Topic
Birth of a Nation
Instructions
Please carefully and critically watch the following film clip from the 1915 American silent film, The Birth of a Nation, originally entitled The Clansman. The film was a major success at the time it was first shown, but since that time, has been extremely controversial, due to its depiction of African Americans (especially African American males, who were played by white actors in black face), its overt celebration of racism, and its heroic mythologization of the Ku Klux Klan.
After watching the film clip below, please write a brief (250 word or so) paragraph in which you analyze the images in the clip in terms of the depiction of African Americans. What stereotypes are represented here? How do the images speak to you today, as an American living a century later, in a United States led by Barack Obama, our first president of African American descent?
Answer preview
In the film “The Clansman”, African-Americans are portrayed as stupid, lazy, angry, violent, disrespectful and sexual charged beasts. In most of the scenes, the images in the movie clearly depict African-Americans as human beings who are unfit to be anything rather than slaves. For example, in one episode a white teenage girl is escaping through the forest while a bi man in black face is seen chasing the girl presumably in order to rape her. In this episode, the African-American man’s image is seen as a ghost that is attempting to chase a white girl in the forest. Another scene is illustrating what might happen if former slaves were to assume the office of the legislator. Swiftly, that is an image showing almost an entire African-American Congress.
Word count: 616