BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

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felipe
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 11:06 pm

Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#101 Post by felipe » Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:26 pm

knives wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:02 pm
You know the minorities wanted was a real thing at the time to the point where there was a successful comedy series about it?

You are not only talking out of clear ignorance of history, but also ignorance of the terms used. Agency doesn't mean independence. Rather it refers to initiative. Stallworth decided to join the police force. Stallworth decided to push for for promotion. Stallworth decided to go after the Klan. Just because society means working civilly with others doesn't make his actions lack agency. The purpose of the story wouldn't make sense with a failed attempt at being Stallworth, which you seem to suggest as the more interesting phenomena, a successful Stallworth who nevertheless can't prevent racism from still existing, as shown in his last scene, is the point.
I don't pretend to know much about the history of racism in the United States, at least not much further than what I've seen in movies. So I'm sorry if I come across as ignorant but this was just my perception from seeing it as a foreigner. I never said Stallworth lacked agency (at least I don't think I did). But the impression I got from the film was "how much better the world would be if all the white people in power worked together to help black people." They even framed the one racist cop they had! They didn't try to 'save' him, transferred him to office duty or make up excuses, they just arrested him because they will not take any racist cops there! That sounds to me like white people saving the day.
For me it's not unusual that a black man would want to fight racism, but it's unusual for him to get the support from people in power that will enable him to do so. That's what makes Stallworth's story so different, wasn't it? His girlfriend and her group didn't lack agency, they lacked the "white support" that Stallworth had to really make a difference. But then again I don't know much about your history, you guys probably have way more background to judge this.

Just let me try to understand this, it's ok for a movie to show white people helping fight racism as long as the lead character / main agent is black? And it's not ok if the lead is white and the black character(s) is portrayed as passive. Is that it? (honest question)

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Lemmy Caution
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
Location: East of Shanghai

Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#102 Post by Lemmy Caution » Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:51 am

A rather silly argument. Stallworth lived in the US and that was the reality of the situation if you wanted to change things from the inside. I'm not sure what the alternatives are: set up his own black police force? be a vigilante? The Black Panthers and Black Muslims did go down those paths to varying degrees, but Stallworth is trying to work within the system for change. He says that explicitly. And the black community is suspicious of such. And of course there were places in the US where the institutional racism in the police force and local gov't protected, supported and harbored racists.

In case some aren't familiar, some basic US racial history. Discrimination based on race is forbidden under the 14th A. So when police departments in the late 60's and early 70's wanted to specifically hire black officers, they had to document their past history of racial discrimination. And then race-based hiring was allowable to create a more diverse police force that intentional discrimination in the past had prevented. That is, race-based hiring was only allowable in order to redress past discrimination. The purpose and legality of affirmative action is to remedy the unfair and illegal race-based hiring of whites and denial of equal opportunities for blacks which had occurred on a wide scale for the previous 100 years.

Most major city police forces documented in depth their past racial discrimination and some of it makes for rather eye-opening reading.

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Lemmy Caution
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
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Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#103 Post by Lemmy Caution » Thu Feb 28, 2019 12:03 pm

felipe wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:26 pm
Just let me try to understand this, it's ok for a movie to show white people helping fight racism as long as the lead character / main agent is black? And it's not ok if the lead is white and the black character(s) is portrayed as passive. Is that it? (honest question)
I think folks have issues when the black experience is filtered through a white character's perspective and actions in order to make it more palatable to the majority white US audience. The "green book" itself and a black man traveling through the South during the segregation era seems like a black (hi)story, and to make that mostly about a white character grates in the USofA. It smacks of being written and produced and directed by white people who focus more on the white character as a way of understanding or approaching the black experience.

This has long been an issue with films set in Africa. A classic example, I remember watching a major film about Steve Biko ("Biko" wasn't it?) in which Biko is dead in the police van after roughly 20 minutes and the rest of the film is about the heroic struggle of the white journalist to get word out about Biko's death. I remember sitting in the theater wondering what the hell was going on. Not saying you can't tell the journalist's story or that he wasn't heroic, but the name of the film and the marketing and such basically promised a film about a black character and black experience and then pulled a switch. Very much a white savior maneuver.

But I just picked up the Green Book dvd tonight, so I'll reserve judgement of how it handles race until I see it. It sounds like a well-made, well-meaning film, but rather bland and problematic in 2019. Segregation in housing and culture is still a significant factor in US life. There's basically a whole genre of black films which most white people (I believe) don't watch and are barely aware of.

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MichaelB
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Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#104 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:35 pm

Lemmy Caution wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:51 am
A rather silly argument. Stallworth lived in the US and that was the reality of the situation if you wanted to change things from the inside. I'm not sure what the alternatives are: set up his own black police force? be a vigilante? The Black Panthers and Black Muslims did go down those paths to varying degrees, but Stallworth is trying to work within the system for change. He says that explicitly. And the black community is suspicious of such. And of course there were places in the US where the institutional racism in the police force and local gov't protected, supported and harbored racists.
And of course the film makes absolutely explicit how frustrated Stallworth is with the system that he's having to work with. In no way is BlacKkKlansman a "white saviour" narrative - in fact his white colleagues are distinctly reluctant to go along with what they think is a completely madcap scheme, until they realise that for historical/cultural reasons completely beyond Stallworth's control, if they don't get involved, nothing happens.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#105 Post by knives » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:49 pm

I feel what sticks me about Felipe's comments is just that. I'm sympathetic to not knowing well America's history of racial inequality, but the film addresses explicitly many of the points he's questioning in a way that makes me feel he either has not seen the movie or didn't pay attention when watching

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ianthemovie
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Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#106 Post by ianthemovie » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:56 pm

Lemmy Caution wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 12:03 pm
felipe wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:26 pm
Just let me try to understand this, it's ok for a movie to show white people helping fight racism as long as the lead character / main agent is black? And it's not ok if the lead is white and the black character(s) is portrayed as passive. Is that it? (honest question)
I think folks have issues when the black experience is filtered through a white character's perspective and actions in order to make it more palatable to the majority white US audience. The "green book" itself and a black man traveling through the South during the segregation era seems like a black (hi)story, and to make that mostly about a white character grates in the USofA. It smacks of being written and produced and directed by white people who focus more on the white character as a way of understanding or approaching the black experience.
Yes, exactly. Not every film in which white characters help to combat racism is a de facto white savior movie. Blackkklansman (and many of Lee's other films) often depict solidarity between white and black characters, different types of discrimination, etc. That doesn't mean they accommodate white audiences, shortchange the black characters, or turn racism into a "feel-good" issue. Blackkklansman arguably approaches the issue complexly, gives all of its characters (white and black) dimension, and very importantly reminds us that even though Stallworth's story has a happy ending racism wasn't "solved." This is very different from filtering a story of anti-black racism through the vantage point of a white character, or suggesting that racism is simply a hearts-and-minds problem that can be combated solely through interracial friendship. I haven't seen Green Book but my understanding is that it falls into the latter category and that's why so many people have been angered by it.

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dustybooks
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Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#107 Post by dustybooks » Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:48 pm

This pushed all the right buttons for me. It's been ages since I caught a new Spike Lee film but this reminded me of what a national treasure he is. Without either preaching or letting anyone off the hook, he tells this extremely odd, well-embellished story -- and has fun with it -- with imagination and idiosyncrasy, and then leaves us with
SpoilerShow
fake feel-good catharsis followed by total devastation via montage. The closing clip show of recent American violence and hatred really got to me, I actually cried.
The whole thing is just so lively, and the sporadic moments when it falls flat only added to its appealing messiness for me.

Roma is still my favorite of the Best Pic nominees this past year but seeing this has made me even more annoyed by what actually won. It really is a contrast between relevance and irrelevance on the order of the famous Do the Right Thing-Driving Miss Daisy conflict.

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AWA
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Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#108 Post by AWA » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:43 am

dustybooks wrote:
Thu Apr 04, 2019 1:48 pm
This pushed all the right buttons for me. It's been ages since I caught a new Spike Lee film but this reminded me of what a national treasure he is. Without either preaching or letting anyone off the hook, he tells this extremely odd, well-embellished story -- and has fun with it -- with imagination and idiosyncrasy, and then leaves us with
SpoilerShow
fake feel-good catharsis followed by total devastation via montage. The closing clip show of recent American violence and hatred really got to me, I actually cried.
The whole thing is just so lively, and the sporadic moments when it falls flat only added to its appealing messiness for me.

Roma is still my favorite of the Best Pic nominees this past year but seeing this has made me even more annoyed by what actually won. It really is a contrast between relevance and irrelevance on the order of the famous Do the Right Thing-Driving Miss Daisy conflict.
I have conflicting feelings about, as you put it, "how he left us" in this. Good movie with a lot going for it - and when I first saw that ending in the theatres, I was also moved to a few tears. But viewing it afterwards, it's a bit of a crass tag on of something that will be incredibly dated in the future. The rest of the film is about a story in a specific time but it is dealing with issues that draw parallel meanings that exist (unfortunately) outside of that specific time period. The bit at the end is like something downloaded off YouTube. But it did get me the first go round, so maybe I'm wrong.

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dustybooks
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:52 am
Location: Wilmington, NC

Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#109 Post by dustybooks » Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:06 am

SpoilerShow
This is a good point -- and it does occur to me that the finale done in this manner is "easy" in a certain sense, in a way the rest of the film is not. The visceral reaction is powerful and I think the ability to access that sensibility in a way that (in my opinion) flowed very intuitively from the immediately preceding material is not to be underestimated... and yet, I wonder if something subtler and more timeless might have had the same effect. Then again, this isn't worlds away from the prodding speech at the end of The Great Dictator, which I still find powerful.

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Big Ben
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Re: BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)

#110 Post by Big Ben » Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:15 am

I suppose I find the ending a way of recontextualizing what has come before. Lee has been accused of mucking about with sentimentalism and muddying waters but to me the coda of BlacKkKlansman feels more like a splash of cold water on the face although I imagine our individual mileage on said splash may vary wildly though. Lee has done this before though, Bamboozled ends with footage of racist stereotypes in American culture so this isn't exactly an outlier phenomenon in his filmography.

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