On Propaganda and "BlacKKKlansman"
Aug. 20th, 2018 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7Spike Lee's new movie, "BlacKKKlansman," ostensibly works on two levels. On the surface, it's the story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first black officer in the Colorado Springs police department and his astonishingly successful infiltration of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s.
However, if you examine the movie closely, there's really not much dramatic heft in (Lee's version of) Stallworth's story. After undercover rookie cop Stallworth attends a speech by Kwame Ture (the former Stokely Carmichael), he has a spiritual awakening and dedicates himself to helping the black cause from inside the system. And that's basically it for character development. Stallworth never really questions his choice of career--in fact, we never get much of an explanation why he always wanted to be a cop--and it's more how everybody else, especially his more radical girlfriend, adjusts to his double life.
There is also a tantalizing subplot with the Jewish cop (Adam Driver) helping Stallworth with his scam, who's also having a problem reconciling his ethnic identity with palling around with the Klan. But, again, we just get a taste of Flip Zimmerman's internal conflict before it's subsumed by undercover hijinks. (For a more detailed look about a Jewish cop dealing with the same issues, see David Mamet's "Homicide.")
Lee has a broader target to hit. Stallworth's story is the perfect vehicle to dismantle the iconography (shown in clips from "Gone with the Wind" and "Birth of a Nation") that undergirds the Klan and white racism in general: the so-called genetic superiority of the white race; the portrayal of blacks as dull and lazy and filled with lustful thoughts about white women; and how black people are the lackeys of the international Jewish conspiracy.
Lee gleefully inverts every piece of Klan propaganda. The Klan members are almost uniformly dull and stupid, outfoxed by Stallworth at every turn; Peter Weller's racist cop lustfully frisks Stallworth's lady friend, Patrice; and Lee goes out of his way (maybe a little too far out of his way) to steer the plot to the climax, where the "virtuous" white woman is the menace, and the black man preserves the welfare of the community.
Woodrow Wilson once infamously said that "Birth of a Nation" was "history written by lightning." Lee has spent most of his career trying to counter D.W. Griffith's film with lightning of his own. "BlacKKKlansman" is counter-propaganda, a rousing call to arms against a racism that still holds too much sway in American life. It's a worthy goal... and yet, I can't help but wonder if the best path to that goal is more propaganda.
***************
In art, propaganda is the death of drama.
Drama is the exploration of two opposing viewpoints, each given room to tell its story in full; propaganda flattens one side of the argument, reducing the opposition to two dimensions, never seeing the viewpoint's representatives as human beings. It is reductive by nature and suppresses thought. Even if you agree with the propagandist, painting the opposition as a cartoon deadens your sense of empathy, or worse, hinders your ability to understand the opposing point of view, and (perhaps) your ability to fight it effectively.
For this reason, my hackles go up whenever I see a work of propaganda, even if I basically agree with the artist. That's almost always been the case with Spike Lee. He's one of best film makers in America, always has been, but he's always been two parts propagandist and one part dramatist and he's never been what you'd call "subtle."
[GIF of Keenan Ivory Wayans walking onto screen, facing the camera, shouting "Message!", then walking off screen....]
A large part of this movie is hanging out with the Colorado Springs chapter of the KKK, and it's just unpleasant to sit through. Not just because they're racist pieces of shit, but because they're redneck caricatures, barely human. You have psychobilly Felix and his 1950s homemaker grotesquerie of a wife; a bloated cracker buffoon who practically drools whenever he's on screen; and Grand Wizard David Duke himself--who, incredibly, doesn't project the slightest hint of charisma or gravitas. (Admittedly, the role might've been too much for Topher Grace to handle.)
It is possible to portray racists on screen and make them viable characters despite holding repugnant views. The danger of presenting them as clowns is that not taking them seriously doesn't make them any less dangerous. Lee ends the film with footage from the white racist rally in Charlottesville a year ago, and when David Duke--the REAL David Duke, not Grace's gullible goon--appears on screen, he is as serious as death.
The best parts of "BlacKKKlansman" are when Lee hangs back and lets the characters tell their stories. The tale of the lynching of a black man juxtaposed with the Klan initiation rite is devastatingly effective, because Lee doesn't intrude on either one. And when Stallworth picks up shells after a Klan round of target practice, the reveal of those targets says more in one image than all the editorializing in the world...
However, if you examine the movie closely, there's really not much dramatic heft in (Lee's version of) Stallworth's story. After undercover rookie cop Stallworth attends a speech by Kwame Ture (the former Stokely Carmichael), he has a spiritual awakening and dedicates himself to helping the black cause from inside the system. And that's basically it for character development. Stallworth never really questions his choice of career--in fact, we never get much of an explanation why he always wanted to be a cop--and it's more how everybody else, especially his more radical girlfriend, adjusts to his double life.
There is also a tantalizing subplot with the Jewish cop (Adam Driver) helping Stallworth with his scam, who's also having a problem reconciling his ethnic identity with palling around with the Klan. But, again, we just get a taste of Flip Zimmerman's internal conflict before it's subsumed by undercover hijinks. (For a more detailed look about a Jewish cop dealing with the same issues, see David Mamet's "Homicide.")
Lee has a broader target to hit. Stallworth's story is the perfect vehicle to dismantle the iconography (shown in clips from "Gone with the Wind" and "Birth of a Nation") that undergirds the Klan and white racism in general: the so-called genetic superiority of the white race; the portrayal of blacks as dull and lazy and filled with lustful thoughts about white women; and how black people are the lackeys of the international Jewish conspiracy.
Lee gleefully inverts every piece of Klan propaganda. The Klan members are almost uniformly dull and stupid, outfoxed by Stallworth at every turn; Peter Weller's racist cop lustfully frisks Stallworth's lady friend, Patrice; and Lee goes out of his way (maybe a little too far out of his way) to steer the plot to the climax, where the "virtuous" white woman is the menace, and the black man preserves the welfare of the community.
Woodrow Wilson once infamously said that "Birth of a Nation" was "history written by lightning." Lee has spent most of his career trying to counter D.W. Griffith's film with lightning of his own. "BlacKKKlansman" is counter-propaganda, a rousing call to arms against a racism that still holds too much sway in American life. It's a worthy goal... and yet, I can't help but wonder if the best path to that goal is more propaganda.
***************
In art, propaganda is the death of drama.
Drama is the exploration of two opposing viewpoints, each given room to tell its story in full; propaganda flattens one side of the argument, reducing the opposition to two dimensions, never seeing the viewpoint's representatives as human beings. It is reductive by nature and suppresses thought. Even if you agree with the propagandist, painting the opposition as a cartoon deadens your sense of empathy, or worse, hinders your ability to understand the opposing point of view, and (perhaps) your ability to fight it effectively.
For this reason, my hackles go up whenever I see a work of propaganda, even if I basically agree with the artist. That's almost always been the case with Spike Lee. He's one of best film makers in America, always has been, but he's always been two parts propagandist and one part dramatist and he's never been what you'd call "subtle."
[GIF of Keenan Ivory Wayans walking onto screen, facing the camera, shouting "Message!", then walking off screen....]
A large part of this movie is hanging out with the Colorado Springs chapter of the KKK, and it's just unpleasant to sit through. Not just because they're racist pieces of shit, but because they're redneck caricatures, barely human. You have psychobilly Felix and his 1950s homemaker grotesquerie of a wife; a bloated cracker buffoon who practically drools whenever he's on screen; and Grand Wizard David Duke himself--who, incredibly, doesn't project the slightest hint of charisma or gravitas. (Admittedly, the role might've been too much for Topher Grace to handle.)
It is possible to portray racists on screen and make them viable characters despite holding repugnant views. The danger of presenting them as clowns is that not taking them seriously doesn't make them any less dangerous. Lee ends the film with footage from the white racist rally in Charlottesville a year ago, and when David Duke--the REAL David Duke, not Grace's gullible goon--appears on screen, he is as serious as death.
The best parts of "BlacKKKlansman" are when Lee hangs back and lets the characters tell their stories. The tale of the lynching of a black man juxtaposed with the Klan initiation rite is devastatingly effective, because Lee doesn't intrude on either one. And when Stallworth picks up shells after a Klan round of target practice, the reveal of those targets says more in one image than all the editorializing in the world...
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 12:33 am (UTC)You have psychobilly Felix and his 1950s homemaker grotesquerie of a wife; a bloated cracker buffoon who practically drools whenever he's on screen; and Grand Wizard David Duke himself--who, incredibly, doesn't project the slightest hint of charisma or gravitas. (Admittedly, the role might've been too much for Topher Grace to handle.)
Yeah. They should have cast someone like Armie Hammer as David Duke. Duke is a tall man with a lot of charisma. Betrayed starring Tom Berenger and Debra Winger was in some respects a better film. Debra Winger infilterates a white supremacist neo-nazi organization run by the charismatic and attractive Berenger...it's increasingly creepy as you go, because these are folks that you'd hang with or some ordinary enough.
It is possible to portray racists on screen and make them viable characters despite holding repugnant views. The danger of presenting them as clowns is that not taking them seriously doesn't make them any less dangerous.
Exactly. The media spent most of 2014-2016 portraying DJT as a clown and that was a huge mistake. It's like the serial killers or Hitler or anyone like that...if you portray them as just a harmless clown, you fail to see how they rope people into their world-view. I think "Get Out" does a far better job of attacking the same subject matter, even though there too, the white villains are portrayed as one-dimensional. Although one could argue that this is how black villains have been portrayed historically in film. Which is why I found Get Out and Black Panther to be rather clever. But here? I'm not so sure it works. Also, the Black Power female characters equally felt rather one-dimensional or cookie cutter. So, Lee is consistent. No one really is fully developed in the film, which is a problem and one of the reasons it drug a bit. And some rather funny bits lost their umph due to repetition.
So I agree with your review. Great review.
But...one little minor quibble...
It's Frederick Weller not Peter Weller. (I recognized right off the bat, because he's a fav character actor who has been in various series.)
[PS: I forgot to tell you, I got distracted halfway through by the fact that Colorado College was my undergrad and I lived in Colorado Springs for four years in the late 1980s. LOL! ]
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 04:45 pm (UTC)Frederick Weller (a "hey, it's that guy!" to me) and Peter Weller are cousins. Also the guy who I thought was Steve Buscemi is actually his brother Michael.
Well that explains a lot. I also thought it was Steve Buscemi until I looked it up. And yep, Fred Weller is pretty much "hey, it's that guy!" to me as well. (The Good Wife, In Plain Sight, among others.).
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 02:21 am (UTC)Sorry about that, Marshal Marshall.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 12:20 pm (UTC)Fred was a regular on a series called "In Plain Sight" (about US marshals assigned to the Witness Protection Program), a show I watched religiously for five seasons!
Me too! But I could not remember the title for some reason. Loved him on that show.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 01:49 am (UTC)Filmmaker Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) criticized Lee from the other side, arguing that Lee soft-pedaled police racism, the treatment the FBI and Police gave to the Klan and that the story propagandizes Stallworth, himself. Whose counter-intel work against Black groups was far more significant than the movie let on.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 02:16 am (UTC)BTW, if you haven't seen "Sorry to Bother You," see it immediately. It succeeds in a lot of places where Lee's movie breaks down. Armie Hammer's Steve Lift is a funny and perversely fascinating white devil of a CEO and the entire movie is an anticapitalist screed that even an investment banker would find entertaining...
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 03:43 am (UTC)Yeah, they are. Riley's a polemicist himself.
There's a tension in these stories, because many of the Klan really are the loser a$$holes filmmakers want to portray them as - and you want to belittle them and make them be little. But, they are loser a$$holes who can get close to the levers of power. Who are often treated more sympathetically by the police than the minority groups they target are.