There’s a new Spike Lee Joint, and it looks better than She’s Gotta Have It, thank God. He’s teamed up with director Jordan Peele for his latest film, BlacKkKlansman, which received a standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival with an electrified response from the audience on its first ever screening. Now, the trailer has been released.
BlacKkKsman is a 70s satirical comedy based on the true story of Ron Stallsworth, the first African-American police detective to serve in the police force in Colorado Springs. Stallsworth manages to successfully infiltrate the corrupt racist systems of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter with a Jewish member of the police force Adam Driver. The film is a feature-length adaptation of a Dave Chappelle sketch that turned out to be a true story.
The trailer shows the duo infiltrating klans rallies, attending Black Panther meetings, and ends on the troubling words “America First”, a phrase Trump has employed a lot as of late. Spike Lee later used a Blackkklansman press conference to vent frustrations about the president with a “foul-mouthed” self expressive rant.
“We have a guy in the White House, I’m not gonna say his fucking name”, speaking on the 2017 Charlottesville protest where there were 3 tragic fatalities. “And that motherfucker did not denounce the motherfucking Klan, the alt-right, and those Nazis motherfuckers. It was a defining moment, and he could have said to the world, not just the United States, that we were better than that.”
Peele, who already has one cinematic success under his belt from 2017’s racially twisted Get Out, teamed up with Spike Lee to co-create and direct a film that provokes ideas about race. Just as that film featured countless examples of racism sprinkled with blunt humorous honesty, this crime comedy is set to do the same.
Blackkklansman premieres in cinemas August 10th, watch the trailer below: