Blindspotting: The Code Switches Back
Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 6:30PM Lynn Lee on Blindspotting, new on Blu-Ray and DVD today
It must be something in the air. Or water. Or just our general 21st century American zeitgeist as we come to grips with how far we are from anything close to a “post-racial” dialogue. Whatever it is, 2018 is turning out to be the year for movies about racial code switching. It’s the common thread that links projects as disparate as the gonzo anti-capitalist satire of Sorry to Bother You, the stranger-than-fiction part-comedy, part-true crime thriller BlacKkKlansman, and the Black Lives Matter-inflected YA drama The Hate U Give. At the heart of each film is a black protagonist who, having mastered the art of speaking “white,” ultimately discovers its limits as a means of challenging society’s white-dominated power structure.
Then there’s Blindspotting, which puts its own unique spin on these themes and turns the concept of code switching on its head. The film presents a white guy, Miles (Rafael Casal), born and bred in Oakland, who raps, talks, and acts like a walking stereotype of the ’hood even as his best friend, Collin (Tony winner and now Spirit Award nominee Daveed Diggs), has to live with the real implications of being an actual black man with a criminal record. Despite these tensions, the bond between Collin and Miles feels genuine, reflecting the real-life friendship between Diggs and Casal...