BlacKkKlansman is the latest Spike Lee joint, and you know the world has gone upside down if he has made the breakout, feel good comedy of the summer with somber bookends. It is an adaptation of a memoir by Ron Stallworth, Black Klansman, which I now have to read because I want to separate fact from fiction. Stallworth was the first black cop in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and this movie tells his story, which includes and ends with his undercover investigation of a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan; thus the KKK in the title if you didn’t get it. It is an effective period piece that ties the past with the present. Denzel Washington’s oldest of four babies, John David Washington, plays Stallworth, but his acting style is distinct from his daddy’s, and while he resembles his daddy, if I didn’t know his lineage going in, I may not have noticed.
I haven’t seen every Spike Lee movie, but I’ve seen plenty, and let’s just say, he can be uneven; however, because he is a pioneer and was a visionary, I owe him tons of money and was going to see BlacKkKlansman regardless of whether or not it received good reviews. Well, the US has gone so far right that somehow Lee fell in the mainstream. Lee is a master at adaptations and documentaries so it wasn’t a surprise for me that this movie would be a hit. It feels like a reprise of Malcolm X as he continues his one-man crusade to punch D.W. Griffith, director of Birth of a Nation, in the throat post-mortem. Instead of “by any means” necessary, he explores the idea of change from inside institutions, makes a cop the hero and depicts most white people, i.e. most of the police force, as wanting to be on the right side of history once they shift focus from being scared of black people and are alerted to the actual conspiracies in their midst.
The reason that BlacKkKlansman is so appealing to everyone is because it allows the majority of Americans to unite and openly ridicule a common enemy: open racists. Lee not too subtly draws the connections between the KKK and Presidon’t’s campaign and current administration, particularly in one amazing conversation between Stallworth and his supervisor, Sergeant Trapp, played perfectly by Ken Garito, who I initially mistook for Ken Marino, about the KKK’s strategy to gain acceptance in the mainstream and infiltrate the government. The majority of Americans did not vote for this administration so this approach is a winner for Lee, but in terms of how far and nuanced black filmmakers have come since Lee began to wave the warning flag, he is a bit of an oldster. If you’re looking for an exploration of people who do not think of themselves as racists, but their behavior is racist, this movie’s mandate does not include that, which I think is fair, and the film does include moments that reference this problem by including scenes that show general disapproval of Muhammad Ali, a reference to “super predators” and anyone against the Vietnam War. There is some danger that this film lets a lot of people off the hook and leads them to patting themselves on the back for not being those people, which I think contributes to Presidon’t’s strengths and why people can rationalize agreeing with him in the closet while openly pretending to be more open minded than they are.
BlacKkKlansman alludes to the historical Civil Rights pairing of Jewish and Black Americans in the partnership between Stallworth and Flip Zimmerman, played by Adam Driver, and makes this movie a great pairing with Marshall. There is an idea that people have to be reminded that anyone can be kicked out of whiteness and to not forget how to use your privilege to defend the vulnerable, which as an outsider Christian looking in seems to echo a central tenet of Judaism that I love. It is a perfect call to action to white viewers for them to ponder their own vulnerabilities in today’s world and to wield their privilege in the resistance. In a sense, every white person in today’s world has been drafted to go undercover and fight against evil. Join the true brotherhood. The concept of passing also makes this film a perfect gateway for audiences who could not appreciate that aspect of Sorry to Bother You.
I adored that BlacKkKlansman and Get Out puncture the fictional innocence of the 52% and show that they aren’t victims, but actively complicit and violent in holding up white supremacy while being frustrated by sexism. There is no sisterhood with some women. From the character of Connie to the brief panning shot of the looks of adoration from the waitresses during the induction ceremony, Lee skewers the idea that they are innocent and should not be equally castigated for their role in reviling and destroying America; however he wisely counters any possible misperception that he was against white women generally by heralding the first martyr of the 43% that didn’t vote for Presidon’t, the Viola Liuzzo of our time. “All power to all the people.”
BlacKkKlansman also felt like Lee’s version of Scorsese’s mini ode to films that he loved, specifically the joys of Blaxploitation. While it may have seemed tangential and a little self indulgent, I think that every director deserves a moment to geek out and explicitly thank the people who inspired the work that we are watching today. Without them, Lee is saying that he would not know how to show that black is beautiful and to reject the prevalent images that could lead to self hate.
There is a compare and contrast scene that illustrates why black and white power should not be equated, but I suspect that the people who make that mistake aren’t watching BlacKkKlansman so it is a resonant preach to the choir moment. If for some reason those people accidentally end up watching this film, I can still see them bull headedly misunderstanding adjacent scenes with equating. This movie is not a subtle film, but I guarantee that a handful of people will be determined to make that mistake just from watching the commercials alone.
I did not expect the ending sequence and had managed to avoid watching any live coverage of those events so I want to issue a trigger warning to viewers that coverage of recent racist acts of verbal and physical violence appear in this film. I applaud Lee’s decision to include it so he can stop people from dismissing this story as history instead of a clear and present danger. There are brief moments throughout the film that allude to an infiltration by the KKK in law enforcement and the armed services, which was confirmed by the FBI long before Presidon’t came to office, but actually seeing the reality brings it home, and the timing of the BlacKkKlansman’s release with the anniversary of that event deserves a perfect timing of a theatrical release award.
Regardless of my nitpicking criticism of BlacKkKlansman, don’t mistake it for me not enjoying the film. I had a great time! During a packed showing, I was the only one who laughed out loud at the denouement, and that proverbial ending was worth the price of admission. Honestly this movie may be one of Lee’s funniest, and I’m just sad that I didn’t see it at a theater in which people talked to the screen because while my audience clapped at the end, I still think that they missed too many jokes.