For instance, must has and will be made out of the role that Trump plays literally and figuratively in this movie. Casual viewers of this movie may scoff at the Make America Great Again iconography in this movie -- especially given the fact that director Spike Lee is such a vocal detractor of the president's. I will say Lee's use of Trump and Trumpism in this film is a bold stroke that could have backfired, but I think is deployed in this film in a way that winds up being profound. Let me explain..
I have often wondered how we will ever be able to reconcile the Trump era, even if it should come to an end in less than a year. Families were torn apart by this presidency — literally and figuratively. People have gone to great extremes in their fidelity to this president, and those sins will not easily be forgotten, especially by his opponents.
Ironically Lee, a man whose made a career out of making some white Americans uncomfortable, has given life to the most sympathetic characterization of a Trump supporter I’ve ever seen in a Hollywood film (not that there have been many). And Lindo’s character is no caricature of a black Republican like you’d see in a very funny Key and Peele sketch. He is very tough, smart, and proud of his culture.
He is also righteously angry with what he sees as the inequities of his country and he has latched onto Trump as a vengeful vessel to “get his,” as I imagine a lot of his other supporters did too. Whether he actually has benefited from Trump’s president isn’t fully clear, he has traveled halfway across the world to retrieve hidden treasure so let’s presume not much, but that’s not the point — Lindo wants to feel like someone, anyone is fighting for him. And in his mind, Trump is doing that.
As Lee’s sprawling film unfolds it reveals more and more of the trauma that turned Lindo’s PTSD-suffering character into the haunting mess that he is. And as Lindo’s powerful performance and expressive face, brings forth the humanity and pathos of so many broken men. His pain may be tied to race, but almost anyone can relate to someone who feels helpless and scared.
Later, when the Lindo character achieves something akin to a grace note it's jarring to see the Make America Great Again logo prominently on his backwards hat in the frame. Wisely, Lee doesn't linger on it too much. He has, in the past (especially in the wildly overrated Jungle Fever) shown a tendency to state his message with far too little subtlety. I don't know if he's being tempered by the three other scriptwriters here, but here he is thoughtful and restrained.
Everyone else around Lindo mocks or is appalled by his Trump support, which, as often is the case with many Trump supporters, only makes him cling harder to someone who another character in the movie calls "the klansman in the White House."
The MAGA hat also makes an appearance on a much more loathsome character in the movie, but that worked for me too. It felt like Lee was sort of suggesting that a lot of us have a Trump supporter inside us, not literally of course but figuratively or subconsciously. After all, he represents the ultimate selfish ID: Getting yours no matter what or who you have to hurt.
That can be a very attractive, and short term satisfying philosophy to live by. Certainly for broken insecure people, a worldview that prioritizes personal gratification is comforting. And yet, taking that kind of stance as a human being can and most likely will hurt people around you.
It's like the coronavirus. Sure, in an ideal world if someone wants to choose not to wear a protective mask they should have the right not to. Only problem is that their not wearing a mask can make me or someone else sick. And that's a problem. Libertarianism only works if we all occupy our own little self sufficient universes but we don't. Which brings me to my larger point.
I am just as guilty as anyone of hating and failing to understand the hearts and minds of Trump voters. It doesn't help that so many of them hold in their hearts a comparatively irrational hatred of me. I see what their vote has wrought and I wonder how can they sign on for more. I think for them, the feeling is more personal, they look at how frustrated (or in the case of his many rich supporters) or unsatisfied they are in their own lives that they think cynically that no one cares but someone like him.
Da 5 Bloods doesn't offer up a defense or even an excuse for Trump supporters -- but I did feel like it offered something almost resembling a truce.
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