The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 silent film. It was directed by D. W. Griffith who is called the "father of cinema".
The movie is noted for its innovative camera shots and great drama from advances in film narrative techniques. It was the first Hollywood blockbuster.
It also showed white supremacy in a way that brought back the KKK into modern society (it had mostly died off, by then, otherwise). As late as the 1970s, the KKK used the film as a recruitment tool.
When the film was first shown, riots broke out in Boston, Philadelphia and other major cities. Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and St. Louis refused to allow the film to open. After seeing it, gangs of whites went out to attack blacks.
The film interprets history that blacks were a wild crazy mess after the Civil War, and they couldn't do anything but act like demonic marauding monsters trying to rape the pretty white girls of good breeding. The gloriously good KKK rides heroically to the rescue and saves the white girls from rape. Many white's still hold this view of black history, today, even though it's mean and stupid.
Roger Ebert, said of it: "'The Birth of a Nation' is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."
Question:
How much of America's deeply in ingrained and unique racial prejudices comes from Hollywood making the Whites good and the Jews, Blacks, Indians, Mexicans and Asians bad for so many decades?
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Comments: 33
Also, weren't all of the black characters played by white folk because black actors refused to take part in this film? Not that there were tons of black actors in California at the time.
that in itself would make me want to see it.
the tale is old and goes back to pre-history.
it is the first reaction of humans to the 'outsiders'
but the thinking about the propaganda isn't even there for most as all the 'most' want to do is to react and kill those not like themselves.
This was thought to be a great film by the ruling white society at the time and still is by they that are still in that ‘great white society’.
From what I have seen in movies over the years I would have to agree with the Hollywood prortrayal of minorities fueling the racial prdjudices in the US. I do think in recent years there have been movies and many documentaries that have been made that help to educate people of our cultural differences and show that we are all more similar than different and should be able to get along with one another.
Maybe the younger generations will miss all that rot.
In answer to the question, I think Hollywood has helped reinforce a lot of prejudices and stereotypes over the years, but it rarely creates them. I think good old Mom and Dad, and communities in general have had a lot more influence when it comes to perpetuating racial (and many other forms of) prejudice.
so I am going swimming~ but not with the lemjmings~ I'll pick my own dam** cliff~
Speaking as being of Native American descent...
Not a lot of movies before the 90s that saw us as valued people.
The Noble Savage moniker sticks, as dos the "red savages" and whiskey, wampum and blankets/beads...stereotype.
Now, can we talk about gender bias from the movies? Yes, I'd say that was a real impactful brainwashing. Look at Old John Wayne movies, where he "spanks" the female for having an opinion different from his own. Can't even watch them anymore.
Or the "shaken 'little woman'..." like the "shaken baby" syndrome? Not so much.
Wilka
The Thin Man movies had an interesting take on gender equality. Both Nick and Nora were good at solving mysteries and each had their own areas where they were better than the other.
One of my earliest memories was sitting on my mother's lap and seeing a local vaudeville show in the town near ours where my parents grew up. A guy was on stage - a white man in black face - singing. I just remember thinking how strange it was that this guy had black paint all over his face and everyone just seemed not to notice and were enjoying the song.
Black stereotypes and racism has been long ingrained in our entertainment industry. Louis Armstrong, even at the height of his popularity, could not enter a hotel through the front door with his white band members, but had to go through the back servants' entrance. To their credit, though, the entertainment industry helped reverse these stereotypes during the 60's and 70's with films like "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?".
The KKK was really big in the 1920s. It was a major political force in the south and some northern states as well. Indiana state government was dominated by the Klan for a number of years. When I was a kid I was fascinated by a coffee table book my folks had. It was a history of cartoons in the US. There was a large number of KKK themed cartoons in the book. The cartoons were not pro-Klan. A common theme was how silly people dressed up in sheets looked. I'm assuming that the editors chose not to include pro-Klan cartoons. It is possible that pro-Klan cartoons weren't funny. :)