The Birth of a Nation
I had considered making this a film review but I’d rather just talk about it. For anyone interested it’s something I had to watch for my “history and film” class. The film is about the American civil war and the reconstruction period. It was released in 1915 and is a silent film. Directed and produced by D.W. Griffith it’s based on The Clansman by Dixon. It’s an extremely racist and biased piece that tries to show how the black influenced-north ruined the white-run, perfect south. I don’t completely disagree with everything portrayed in the film. Both north and south were guilty of various crimes.
With that blurb out of the way I can talk about what I wanna talk about and that’s the film’s reception upon its exhibition. The film was hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time. Woodrow Wilson was claimed to have said “Like history written with lightning” as if he was convinced the film depicted fact. Immediately after the film’s release there was a great resurgence of KKK activity and an increase in membership. It must be noted that the KKK has almost disappeared by the turn of the century. There was an estimate that some 3 million persons viewed the film in New York alone upon it’s release. The film cost 2 dollars (in 1915) to see. What I’m trying to say here was that it was a huge blockbuster. My question though is why?
Was the American public so racist that they couldn’t get enough of the stuff, that they just loved watching the KKK deliver “justice” unto the treacherous Negro? The film is really terrible in this respect. It shows the only good African-American is one who obeys orders from his master. The free thinking ones are bad and from the cold north. The southern Negro that turned traitor to his native southland is the worst of all, I mean what with him wanting to vote and seek employment for himself. I just wonder at why the film did so well. It was the reason that Griffith was able to maintain a career in film making as long as he did. He made his fortune on the film.
It’s interesting that at the same time there were a number of groups (the new NAACP among them) that protested the film. So it’s clear that the film’s subject matter wasn’t socially misunderstood or unknown. There were those that spoke out against racism and there were those that saw the film as derogatory yet it still did terrifically in the theaters.
I think to myself, on the other hand Brown vs. B.of Ed. didn’t take place until 1954. So apparently the anti-racism movement didn’t really take wing until much later, to any degree where it would have an effect on the populace.
Do all humans have the hate demon within them but simply refuse to let it out. When given the opportunity, like perhaps a new film, do we consume it and secretly enjoy it only to then turn around and deny ever having done so? One would think that by 1915, 40 years after Reconstruction, the US, especially the north, would have settled enough to outlaw such a film even being made.
It leaves me puzzled.