Racism Enacted Throughout the History of Black Films Essay

What images come to mind as one reflects upon his or her childhood? Playgrounds, blackboards, and soccer balls may be among the fondest of memories. Yet, for many, mermaids swim their thoughts, princesses get swept off their feet, and lions roar to their royal place in the animal kingdom. Disney films have captivated the American culture for years and have become a pivotal part of popular culture as well as a form of education. However, these films have devoured the youth of America and, in the process; have perpetuated an institutionally racist society based on harsh stereotypes. Minorities are often underrepresented, and even completely left out, of many Disney films such as Dumbo (1941), The Lion King (1994), Aladdin (1992), and

American whiteness as articulated by Birth of a Nation is built on stereotypes, and this is precisely why minstrelsy might have the power to resist racism. Minstrel performances relied on stereotypes to evoke their opposites. It is possible to assume that the discourse of mass entertainment from its minstrel days to current film and possibly beyond, recognizing and accepting blackface conventions and stereotypes were key, almost necessary conditions of American whiteness. "Minstrelsy took the productive ambivalence inherent to the stereotype and magnified it to increase the stereotype's inevitable undoing of itself" (4). But in Birth of a Nation, the determining concept of the stereotype that makes sense is disrupted by the inevitable context provided by narrative: in the film's narrative, African-Americans are seen gently working and playing for their master's benefit prior to the Civil War. This stereotypical representation draws on myths that blackface minstrelsy seemed to ally to the politics of white supremacy; it worked to promote propaganda. Prior to the Civil War, the film explains African-Americans were docile and happy on the plantation because of slave laws imposed by

The documentary Thirteenth states that the film Birth of A Nation was the birth of America’s effort towards criminalizing black people, and in specifics black men. With this blockbuster prototype, that essentially grabbed the nation’s attention in frenzy. This film while gaining all

Gates’ uses his experience to allow the pain of double standard, second class citizenship, and discrimination echo in the mind of the reader when he describes the effect a word can have. There is a subtle anger in his writing, a disdain for the injustice. Naylor uses her experience, in vast contrast to Gates’ text, to speak about empowerment. Hers is a story of a people's’ ability to take a word of shame and make it their own. The syntax and diction of the Gates’ piece doesn’t come out with downright condemnation, and it doesn’t move to a head on confrontation either. The derision that Gate’s feels is more nuanced, and becomes increasingly apparent as he recounts the painful moment of silence, saying , “ I knew when I was in the presence of ‘one of those things’, one of those things that provided a glimpse … at another world that we could not affect but that affected us.” (Gates, 12) You can see the effect this discovery, the subtle humiliation of the incident, intensified by the fact that black superstars like, Sugar Ray or Jackie Robinson ( Gates, 12 ), could be called by their real name, could be looked at as human, a privilege his family had not earned. It sent a message to the young Gates’, a painful one about his worth as a human being, one that sank in. The man succeeded in defining Gates as a less than. Gates never looked the man in the eye again. (Gates,

The way White people are portrayed can vary according to what part of the world they are from. Most of the time when they talk about White people from the South they get referred to as dumb.

Coons- a black child who was “unreliable, crazy, lazy, subhuman creatures good for nothing than eating watermelons, stealing chickens, shooting crap, or butchering the English language” (Bogle 7). The Tragic Mulatto- a fair skinned, mixed-race woman, with whom the viewers sympathized, because she was refused entry into the white community because of her “tainted” blood (Bogle 9). Mammies- the predominant black female servant who was big, loud, bossy, obese and self-sufficient (Bogle 9). Finally the Bad Bucks- physically strong characters, who were always “big, badddd niggers, over-sexed and savage, violent and frenzied as they lust for white flesh” (Bogle 10). According to Hall, the feature-length film that gave birth to such African-American characteristics was David Llewelyn Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, released in 1915 (Hall, “Representation” 271). The silent film provoked great controversy, because not only did it promote white supremacy, but also depict the Ku Klux Klan positively as heroes- a secret white society that was destined to lead humanity to salvation. Griffith, a firm believer in anti-miscegenation laws and white supremacy, portrayed the African-Americans as negative characters who were a threat to white integrity; hence they had to be eliminated. Therefore, as the film demonstrates, white supremacy is upheld, and the good (whites) triumphs over evil (blacks) when

Birth of a Nation, a film written and directed by D. W. Griffith, that follows the lives of two different families during the Civil War and the hardships that they had faced. This film was very controversial for its time, and even during the current time period, with the issues of race being brought up during the majority of the film. This film was written during the 1920’s when pop culture was ever changing with the issues of race and gender. Birth of a Nation, was somewhat of an accurate representation of that time period, but it often brought up about much disgust with much of the sensitive content. Griffith’s film was the talk of the decade, and is even still relevant today, but it is very obvious that the issues brought up about race and genders were oftentimes inaccurate.

Written in 1826 and directed in 1915 respectively, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper and The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith were foundational in influencing both the American novel and film industry. Consequently, they are also two of the most controversial texts in American history as they epitomize racism and the desire for an all white society. Cooper’s vision of an emerging American national character/identity is similar to Griffith’s obvious wish for a white-supremacist paradise in the sense that both men created world’s in which whiteness is regarded as ideal and superlative, while other races are perceived as savage and inferior. Furthermore, Natty Bumppo’s race is as key to his heroism for

The film Birth of a Nation directed by D.W. Griffith tells the story of two families, from the North and the South, and their journey through the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed it. The Stoneman family, North, welcomes the change that was brought about by the war, that is the abolition of slavery and the newly given rights to African Americans. In contrast to the Stonemans the Cameron family, South, struggles to cope with the changes that come about after the south is defeated in the war. They often find themselves in the mist of injustice and misery at the hands of African Americans. Which leads the protagonist, Ben Cameron, to wage a war against the tyranny put in place by African Americans by establishing the KKK. Amongst all the chaos a love connection forms between Ben Cameron and Elsie Stoneman that drives the plot forward and encourages the hero, Ben, to fight against the villains so that he and his beloved may be together at last. Although this film is a cinematic masterpiece, it just so happens to be one of the most racist films ever produced. That is due to its highly inaccurate and racist portrayal of African Americans, and the part they played in American history. The director used the overall storyline to make the audience sympathetic to the “heroic” Klu Klux Klan,

“D.W. Griffith was the first American director to be as well-known as the films he directed, and he was among the very first to insist that filmmaking was an art form” (Lewis 53). This statement is very true. However, the inherent discriminating content in some of his movies also made him one of the hardest to appreciate. One of the most famous examples was The Birth of a Nation (1915), which was in favor of the Ku Klux Klan. After a few more controversial movies, he finally tried to redeem his reputation with Broken Blossoms (1919). Broken Blossoms is Griffith’s attempt at an apology in the portrayal of minorities and the idea of miscegenation within The Birth of a Nation in the midst of a troubling society heading towards the anti-miscegenation law.

It is human nature to be afraid of those we deem different, and it is this fear of the unfamiliar that compels us to hate and hold prejudice, even among ourselves. Throughout the novel, the author provides insight into the problems with segregation in South Africa. The white population seeks to

In the film, “Racism: A History”, shows atrocious ways they treated African-American. Africans were in death camps and concentration. In the video it shows the bones of the people. Britain was the first nation to end slavery. The British answer to the African question “Am I am man?”, was that black people were lesser man and lesser brothers. To the Europeans it appeared that the Tasmanians were without culture, religion, and godless. The settlers were free to abuse aboriginals. The Black War was a conflict of violent between, British colonists and Aboriginal Australians in Tasmania from the mid 1820s to 1832. The stereotype that was developed about Africans when he sugar plantations in the Caribbean began to lose money was the lazy negro.

In 1920, pioneering African American film director Oscar Micheaux released his second picture, Within Out Gates. The film is a silent drama that revolves around a young professional woman, Sylvia Landry, her quest to fund an opening rural school for black children, and her past experience of violent racism in the South. It is a work largely concerned with African Americans as being at a sort of impasse in history and, furthermore, with the positing of a strong ideal of upward social mobility for black citizens going into the post-war era.

Birth of a Nation is a silent film epic which made by D. W. Griffith in 1915. Basically, this 3 hours racial melodrama brilliantly chronicles the story between the Northern Stoneman family and the Southern Cameron family who both experienced the Civil War and Reconstruction. However, this film still remains highly controversial ever since it made. Once people mention this film today, the primary concern automatically ignores everything and focuses on how extremely Racial this film has been. In this film, Griffith simply depicts the world into two parts. He sets these two groups into opposition with one another in almost every detail, as the film depicts the black are violent and harmful animal – like being; therefore, the white and the Ku

D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation illustrates the highly contrasting characters that show Griffith's perspective of the racial point of view in America. His ideological development is white superiority and black subordination. The film deals with the events leading up to the civil war, the war itself, and the reconstruction of the South. The film illustrates the South's fight to incorporate blacks and whites. The film centers around two families, one from the North and one from the South. We see the war crush both families and the connections between them. In the long run, the blacks in the South are depicted as lazy, desire filled animals that can't control their sexuality. The film closes with the KKK sparing the lives of pure white women and Southern whites holding control using power.