D.W. Griffiths Movie, Birth of a Nation Shows the Reality...

Birth of a Nation uses its histrionic plot to show how tangled destinies of a southern and northern family before and after the Civil War. It willingly portrays southern blacks as spiteful and uncivil, the northern whites as crafty, dishonest, and conceited, and the film’s southern whites as anguish recurrent radical and erotic mortifications at the hands of white northerners and black southerners before factually being saved by the thoughtful, Ku Klux Klan. The film is divided to show the different aspects of those two sides during this historical time. During this time Africans were coming to America and it started the reconstruction on our country. D.W. Griffith made this film to show us the reality of racism at this point in time.†¦show more content†¦This movie in particular was three hours long, for most viewing a three hour film with speaking is draining. Seeing that I could barely endure my focus on what was being shown. I decided to divide the movie up into t hree days for an hour. For those days I took notes and really analyzed what I thought was wrong and miss told. In the movie the embellishments about Africa Americans was misguiding. The beginning of the second half, the whites were holding up signs stating they wanted â€Å"Equal rights, equal politics and equal marriages.† Realistically speaking, we all know that was not the case. For the most part whites only wanted that for themselves not for the whole community. The way that Griffith tried to reveal whites was in a way that said they were in favor for equal rights for all. That they were the â€Å"helpless white minority.† And to be quite honest I think that’s pushing it. â€Å" Some of these early productions have racial themes which reorganize the world in such a way that black heritage is rewarded over white paternity; they are schematic renunciations of the prevailing order of things in white American society where, historically, the discovery of black blood meant sudden reversal of fortune, social exclusion, or banishment.† (Gaines, P.3) Within the movie the amount of mistruths about African Americans was sad. Within the movie you notice that the blacks were always or seem to be yelling, acting uncivilized and doingShow MoreRelatedRacism Enacted Throughout the History of Black Films Essay1254 Words   |  6 PagesAfrican Americans in early Hollywood films originated with blacks representing preconceived stereotypes. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, stirred many controversial issues within the black community. The fact that Griffith used white actors in blackface to portray black people showed how little he knew abou t African Americans. Bosley Crowther’s article â€Å"The Birth of Birth of a Nation† emphasizes that the film was a â€Å"highly pro-South drama of the American Civil War and the Period of ReconstructionRead MoreSatire and Stereotyping in the Birth of a Nation and Bamboozled3034 Words   |  13 Pageshumiliating minstrel stereotypes which was first brought to film in 1915 by D.W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation. ‘Blackface minstrelsy is a disturbing legacy that began as a tradition in the early 1800s on stage, with white actors using burnt corks to darken their skin and allowing them to portray African-American slaves, usually as lazy, child-like providers of comic relief (4). This eventually evolved into Vaudeville-style parody shows consisting of songs, dances and comic skits. This tradition representedRead MoreRacism and the Ku Klux Klan Essay1663 Words   |  7 PagesRacism and the Ku Klux Klan Since the early development of society in the United States, racism has always been a divisive issue faced by communities on a political level. Our country was built from the immigration of people from an international array of backgrounds. However, multitudes of white supremacists blame their personal as well as economic misfortunes on an abundance of ethnic groups. African-Americans, Jews and Catholics are only some of the of groups tormentedRead MoreRace Film : The Great And Only Essay10250 Words   |  41 PagesChapter One Race Films as a Genre in American Cinema â€Å"Most people pronounced his last name ‘Mee-show,’ though some who knew him insist it was ‘Mi-shaw.’ The correct pronunciation of his name is only the beginning of the ambiguities and mysteries associated with Oscar Micheaux† Patrick Mulligan—Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America s First Black Filmmaker From the very beginning of the early stages in American cinema, African Americans had a presence on the silver screen. The