A screenwriter for the recently released Spike Lee film “BlackKkKlansman” wants audiences to see that President Trump “is no different than a member of the Ku Klux Klan.”
“It’s very important for America,” said screenwriter Charlie Wachtel, according to DailyMail.com. “It goes without saying that we’re making a lot of parallels with this movie to what’s going on in the current political climate and the current conversation, and to be very blunt, we’re making the comparison that Donald Trump is no different than a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the people who voted for Donald Trump, that gives them something to think about.”
“It’s a period piece, but as you watch the film, it’s pretty clear that it’s not about the 70s,” added screenwriter David Rabinowitz. “It’s about today.”
The movie, released Friday, tells the story of Ron Stallworth, an African-American detective who infiltrated the Colorado Springs Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. During the 1978 undercover operation, a white detective pretending to be Stallworth physically attended meetings, but Ron Stallworth himself paved the way with dozens of long-distance phone conversations with former Klan leader David Duke, who was overseeing the Colorado Springs chapter from his Louisiana home.
Other key people associated with the movie, including its director and the individual upon which the story is based, see a similar anti-Trump theme.
Both its director, Lee, and the movie’s real-life main character, Stallworth himself, intend for the movie to be far more than a historical account. Instead, they hope its audiences will draw comparisons with recent events, particularly last year’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (RELATED: President Trump Denounces ‘All Types Of Racism And Acts Of Violence’ Ahead Of ‘Unite The Right’ Rally)
“I never thought America would be stupid enough to put this idiot in the White House,” Stallworth told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Up until a half hour before they declared Trump the winner, I still thought that it wouldn’t happen. I never thought that we as a nation had fallen so much that we would be foolish enough to do that.”
Stallworth added that he considers President Trump “the physical embodiment of what David Duke tried to achieve, but wasn’t successful at.”
Director Spike Lee, who refuses to say President Trump’s name, told Reuters, “I want the guy in the White House to see it too. I don’t say his name though.”
Lee says he was moved to make the film after last year’s Charlottesville events and hopes the movie will inspire people to “mobilize” against President Trump.
“When I saw the horrific act of domestic, American homegrown terrorism, I knew right away I wanted to do this,” Lee said. “The President of the United States had a chance to denounce hate. The whole world saw what happened and he didn’t do it.” (RELATED: Mother Of Charlottesville Victim Thanks Trump For Condemning Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists)
“People got to mobilize, form coalitions, we’ve gotta get going,” Lee told Variety. “A lot of this stuff is grassroots, it’s not going to be just one thing.”
The film reportedly ends with recent footage from the Charlottesville demonstrations.