WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS, WATCH BLACKKKLANSMAN BEFORE READING IT. EVEN IF YOU DON’T READ THIS YOU SHOULD STILL WATCH IT, IT’S GREAT.
Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is the truish story of how black detective Ron Stallworth — played by the son of Denzel, John David Washington — infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan simply by calling them up. After arranging to meet up with the KKK he sends “Flip” Zimmerman — Mr Galaxy Wide himself, Adam Driver — to be his avatar amongst the Klan. Henceforth there will be spoilers.
BlacKkKlansman isn’t exactly subtle, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s essentially a discussion about America, systematic racism in the police force and the naivety of ignoring the growth of hate. The ending scene is utterly heartbreaking. As the film finishes we get Lee’s signature dolly cam shot of Stallworth and black student union president Patrice Dumas ( Laura Harrier) with their guns ready, as a burning cross looms towards them from the darkness. We see the Klan around the cross then cut to footage from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the subsequent manslaughter of Heather Heyer and then the cowardly and disgusting reaction from racist and American President Donald Trump.
It hits you like a sledgehammer and as I say, it isn’t exactly subtle. But there is a moment in there, before the Charlottesville footage, that has produced a gnawing question. As we see the Klansmen surround the burning cross we’re shown just a glimpse of a face under one of the hoods. Just enough to make you ask, “was that Adam Driver? Did Flip join the Klan?”
We won’t know for certain if the actor under the hood was Driver, or was intended to look like Driver’s character until we can watch the DVD extras. And though it might sound like a ridiculous idea, there is a few snippets in the movie that might add to that theory that Flip ends up as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
The first thing to mention is that the characters name is Flip. That could mean nothing, could be the key to understanding the entire things; nominative determinism is a great storytelling tool. The second is that he is good at hiding his intentions by virtue of his being an undercover detective. Baring both those character qualities in mind, let’s look at some more circumstantial evidence.
When Ron Stallworth’s membership card for the Klan arrives, Ron (the real fake Ron not the fake fake Ron) and Flip have a discussion about Flip’s Jewishness. Flip admits that he is Jewish by heritage only. It’s not something he ever thought about and he managed to fit in with the white kids. He was able to pass as a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) and was fine about that.
At one point he says “ I’d never thought about ritual or heritage, now it’s all I can think about.” The line is delivered with such a sense of malaise that it could be interpreted as “I’m sick of the Klan and I’ve dismissed by Jewish heritage for too long” or, like a friend you’re concerned may becoming racist, “I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m worried I agree.”
If taken out of the context that Flip is a good guy in the eyes of the audience — the context protagonists are naturally set up to be in — the statement is neutral in regards to Flip’s state of mind. We only expect it to be on the side of angels because that’s what we expect from our stories. It’s minor but maybe there is more. Maybe this is just the first glimpse into his dark conversions.
As the film goes on, Flip goes from being the new guy in “the Organisation” to being nominated as the leader of the Colorado Springs chapter of the KKK. At the Klan initiation, during the showing of Birth of a Nation — the film that literally resurrected the extinct Klan — Flip is the first to stand up and scream emphatically at the screen. This could just be good undercover work or it could be Flip being able to release his new found hatred comfortably.
After the tense scene at the initiation where Stallworth is almost made, Ron calls the head of the Klan David Duke to reveal that he has been a black guy this entire time. Whilst Stallworth jokes, making his fellow cops laugh, Flip has his back is to the audience — perhaps to indicate his hidden nature — and he dismisses the prank telling the other cops to grow up.
Again it’s not damning but it is enough to pause and question Flip’s motives. Each awkwardly racist moment could be Flip indulging in his true nature or him being very good at his job. He’s not exactly an unreliable narrator, but only in the sense that he isn’t the narrator.
Of course, everyone is going to rightly point out that in the end he saves Stallworth, tries to stop the bomb planted at Dumas’ home and is frustrated when the case is closed. It would be going pretty far to do all those things and end up siding with the bad guys. Unless, of course, he did all those things, because that was “his J.O.B.”
Early on in the picture Flip says to Ron that he has to separate his emotions from his job. Ron does it to separate his blackness from his position is a systematically racist institution. It’s an essential theme to the movie. Perhaps Flip does a twisted version of this and pulls apart his duties as a police officer from his seeded hatred.
If Flip does indeed become racist over the course of the film, how does that make us feel about the character? The expectation of a movie is that characters begin flawed or in a bad situation and move toward healing. Is this the opposite? Is it subtly hidden amongst stylised cinematography, — the dolly shot working as a transition of time and the zoom in on the burning cross a symbol of America’s growing hate — and emotional footage of real-life in 2018. Have I, as a white guy, had to purposefully delve deep into this fan theory to see something that is clearly on the surface for black audiences?
These are questions worth asking but we won’t have an answer without asking Spike Lee directly. I think that it’s likely that it’s symbolic. At least I hope so for two reasons.
The first is that I like Flip Zimmerman and I don’t want to like racists. The second is that it would be clumsy and insensitive to have the only identified Jewish character, secular or not, be devious and commit such a betrayal. It would, regardless of intention, play into a racial stereotype that that Klan would support and I’d like to think in a picture that is a discussion of race in America, Lee wouldn’t entertain that type of caricature.
We can say Flip Zimmerman doesn’t actually become a racist because there is no Flip Zimmerman. Flip Zimmerman is not a real person, not like Stallworth anyway. He is based on an undercover officer known only as Chuck. Zimmerman is just a characterisation of a good white cop. Flip’s Jewishness is a device to create narrative tension and not audience suspicion (I hope) but even the suggestion of Flip under that hood is a symbol of the potentially seductive nature of racism and an indictment that even a good cop can be a part of something broken.
