Director Spike Lee is under fire from one of his peers for not having enough racist cops in his new film ’BlacKkKlansman.’
The liberal filmmaker recently found himself attacked from his left flank by Boots Riley for portraying the first black detective with the Colorado Springs Police Department as a hero. The ’Sorry to Bother You’ director says Mr. Lee’s depiction of Ron Stallworth’s life is “disappointing” for not making him out to be a “villain.”
Mr. Stallworth and his partners infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and managed to dupe David Duke into issuing the black detective an official membership card.
“Without the made up stuff and what we know of the actual history of police infiltration into radical groups, and how they infiltrated and directed White Supremacist organizations to attack those groups, Ron Stallworth is the villain,” Mr. Riley recently tweeted. “We deal with [racism] mostly from police on a day to day basis. And not just from white cops. Black cops too. So for Spike to come up with a movie where a story points are fabricated in order to make Black cop and his counterparts look like allies in the fight against racism is really disappointing, to put it mildly.”
Mr. Lee was asked about the criticism for a U.K.’s Times interview published Friday.
“Well, I’m not going to comment on that,” he said before adding, “Look at my films: they’ve been very critical of the police, but on the other hand I’m never going to say all police are corrupt, that all police hate people of color. I’m not going to say that. I mean, we need police.”
Mr. Lee said that arguing with another director would “dilute the message” of his film, which ends by likening President Trump to the KKK’s dream candidate.
“It was like a horror movie where, you know, the guy calls and says the call is coming from inside the house,” actor Topher Grace, who plays David Duke, recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “You go, ’oh my God. The killer’s here.’ It’s like a brilliant move of Spike’s.”
Ok. Here’s are some thoughts on #Blackkklansman.
— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) August 17, 2018
Contains spoilers, so don’t read it if you haven’t seen it and you don’t wanna spoil it. pic.twitter.com/PKfnePrFGy
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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