The film 4 Little Girls (1997) Directed by Spike Lee shows in detail the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama that occurred on September 15th, 1963. Dr. King comment on the event stating that it is “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity". The movie was entirely made nearly 30 years later, but still gives us an investigative feel while explaining how Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise still lived their lives day to day. Through the use of eye witness, family members, and friends we are given a detailed analysis of the event and the aftermath while juxtaposing church desecrations from the mid 1990’s. and institutional racism. 4 Little Girls was also well received by critics and truly a test for an experienced filmmaker. In the DVD extras we watched in class Spike Lee said that he was interested in making this film back when he was in film school, but didn’t have the money or the connections to make it happen. After a few years after school he made a couple of films and built his background in filmmaking before considering a documentary about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. He had met with some of the parents and family long before making 4 Little Girls. He spent years building up the relationship with them and the community. The families probably would not let any other director other than Spike Lee and they had to know it was right to trust him. This idea of trust was important because the film focuses on the community heavily while also making parallels with the girls and their families. “Spike was asking if he needed narration and what the structure should be. I basically said the structure should be that there are parallels-the family, the history of the community—and then they come together on the explosion." (Lee) This approach is interesting because a lot of the film is giving you a sense of what life was like for African Americans and the white people that lived in Birmingham in 1963. The film covers civil rights demonstrations and shows local facilities past and present. “Structurally, 4 Little Girls is a conventional, expository documentary organized into five chapters: portraits of the young girls;
Although there were many compelling aspects of this documentary, 13th’s organization of its facts are worthy of mention. 13th moves beautifully through more than a century worth of brutal history while maintaining a clear format that provides information on the racial violence and the unjust justice system. Published in The New York Times, Dargis’s review of 13th obviously agrees. In “The Journey From Shackles to Prison Bars”, Dargis’s review agrees that the way DuVernay transitions throughout the film elicits a genuine and deep emotional response. The order in which they present their facts enabled me to clearly understand their stance on the argument that they were presenting. For instance, DuVernay develops the documentary through the time lapse of African American history. She begins with the days of slavery and works her way through modern exploitation so seamlessly.
“Mississippi Burning” is based on the investigation of a missing persons case which turned into a murder case in Mississippi that involved three young students who were civil rights workers involved in Freedom Summer of 1964. Two of the students were Jewish and one was an African-American whom came down to Mississippi from New York City. After the students did not return home the parents pushed for media attention since the Mississippi Police were not doing any investigations. The FBI then had to get involved with the case. Little did the parents know that the police were the ones who actually committed the murder of their children. This film shows us the oppression towards African-Americans, specifically in the south.
Within the first few minutes, the film summarized the church bombing that killed four innocent young girls and explained how it affected the Civil Rights Movement all through a historic song. The first scene of the movie, each victim’s family described their daughters’ childhood and how segregation affect their family. One interesting fact was the father of Denise McClair, one of victims, actually went to school in Tuskegee. The second victim, Carole Roberston, was confused why whites and blacks could not share the same water fountain, restaurant and bathroom. She did
The interview I conducted took place in the courtyard of my complex in Smallville, with the interviewee and myself. For the purpose of his paper and to protect the adolescent privacy lets call her Regina. Regina is a fourteen-year-old adolescent female of Africa American descent. She is above average in height and carries a very shy and nonchalance deposition. She is a very attractive young lady and does above average work in her school setting. She appears to be a normal every day child with a lifetime of experiences awaiting her.
In the historical events of the Rosewood massacre, a woman claimed rape by a black man, yet her story is still not confirmed nor proven. The result was the lynching of a black person, the retaliation from the black community, and the destruction of Rosewood and the death of six black and two white individuals (D’Orso, 52). The movie illustrates a high level of carnage in the town, and the use of KKK, which is not accurate according to historical facts. It demonstrates the producers attempt to create the element of dramatization, and the emotional effect of the movie.
2. I picked this film because of the strong message it is meant to put across, considering that Lee wanted the world to acknowledge that while society had experienced significant progress up to the turn of the century, people still had a long way to go in order for the world to be a morally acceptable place. Reading more information about the girls killed during the 1963 Baptist Church bombing really shocked me and made me want to discuss this film.
McGuire writes about the rape of twenty four year old Recy Taylor in 1944. Recy was on her way home from the rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama when her nightmare started. Seven white men that
There was lots of miscarriage of justice that occurred in this movie that caught me by surprise and disappointment me. If this was a woman from Harlem or another poor city, this would not have been such a big case. In the movie, they talk about the woman being raped and thrown off the balcony and no one had any issue with that. It was not even public headlines in most newspapers, not fair how some stories get more popularity over others.
From the start the girlchild was given gifts that stained in her mind as what she was suppose to become in life. With the little dolls, GE stoves and irons, and lipstick her parents put this ideal image of the perfect woman in her head. With these types of presents the girlchild is already learning her role in society.
A scene in the movie that best depicted the racism and the violence was the scene outside the Little’s family house, a black family. In this scene the black legion starts to pass around gasoline cans and then flames roar through the room and the Little kids are hysterical. Louise, the wife, rushes in and pushes them past the fire, she has infant in hand covered in a blanket. They barely make it outside when they are confronted by a black legion member who threatens them and tells them to leave the community.
RACISM AS A CAUSE FOR CRIME AND VIOLENCE: CINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF “BOYZ N’ THE HOOD”
The narrative voice is intriguing when choosing a literacy technique when applied to Alice Munro 's “Boys and Girls” and Jamaica Kincaid 's “Girl” because it highlights the significance of women 's role during the 1960 's. The story of Boys and Girls is in third person narration describing an eleven- year old girl. This story was published in 1968, a time when the second wave of feminism movement occurred. This story gives information about adult gender roles. The setting of the story is in Canada during the winter. The narrator is living in a fox- breeding farm which correlates to the North American culture in the 1960 's. In the 1960 's, women were stereotyped as happy wives and mothers. In contrast, the society believed that unmarried
“Boys and Girls” is a short story, by Alice Munro, which illustrates a tremendous growing period into womanhood, for a young girl living on a fox farm in Canada, post World War II. The young girl slowly comes to discover her ability to control her destiny and her influences on the world. The events that took place over the course of the story helped in many ways to shape her future. From these events one can map the Protagonist’s future. The events that were drawn within the story provided the Protagonist with a foundation to become an admirable woman.
In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls
When we try to understand why the characters act as they act and what drives each of them, the viewers are inevitably drawn to the conclusion that they are just like them. They realize they are human; they have both good qualities and bad qualities. Spike Lee also makes them understand that at times they may make terrible mistakes, and that at other times they may display admirable heroism, and that sometimes they simply act without knowing why. Spike Lee does more than try to show his viewers that despite tensions, this Black neighborhood is a community. What Lee does is he makes the viewers think. He simply presents events as they are leaving the viewer to figure out the motives of the characters and the ‘why’ behind the course of events. Lee doesn’t really put a positive light on any particular race while shadowing the other ones. He doesn’t try to make conflicts have an obvious solution. Lee simply re-creates a piece of life, with a little twist of extreme (yet realistic) drama for deeper effect, and by doing this he tries to simply make his audience think and question.