Spike Lee’s approach to genre in BlackKklansman (2018)

BlacKkKlansman is the biographical story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) and Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) as they work undercover to expose criminal acts within a Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Ron is the first African American police officer in Colorado Springs and is subject to racial prejudice daily, but after he is transferred to the intelligence division and calls the local leader of the Ku Klux Klan asking for more information, he realises Flip must take his position as Ron Stallworth to meet them in person. Lee uses similar techniques in BlacKkKlansman as he does in Do the Right Thing, such as using comedic scenes to get an audience laughing and immediately cutting to a new scene which contains a serious discussion or statement about race. He returns to the concept of “two-ness”, directly referring to it this time whereas it was only extratextual to in Do the Right Thing. Once again at the end of a film, a powerful message is displayed, designed to continue the discussion about racial prejudice in present day America.

During one of the many telephone calls Ron takes with David Duke (Topher Grace), David says how he can always tell when he is talking to a white man. “Take you for example Ron. I can tell that you’re a pure Aryan white man from the way you pronounce certain words.” Lee previously discussed this conception in an interview in 1991: “There’s something very sick where if you speak well and you speak articulately, that’s looked at as being negative and speaking white. I remember when I was growing up, people used to tell me ‘You sound white.’” (Lee, 1991, as quoted in Mitchell, 2002, p.56). This scene is played for comedy with Ron’s colleague spitting his drink out with laughter, but immediately moves onto a very serious scene with Felix (Jasper Pääkkönen) in which he arms Flip (as Ron) telling him how “the war is gunna come to us”. This scene is also ended with comedy and immediately moves onto a further serious scene with Connie (Ashlie Atkinson) asking Felix if he “ever has any second thoughts” about “killing them”. These scenes mark a critical point in the film in which the Ku Klux Klan appear to be escalating their white supremacist terrorism. Once again, Lee is using comedy to set up a serious discussion about race and equality.

Lee returns to the concept of two-ness in BlacKkKlansman in a discussion between Patrice (Laura Harrier) and Ron. They are discussing various famous black people whilst relevant images of these people are superimposed onto the screen, but the conversation quickly moves onto how Patrice doesn’t think the institutional racism can be changed from within the institution. She argues with “what did Du Bois say about double consciousness, two-ness, being an American and a negro, two warring ideals inside on dark body.”

After Flip’s (as Ron) initiation ceremony to the Ku Klux Klan, the Klansmen watch Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915). This scene is cross-cut “with a meeting of Black Power college students transfixed by the descriptions of a lynching recounted by Jerome Turner…” (Hastie, 2018, p. 82). A fourth wall break occurs at the end of this scene with the students and Turner holding canvas images of the atrocities he had been describing.

The final images shown are of the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, 2017. This included footage of a car ploughing through a peaceful protest. One protester died. Lee dedicated the film to their memory. In an interview, he said “From the beginning, we wanted to find things in this period piece that would connect stuff so it was not just a history piece – that what you see in this film is really about the world we live in today”. (Lee, 2018, as quoted in Bugbee, 2018, p. 26). Lee also includes footage of then President Donald Trump hesitating to condemn the acts of the attacker, sending a clear message of his disapproval of the Presidency.

We have seen that Spike Lee approaches genre by telling the history of African Americans whilst sparking serious discussions and sending critical statements about race and equality. Lee uses the concept of two-ness to give a somewhat binary explanation to how some of his characters behave, but once you look further into the meaning behind them it is clear the characters may be confused, as with Radio Raheem in Do the Right Thing. Lee expands on these characters and sends strong political messages and statements about race and equality at moments where the audience least expect it, but also when he has their complete attention, as for the message to cause a greater impact on the audience.