Editor's note: On February 25, Beijing time, the 91st Academy Awards held an award ceremony. The Black Party won best adapted screenplay awards – Spike Lee, David Labinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, Kevin Wilmert.
This article was first published on February 12, 2019 by The Paper.
3 Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke
"Oh, black people talk differently than we whites," said David Duke, the "big villain" of Black Gangsters, the leader of the anti-black, anti-Semitic ku Klux Klux Klan, jokingly. "Our are, we say are, and the blacks are saying something strange."
At the end of the phone, Ron, a black police officer who spoke to the leaders of the Ku Klux Klux Klan in a white voice and went undercover, was unusually calm. He understands these discriminatory "black and white" and is also using this black and white distinction.
"Black Gangsters" tells the story of Ron and his partner, The Jewish Flip, who is responsible for telephone communication and the latter is responsible for infiltrating the organization by white faces, and successfully breaks a Klux Klux Klan conspiracy to kill black people.
Flip (left) and Ron (right)
When the nominations for the 2019 Oscars were released, "Black Party" was strongly shortlisted for six, including the competition for the "Best Picture" award.
As soon as the news came out, "Black Party" seemed to be automatically labeled as a "left-wing movie" and "politically correct". Douban netizen "Gray Moon Zero" even called the film "an invalid communication about the race portrait," and thought that Spike Lee defined the right-wing people in this movie: a group of bad and stupid mentally retarded people. ”
But should "The Black Party" really be defined as a politically correct black film, a one-sided narrative, a radical film that provokes racial confrontation?
Today, when criticism of Hollywood political correctness has become mainstream, we should not flatten a good movie in black and white. "The Black Party" is indeed a political cry of Spike Lee, but what he shouts is not hatred and confrontation, but understanding and coexistence. The film jumps out of the simple black perspective, uses a more empathetic way to understand the various groups in racial antagonisms, and even conducts a deep humanistic exploration of identity itself.
Poster of The Black Gangster
Radical Black Communities and Black Cops: Identity Regurgitation
When the protagonist, Ron, had just joined the Colorado Springs Police Department, he was given the task of doing plainclothes work at a rally speech by the famous radical black activist Kwame Ture. Kwame Ture's speech was provocative, pointing directly to the unfair treatment of black people by whites, especially the police, and calling on black people to rebel and revolution.
The shots and editing of this episode are extremely subtle: instigated by the speakers, the black audience in the audience becomes agitated, and group portrait faces quickly cross the frame, shouting unbearable profanity. These faces are hopeful, but at the same time dangerous and manic. The policeman Ron, who was sitting in the crowd, showed extreme restraint, only occasionally uttering a few innocuous words such as "right, right".
Radical black activist Kwame Ture
Ron's restraint is by no means just to avoid revealing his identity. On such hateful occasions, he was confused: is it really the best way to resolve disputes by singing about independence and violence, and opposing races? As a policeman, he was caught in a dilemma at this point.
Because of this, Ron has been hiding his identity as a police officer in his relationship with Patrice, the black student leader who organized the rally. Later, when he hears about the Ku Klux Klan bombing and has to clarify his identity and protect Patrice, he gets a furious response from Patrice: the police and the black community are incompatible.
And Ron, in this mood of antagonism and hatred, seems to have become a traitor within the black community.
Ron and girlfriend Patrice
By showing the contradictions that happen to Ron, Spike Lee deconstructs the reaction of this racial antagonism to the group: excessive antagonism may lead to identity alienation like Ron's.
"I feel like I have two opposing identities, 'American' and 'black.'" Ron confided in Patrice.
"You shouldn't think so. We should just be 'black,'" Patrice responded.
"No, we're not there yet." Ron smiled softly and changed the subject. It's his reflection on the extremism of the black community, and it's also Spike Lee's reflection on the single black narrative.
Portrayal of white radicals: Hatred does not destroy humanity
In addition to using the role of Ron to deconstruct the contradictions caused by hatred within black people, Spike Lee's portrayal of the villain's Ku Klux Klan in the film is far from a facial irony.
The most representative of these is Connie, the wife of felix, one of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klux. From the perspective of image shaping, Connie seems to be the funniest and most clumsy clown image in the whole play. At the end, she directly screwed up the explosion plan and fell on the ground obediently.
3 Ku Klux Klan leader Felix and wife Connie
However, the film shows her pitiful side in detail. When the all-male Ku Klux Klan meets at Connie's house, she excitedly pulls out a report of a rally of black students. Her husband, Felix, took the newspaper clippings she handed her, but said "enough" coldly, and arrogantly threw her away. Connie's smiling face froze.
This inadmissible grievance explains the later episode: When Felix tells Connie about the ideal of killing black people, Connie shines with reverence in her eyes and says, "Thank you for giving my life purpose and direction." "In the final explosion mission, the kind of meaning and satisfaction that Connie shows in life is touching and makes people reflect: Do we finally need a way to feel accepted and find meaning?
Similarly, as the film draws to its climax, the Ku Klux Klans in Colorado Springs are baptized under the gaze of leader David Duke. It was an extremely solemn, solemn scene, and the radical ideas of racial discrimination became their new religion. At the end of the baptism, the wives waiting at the door rushed in and embraced their husbands excitedly. At this moment, these hateful men and women may not look so hateful.
In the holy church, Spike Lee offers a deeper reflection on human nature: How did a hatred develop into a religion?
Collision and exchange of identities: reconciliation with oneself and the outside world
In addition to portraying the humanity of both groups, Black and White, Spike Lee uses the character of Ron's Jewish police aide, Flip, to explore broader issues of identity.
During the process of infiltrating the enemy camp to go undercover, Flip was repeatedly suspected by Felix of being a Jew. The old and spicy Felix constantly cursed the Jews in the most vicious language, trying to force Flip to reveal his identity with radical methods. It was clear that although Flip kept denying that he was Jewish, his face had exploded with green tendons and anger. As a competent undercover agent, he managed to restrain his emotions.
After this, Flip's words are perhaps the most moving scene in the whole film. "Yes, I'm Jewish, but I didn't grow up feeling Jewish. I always thought I was just white. "But after I denied my own identity in order to accomplish the task, I began to think uncontrollably about my identity, our Jewish tradition and civilization. ”
This is a new proposition proposed by Spike Lee out of the black-white opposition: between black and white, perhaps many people need to reconstruct their own identity cognition, and this reconstruction cannot be completed without abandoning the self-division of "I am white", without real communication and identity collision.
Such a proposition finally points to our protagonist Ron: many film critics have questioned why it is necessary to let Ron communicate with the Ku Klux Klan on the phone, and let Flip act alone. But the reality is that it is precisely because Ron, as a black man, has personally experienced the racial discrimination of white people that he will know the way these white people speak and think, thus deceiving several Ku Klux Klan leaders.
On another level, despite the many injustices and discrimination, Ron really opened up to what the Ku Klux Klan members really thought. Because of this, he was able to continue the conversation peacefully after hearing David Duke's ridiculous distinction between "black and white ways of speaking."
In the face of hatred, he did not return hatred, but chose to listen and eliminate hatred in the context of haters. This is where the film breaks out of dualistic opposition, reflects on hatred, and is also the place where Spike Lee is at the highest level.
If we could understand this series of subtle reflections on hatred and antagonism, perhaps we would not have added many flat labels to the film's so-called black narrative and political correctness.
Even in the highly competitive Oscar year, "The Black Party" did not win best picture, and it is an excellent window into the various ethnic issues and identity politics in the United States.
In the end, in the face of contradictions and opposites, we should always shout a sentence, long live understanding.