The film, The Birth of a Nation was directed by DW Griffith and was Premiered in 1915. This silent film was new and big but showed a lot of white supremacy. They brought new things to this film such as crosscutting editing, cameo profiles, and close ups which brought people admiring the film. At the time this stuff was all knew and exciting. Even though you have the bright side to this film, Birth of a Nation had a very rude racist interpretation. Some people would clap their hands and hide behind the fact that it is racist, and some people did not let the special new effects distract them from this disturbing racist interpretation on African-Americans. This film time is during the pre-Civil War South, and it is portrayed as everything was perfect, which also is known as the “moonlight and magnolias” fashion.
The Birth of a Nation shows real life evens and it is a way that discourse shapes worldviews. During this film I asked myself “are blacks inferior”, yes, they are, it is like whites are putting them in their own discourse community and that they aren’t welcome in theirs. This makes it inferior and racist. A part in the film I’d like to speck on that brings this topic all together in a way is the scene Flora and Gus. During this time in the film reconstruction is going on, which means after the Civil War. Gus is a poor African American soldier and is interested in Flora, who is a young girl from the Cameron family. Gus has intentions to marry Flora. During this scene it is protruded as menacing, editing they do with the tone of music makes it feel this way, coming off as a tense moment. Flora is not ready for marriage from how she portrays herself, playful and childlike. Gus see’s right through this and continues to go for her. He follows her around in the forest and when he ends up approaching her she rejects him, hits him, and runs off. This begin to get very tense at this time and Gus starts to chase after Flora to get his way. He doesn’t know how much he will regret this till the Klan decides to hang and kill him.
- I Emailed Dr. Bailie about a time to talk on WebEx
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