Donald Trump's loathsome presidency feels quite plainly, like white supremacy in action. Had his ever-sartorial (and professorial) predecessor, Barack Obama, been implicated for even half the high crimes and misdemeanors of this unimpeachable tyrant, there wouldn't've just been removal proceedings — there’d’ve been goddam rioting in the capitol. It's no coincidence Spike Lee's judiciously-timed film "Blackkklansman" (produced by "Get Out" writer/ director Jordan Peele) arrived exactly one year after Heather Heyer's death in Charlottesville, VA — the legacy of her sacrifice endures, and Spike has once again been called upon to remind both White and Black America that one side has never less felt safe, or more emboldened to take action against the fascist ideologies of a refurbished 'white nationalism.' We're living in a post Klu Klux era, where white hoods and sheets are no longer mandatory, tiki torches have replaced burning crosses, and chanting "White Lives Matter" has become the requisite gospel for a new, unrepentant insurgency. Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingraham and other white conservative firebrands have heralded legions of disaffected, angry young men itching to pick up a firehose — desperate to restore their version of "law and order," when in reality merely seeking to preserve their privilege, carved out of a political power in decline.
Thus was borne the "nicecore" cinematic movement, where 'nice guy' films "Won't You Be My Neighbor," "Hearts Beat Loud" and "Paddington 2" occupy vital commercial space in contrast to Trump's divisive and lowbrow bombast. Filmmakers like Peele, Lee, and Boots Riley (of "Sorry To Bother You" fame) have taken on the mantle of countering this new movement, eschewing niceties in favor of assailing the President head-on. "Get Out", which bowed in theaters only a few short weeks after Trump's "American Carnage" inaugural address, was perhaps the first cinematic call-to-arms against the alt-right, with Riley's "Sorry To Bother You" proving to be a clever mid-chapter saga in the populist "protest narrative" era — culminating with "Blackkklansman" of course, in its hindmost stage. While far from a perfect film, Spike's work is the least affecting of the three, meandering when it should be honing in, mocking David Duke and his fellow Klansmen when it should be excoriating them, and never quite living up to its stranger than fiction premise: an African American police officer successfully infiltrating the KKK at the height of its powers. Had the film been released at any other time in American history, "Kkklansman" might feel like just another antiquated footnote, an ugly chapter in our nation's past which was thankfully sidestepped. Instead, it is a gut-punch of a nightmare come true — a depiction of the U.S. at odds with itself, rinsed clean and repeated as such.
ProPublica's Frontline documentary, "Documenting Hate," which aired this week on PBS, saw reporter A.C. Thompson profiling, and in some cases unearthing "Unite the Right" agitators who had been caught on film, harassing and attacking counter-protestors in Charlottesville. The doc uncovers some stunning links to the U.S. military, where enlisted service members and defense contractors working for global security group Northrop Grumman were ultimately exposed to their neighbors, family members and employers. A similar discovery occurs in "Kkklansman," wherein Washington’s character, Ron Stallworth, is alerted by the F.B.I. that several men in his investigation are in fact, SC cleared members of N.O.R.A.D. That's right, men tasked with keeping our aerospace safe from nuclear calamity were guilty of plotting to target and kill their fellow Americans. Stallworth however, accepts that these men do not view him as their friend or neighbor, but as thine enemy — and the perception that these extreme factions are neither deadly (nor should be dealt with as terrorist organizations) remains deeply discouraging. Skin color it seems, is a construct chiseled out of scorn and resentment, and if David Duke himself, the ex-Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, can't even tell the difference between a white and a black man over the phone, then what the hell are we fighting for?
"BLACKkKLANSMAN" a.k.a. “Rebirth of a Nation” Rated R. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
