In the late 1970s, African-American police officer Ron Stallworth infiltrated the notoriously hateful and racist Ku Klux Klan. His 2014 memoir on his experiences has since been adapted into a movie, showing the inner workings of this scheme in tension with his racial identity. This article reveals how ideas about race and power-structures are interwoven with performative acts of the Black body in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018).

Based on a true story

Cinema is unique in creating new and different dimensions of meaning as it allows the construction of narratives through the combination of moving visual images and audio. Realities created in film can function as reconstructions of our historical socio-cultural past. A representation of this can be found in the American movie BlacKkKlansman. The work is based on the 2014 memoir Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth. The now-retired Stallworth was not only the first Black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department but also infiltrated the members of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado in the late 1970s.

What makes this story so important - and is probably also the reason why Lee reconstructed it into a movie - is that it tells us viewers a lot about the socially constructed meaning of a Black person in this period of time. Stallworth’s story would have caught less attention if he was a white male; there is nothing special about a white man joining the police corps as he was certainly not the first. Besides, infiltrating the KKK as a white man would not be that hard because his body would carry the ‘right’ social meaning in the eyes of the members. In this movie, the body can be seen as a leading symbol that reflects normative ideas and assumptions from the past.

What ‘performativity’ adds

Performativity can function as a lens through which we analyze the body as a symbol. It is an important factor that can function as a layer of storytelling in movies. It helps to understand this term in relation to the more commonly known term of performance which can be referred to as a ‘twice-behaved behavior’ or ‘restored behavior’; something that is being acted out but already has been done before (Schechner, 2002). Acting is only one kind of performance; everyday life, sports, or rituals can just as well occur as performances.

Performativity and its sister term performative are much harder terms to pin down. They are often “used loosely to indicate something that is ‘like a performance’ without actually being a performance in the orthodox or formal way” (Schechner, 2002, p. 123). Within performance studies, the concept of performativity is used in exploring “the construction of social reality including gender and race” (Schechner, 2002, p. 123). This article explores how power-knowledge structures can be uncovered by analyzing the body of the leading role through the lens of performativity.

We could say that in the social reality of this movie, the Black body has two meanings: on one hand, it is a symbol for power and activism and on the other hand, it is a symbol for an oppressed group. Stallworth’s body carries different meanings in four different settings. The first one is him as the first Black detective in the police department, the second one as a member of a Black activist group, the third one as an infiltrator within the KKK, and the last one Stallworth as an ‘avatar’. In the next part, I will clear up these four roles by addressing relevant scenes and relating these to the concepts of power-knowledge-structures, performativity, and the body as a symbol.

Speech and the body

The following scene illustrates Stallworth’s social role as the first Black officer at the police department. We see Stallworth in the record room where he has a frustrating conversation with a white colleague who tells him: “I need a file on a toad”. Stallworth gives his colleague an expressionless look while staying silent, causing the other officer to ask him if he is deaf. Stallworth decides to show his opinion towards this slang term: “I don’t have any toads here. I have human beings. You give me their names, I’ll give you their file.” His colleague answers with the following line: “I heard you think you’re hot shit but you ain’t nothing but a cold fart.” Showing his annoyance, Stallworth extensively takes his time to get the file and walks remarkably slowly back to the counter. When Stallworth gives him the file, the colleague says: “Was that respectable enough, Officer Toad?”. With a teasing smile and wink, he leaves the record room. Once alone again, Stallworth gestures fighting punches in the air while slowly the uplifting song Oh Happy Day starts playing.

© BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee (2018), Focus Features

BlacKkKlansman (2018), (00:09:29)

Stallworth taking a stance against his colleague marks an important theme that influences the rest of the movie as well. The relevance of analyzing this scene through the lens of performativity lies in the things that are being said by the characters and how these reflect social structures. Linguistic philosopher J.L. Austin helps to make this more clear. In chapter one of his book How to do Things with Words, he explains that to say something means to do something (Austin, 1962). In this case, the utterances of the white officer do not describe degrading, racist comments, they are degrading and racist actions which maintain a hierarchy/power structure. Here we see how the theme of racism is constructed by the spoken words of a character. 

The Black body does not only carry its social meaning, it is a meaningful symbol itself.

At the same time, this scene also shows Stallworth’s position within this social structure. In contrast to an earlier scene, he now decides to say something about the use of the word ‘toad’. Taking all his time to grab the file can be seen as a passive-aggressive way towards the white colleague that illustrates Stallworth expressing his frustration. Finally, his fighting gestures at the end of the scene in combination with the start of a positive song put the leading character in a powerful and active role, making it seem like he is the one the viewer is supposed to sympathize with. He (almost literally) seems ready to fight against these power-structures that influence the rest of the movie.

Next to the spoken word, the physical body also play an important role. Mary Douglas’ view on the body supports this, as she writes the following: “The social body constrains the way the physical body is perceived. The physical experience of the body, always modified by the social categories through which it is known, sustains a particular view of society” (2003, p.93). Douglas claims that the body functions as a representation of society. The scene described above shows the physical body as a social body at the same time. The Black body does not only carry its social meaning, it is a meaningful symbol itself. Stallworth’s body being perceived by his colleague causes a certain power structure expressed by performative speech. Refreshing about this movie is the fact that throughout the plot, the Black body will not just symbolize a suppressed group of people, but will also be represented as a vehicle for social revolution and change.

Infiltration

Stallworth gets a new mission; he is asked to observe a gathering by Black power speaker Kwame Ture. I have chosen a second scene in which we see Stallworth among the audience during the speech of Ture. With a microphone underneath his clothes, he joins the Black students at the rally. We could say that this is Stallworth’s second ‘role’ next to being a first Black officer. Of course, he still joins the rally as a Black officer but he pretends to be one of the Black activists. The group receives him candidly as Stallworth does not feel like a threat; his Black body is perceived as a trustworthy ‘symbol’. Besides, the fact the police have always been white causes no suspicion for the students. It immediately strikes that not only Stallworth’s body has a certain meaning in this context but also his way of speech.

Among white as well as Black people, Stallworth tries to distinguish himself language-wise. At the police station, he talks the ‘white’ dialect and at the rally, he quickly switches to the ‘black’ English dialect when he joins the waiting line for the gathering on the street (“I can dig it, sister.”). His ability to switch between these two dialects, or these ‘performances’, allows him to infiltrate - and manipulate, as we see later in the movie - power structures from within.

Ture takes his place behind the microphone while we see a shot of Stallworth in the audience. The lights are low and red light from the right makes for a dark, exciting, and powerful shot. Ture tells the audience that is time for them to “…stop running away from being Black.” Right after that, we see Stallworth again who seems to be really into Ture’s words: he has a thoughtful glance on his face and looks around to see the encouraging reactions of the Black students around him. Following headshots emphasize Stallworth being one of the others. We see illuminated faces of other students in the crowd which makes them seem to be floating in the dark. Like Stallworth, they are all attentively listening as one. In the meantime, Ture says that ‘we’ (Black people) have become to hate themselves because of the oppression and racism they suffer from white people. He proclaims the beauty of Black people and suggests that everyone in the audience should see that beauty in themselves and their heritage. Another headshot of Stallworth shows him softly saying “right on, right on” when everyone around him is cheering. The viewer is left in doubt whether Stallworth expresses this support because he is an undercover officer who tries to fit in, or if he is a Black person who truly feels touched by this powerful speech. Both scenes one and two emphasize how Stallworth’s performative actions influence the way he is perceived.

Subversive performativity

After his first mission of infiltrating the Black student gathering, Ron takes a challenge when he reads a KKK recruitment advertisement in the paper. He calls the number and tells he is interested while performing a convincing imitation of a white racist man saying how he hates ‘negroes’ and only appreciates ‘pure-as-driven-snow white skin’. After the call, he not only realizes that he used his real name but also was asked to meet the members in real life. His sheriff scoffingly remarks “Well, you probably shouldn’t go to that meeting” but Stallworth wants to proceed with the mission by suggesting to send a white officer when ‘racist Ron’ is asked to meet the clan face to face. In the meantime, the real Stallworth, who is acting as white, will keep having conversations through the phone with the leaders: a way to combine ‘white’ and ‘black’ Ron Stallworth, he says. He ultimately finds his white counterpart in his colleague Flip. The sheriff takes Stallworth for a fool; of course, anyone can hear the difference between “one of my men talking and a Black man talking”. “Sir, some of us can speak King’s English, others speak jive” responds Stallworth, who happens to be fluent in both. As the mission goes on, Stallworth eventually ends up having frequent conversations over the phone with David Duke who is the ‘Grand Wizard’ of the Klan. 

Over the phone, Stallworth asks Duke if he is never concerned a smart Black man is calling him pretending to be white. Duke explains he can always tell when he is talking to a ‘Negro’. He takes Stallworth as an example: “Now, I can tell that you’re a pure, Aryan white man by the way you pronounce certain words”. When Stallworth asks for an example, Duke gives the following ridiculous answer: “Yeah, take the word ‘are’. A pure Aryan like you or I would pronounce it correctly: ‘are’. A Negro pronounces it ‘are-uh’. D’you ever notice that? It’s like…“Are-uh…you gonna fry up that…crispy fried chicken, soul brother?” (Lee, 2018, 01:18:32)

Duke’s answer is deeply racist and problematic. Through the medium of recorded film, director Spike Lee cuts through the heaviness of the topic by letting Stallworth and his white sergeant, who is listening along, try to hold in their laughter. The scene gets the feel of a prank call as Duke truly believes he is talking to a white man. It also emphasizes how Duke is not able to empathize or enter the mind of a Black person at all which results in his confidence about knowing how a Black man sounds. 

Stallworth is the right man for this subversive kind of act as he does not identify strongly with either Black or white people and therefore enables himself to easily ‘code-switch’ between the two.

Even though this is based on a true story and the real Stallworth actually ‘performed’ this subverted practice, placing the narrative within the frame of a movie emphasized the ability for experimentation and play with performativity. In this light, Stallworth infiltrating and manipulating through changing his language and ‘hiding’ his body (behind the phone) could be seen as a performative act that is “…‘non-referential’ because it does not describe an act deriving from an inner essence or a fixed identity” (Koutsourakis, 2012, pp. 95). I argue that Stallworth’s performing would be semi-referential; pretending to be a white man is not his description of his essential self, but at the same time it does heavily relate to his identity which is fixed by his Black body for if he was white, pretending to be a racist would have a different meaning with maybe less personal interest.

White officer as 'avatar'

Stallworth and Flip are in the record room having a private conversation. Flip speaks out his concern about the last face-to-face meeting with the members of the Klan where he got a gun pointed at him by member Felix; a bit of an impulsive and not too bright character who suspects white Ron Stallworth to be a Jew. Flip mentions how he almost got killed: “And for what…? Stopping some jerk-offs from playing dress-up?”. With this sentence, Flip seems to hold an underestimating position towards the ideas the KKK stands for. “This is your job, what’s the problem?” answers Stallworth. The conversation between the men illustrates how Stallworth has more personal gain in this job than Flip as a white man. “For you, it’s a crusade, for me it’s a job” explains Flip. He thinks the job is not personal, nor should it be. Stallworth tries to get his colleague back to his side by addressing Flip’s Jewish heritage and how his people have been ‘passing’ as WASP’s (White Anglo-Saxion Protestants) instead of being appreciated by their background. Flip still does not “buy into the whole thing”; whether he cares about his background is his own business, he explains. Stallworth at last tries: “But it is our business” before Flip walks away frustrated.

© BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee (2018), Focus Features

BlacKkKlansman (2018), (00:56:32)

The scene above illustrates the tension between Stallworth and his ‘avatar’. His stand-in does not embody the same essence and corresponding values that Stallworth embodies as a Black man. In his article, Boellstorf emphasizes that avatars are not merely representations of bodies (more related to the avatar as an electronic image that represents a computer user in a virtual world) but “forms of embodiment, centered on constitutive emplacement within a world” (2011). The scene mentioned above could be interpreted as a conflict between Stallworth and the ‘extended’ version of himself. He needs Flip’s body to achieve what he wants but there are limits to using a stand-in officer ‘as an avatar’ as Flip has different personal values which are mostly related to his whiteness.

Conclusion

This analysis shows how performative utterances are part of the way police officers interact with Stallworth at the police station and reflect structural racism of the late 1970s in America. Nevertheless, Stallworth is unique in distinguishing himself among a certain group. He easily switches between dialects when trying to blend in more with his colleagues and when trying to not be noticed as an undercover cop among the Black students. When it comes to switching to a KKK-member, Stallworth realizes he has to reduce his ability to his voice and has to ‘use’ Flip’s body. On the phone with Duke, he imitates a racist man as means to disturb the social powers imposed on him. For the face-to-face meetings, we could say he enters the world of the KKK through an ‘avatar’. A different form of embodiment that still holds his personal interest but later gets in conflict with the individual values of Flip. 

Results from this analysis have to be seen in relation to limitations of the used research method. Data selection is based on personal interpretations and could therefore not be fully representative for the statement that it is useful to analyze this movie through the lens of performativity. In this light, I want to propose this research as a subjective, observational analysis that can change the perspective or opinion of those who have seen this movie or will in the future.

References

Austin, J.L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Boellstorff, T. (2011). Virtuality: Placing the Virtual Body: Avatar, Chora, Cypherg. In A Companion To The Anthropology Of The Body And Embodiment, 504–520. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444340488.ch29

Douglas, M. (1970). The two bodies. In Natural Symbols (pp. 93-112). Barrie and Jenkins.

Koutsourakis, A. (2012). Cinema of the Body: the Politics of Performativity. In Lars von Trier’s Dogville and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image 3, pp. 84-108.

Lee, Spike. (2018). BlacKkKlansman. Focus Features.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Avatar. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/avatar

Schechner, R., & Brady, S. (2013). Performance Studies: An Introduction (3rd Edition).  Routledge.