Blackkklansman: Reflections on now vs then

Hunter Bardin

Engl 280

Professor Wisniewski

November 21, 2020

    Blackkklansman is a film made by Spike Lee that was released in 2018. It came out at a time where our second civil rights movement in America started to pick up more with events like the Charlottesville White Supremist Protests and onset of more police brutality. The movie helps to reflect the parallels of our society of the 70s to the present day.

    The film stars John David Washington as Ron Stallworth who was a real person who actually managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs as a black man. We see as even though he is a police officer he is still tormented by and still faces prejudice from some of his fellow officers even when he becomes a detective at the station. The black student union in the film is also one of the other center points of the film lead by Patrice Dumas. Already we can start seeing parallels with today and how there are still many student groups that still fight for racial justice and how no matter what your ranking is, people of color are still treated as lesser by others. While her character is one of the fictitious parts of the movie, it still helps to give a perspective to the audience about how current civil rights leaders are treated no matter how small they may be.

    Another thing the film does to help push its main premise of civil rights is that it never throughout the course of the film paints the Klan as good for even a second. You do have your polarizing Klan members in Walter and Felix, but generally throughout the film they are shown to be pure evil which is a good reflection of what they are today. The film doesn't make you try to understand their point of view because you know that it is wrong and the film is trying to enforce that more than anything. The film even ends with footage of recent events like the Unite the Right protests, presidential press conferences, and words from David Duke himself. 

    Things have not really changed between the 70s to now. We still suffer the effects of police brutality and racism all throughout the country. With the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor we see how nasty the other side can get to justify their racism. They are justifying it just like the Klan did so many years ago and it sadly won't change anytime soon until we do something about it.

Comments

  1. Rachel GilesNovember 22, 2020 at 5:27 PM

    Hi Hunter!

    Something I was thinking about after the shots of the modern day alt-right protests were shown was if those shots were necessary for the audience to understand the point of the movie. My guess would be that Lee added them in so that people who watch this film many years in the future will understand the context behind the film, not necessarily so that the 2019 audience would understand the movie's message better.

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