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Birth of a Nation

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And my only regret is that it is all terribly true. – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Birth of a Nation


1
Birth of a Nation
  • Presentation 1 Cultural Phenomenon

2
Birth of a Nation
3
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4
Background (setting up cultural context)
  • Birth of a Nation (1915), produced and directed
    by D. W. Griffith was originally entitled The
    Clansman and changed to Birth of a Nation a few
    months later.
  • The film is based on Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr.s
    racist play The Clansman

5
  • The film is still used today to recruit Klan
    members.
  • Griffith argued that he was not a racist,
    claiming his film is simply narrating the truth.
  • The NAACP responded vehemently to the film,
    speaking out against the vicious depictions of
    blacks.
  • Ironically, President Wilson enthusiastically
    declared Its like writing history with
    lighting. And my only regret is that it is all
    terribly true.

6
"NAACP Protests the Screening of the Movie 'Birth
of a Nation.'"New York City, New York 1947
7
  • Riot broke out in major cities and eight states
    refused to show the film fearing racial tension.
  • As a result of this censorship, Griffith became a
    life-long advocate of free speech.
  • Griffith wrote the following that prefaces the
    film Birth of a Nation
  • We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish
    to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but
    we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the
    dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the
    bright side of virtue . . .

8
Race, Gender, Politics
  • Made 50 years after the Civil War, Birth of a
    Nation gives a clear message about Reconstruction
    Southern whites are the true victims, the
    liberated and independent-minded blacks are the
    victimizers.
  • A romanticized version of the Old South is
    portrayed plantation life is depicted as
    innocent, pure, happy, and orderly. This is
    portrayed by the African Americans in the movie
    dancing and singing in the slave quarters.

9
  • The film raises white fears
  • Miscegenation (sexual relations between whites
    and blacks, particularly between white women and
    black men)
  • White male emasculation (white mens masculinity
    questioned and emasculated by black males
    prowess)
  • White middle-class chaste femininity being
    sullied by blackness white women would become
    whores under black rule

10
Psychological Dimensions of Racism
  • African-American Studies Scholar John Hope
    Franklin contends that white mens fear of
    disempowerment, of emasculation, of disorder, and
    of humiliation is projected onto the male black
    body. Furthermore, he argues that the fear of
    sexuality has historically been projected on the
    black body. Black males and females

11
  • are seen as hyper sexual, promiscuous beings.
    This is demonstrated in the film when the former
    slave Gus tries to rape Flora, the sister to the
    well-respected, honorable Ben Cameron. Later,
    Bens fiancee, Elsie, is kidnapped by Silas
    Lynch, another former slave who has declared
    himself emperor of the First Black American
    Empire. Ben ultimately saves Elsie, leading his
    Klan friends to the rescue of white womanhood,
    white honor, and white glory.

12
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13
  • Filtering Bens actions through Franklins
    theory, Ben embodies this fear of emasculation,
    being denied the right to be in control and
    protector of white womanhood. White masculinity
    is, according to Franklin, embedded in obtaining
    the illusion of innocent and pure white
    middle-class femininity.

14
So how does this movie resonate today in the 21st
century?
  • In The Birth of a Nationhood Lessons from
    Thomas Dixon and D.W. Griffith to William
    Bradford Huie and The Klansman, O.J. Simpsons
    First Movie, professor Riche Richardson argues
    that the old sham white supremacy forever wedded
    to and dependent upon faux black inferiority
    exists today (par.1). We can see it play out in
    how O.J. Simpson was depicted in the media.

15
  • He explains The official story has thrown Mr.
    Simpson into a representative role. He is not an
    individual who underwent and was acquitted from a
    murder trial. He has become the whole race,
    needing correction, incarceration, censoring,
    silencing the race that needs its civil rights
    disassembled the race that is a sign and symbol
    of domestic violence (par.2)

16
American National Identity
  • Birth of a Nation shows how race and gender is
    intricately woven into American persona. So
    what does it say? That until the Civil Rights
    Movement, America was automatically associated
    with whiteness, that whiteness was really an
    effacement of rich cultures and special ways of
    knowing and being and thinking, that America
    today must still come in terms with this reality,
    that white privilege still needs to be exposed
    and challenged, that we must own our past for a
    liberated future.

17
Question
  • Although we can all identify the egregious racist
    and hateful images of African Americans, is Birth
    of a Nation still relevant today? That is, does
    it expose white privilege and white racist fear
    that has not disappeared, but have taken on a
    more subtle and less vicious face?

18
Works Cited
  • Birth of a Nation. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf.
    Lillian
  • Gish, Mae Marsh, and Henry Walthall. 1915.
    Videocassette. VCI Home Video, 1998.
  • Franklin, J.H. From Slavery to Freedom A
  • History of African American. 11th ed. New York
  • Alfred Knopf, 1999.
  • Richardson, R. The Birth of a Nationhood
    Lessons from Thomas Dixon and D.W. Griffith to
    William Bradford Huie and The Klansman, O.J.
    Simpsons First Movie. Mississippi Quarterly
    56.1 (winter 2002-2003)3-31. Academic Search
    Premier. EBSCOhost. Lake Sumter Comm. Coll.
    Lib., Leesburg, FL. 28 Aug. 200lthttp//web.ebswhos
    t .com/ehost/results?vidgt.
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