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Although BlacKkKlansman (2018) could be further demarcated from traditional passing narratives thanks to Spike Lee’s attempts of adding more diverse voices and sarcastic twists to the original plot, both the acclamatory and excoriating reviews seem limited to whether the film’s depiction of the Black Diaspora (and passing) is politically correct. Clarifying that the experienced auteur succeeds in making it difficult for the audience to interpret BlacKkKlansman only in one way, I in this paper aim to appositely shed on light on the film’s ambivalence by thoroughly analyzing Ron Stallworth’s infiltration into the Ku Klux Klan mainly based on the conceptualizations of racial masquerade and affect alien. Based on several sequences germane to the black protagonist’s infiltration into the Klan through the collaboration with white sergeant Flip Zimmerman, BlaKkKlansman not only adroitly blurs the conventional boundary between racial masquerade and passing, but also associates the two concepts with what W. E. B. Du Bois refers to as “double consciousness.” Such analysis related to the visual aspects of the film as well as of black identity sheds light on the value of ambivalence implicit in the lived experiences of Black Diaspora as an antithesis to white epistemology disseminating the monolithic and distorted sense of blackness, which is discussed more profoundly in light of the idea of affect. This paper specifically explores several moments in which Ron becomes a doubled figure in relation to the conceptualization of affect alien, insinuating that the very double consciousness is what induces the protagonist and the audience to cast doubt on various dichotomies. Hence, I ultimately seek to suggest that BlacKkKlansman’s ambivalence as a more complicated and metacinematic parody of the conventional passing narratives represents the coexistence of the dilemma and possibility of resistance against white epistemological limitation, associating the film with the highly contemporary meme, “Black lives matter more than white feelings.”
