Twos and Threes: A Structural Analysis of BlacKkKlansman's Undercover Narrative

Abstract

Abstract:Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018) works within the structural conventions of the undercover detective genre, but with an important twist. Whereas most undercover movies feature story worlds built around binaries (cops and robbers, state and subculture), BlacKkKlansman follows a trinomial logic, as Ron Stallworth navigates the Colorado Springs Police Department, the local Black Student Union, and the White Supremacist "Organization." This tripling leads to innovative forms of narrative agency, audience identification, and thematic juxtaposition. It also engenders a novel story situation in which two undercover agents—one Black and one white and Jewish—inhabit the same identity while feeling unique pressures regarding the authenticity of their personal and professional lives. By situating BlacKkKlansman within the conventions of the undercover genre, and exploring its narratological innovations, this essay argues that the film's triadic (rather than dualistic) structure opens it to the charge that it belongs to the tradition of liberal centrism rather than leftist radicalism, even as it allows Lee to pursue a "late style" interest in increasingly complex forms of self-definition.