David Duke, the villain of the film, is a huge fan of Donald Trump. There is a reason for that. Anyone that denies this is lying to themselves.
The ultimate message of BlacKKKlansman is that hatred isn’t funny. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. The danger isn’t going away on its own.