Birth of a Nation

1. Birth of a Nation Presentation #1: Cultural Phenomenon

2. Birth of a Nation

4. Background (setting up cultural context) Birth of a Nation (1915), produced and directed by D. W. Griffith was originally entitled The Clansman and changed to Birth of a Nation a few months later. The film is based on Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr.�s racist play The Clansman

5. The film is still used today to recruit Klan members. Griffith argued that he was not a racist, claiming his film is simply narrating the truth. The NAACP responded vehemently to the film, speaking out against the vicious depictions of blacks. Ironically, President Wilson enthusiastically declared: �It�s like writing history with lighting. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true.�

6. "NAACP Protests the Screening of the Movie 'Birth of a Nation.'"New York City, New York 1947

7. Riot broke out in major cities and eight states refused to show the film fearing racial tension. As a result of this censorship, Griffith became a life-long advocate of free speech. Griffith wrote the following that prefaces the film Birth of a Nation �We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue . . . �

8. Race, Gender, Politics Made 50 years after the Civil War, Birth of a Nation gives a clear message about Reconstruction � Southern whites are the true victims, the liberated and independent-minded blacks are the victimizers. A romanticized version of the Old South is portrayed: plantation life is depicted as innocent, pure, happy, and orderly. This is portrayed by the African Americans in the movie dancing and singing in the slave quarters.

9. The film raises white fears: Miscegenation (sexual relations between whites and blacks, particularly between white women and black men) White male emasculation (white men�s masculinity questioned and emasculated by black male�s prowess) White middle-class chaste femininity being sullied by �blackness�; white women would become whores under black rule

10. Psychological Dimensions of Racism African-American Studies Scholar John Hope Franklin contends that white men�s fear of disempowerment, of emasculation, of disorder, and of humiliation is projected onto the male black body. Furthermore, he argues that the fear of sexuality has historically been projected on the black body. Black males and females

11. are seen as hyper sexual, promiscuous beings. This is demonstrated in the film when the former slave Gus tries to rape Flora, the sister to the well-respected, honorable Ben Cameron. Later, Ben�s fiancee, Elsie, is kidnapped by Silas Lynch, another former slave who has declared himself emperor of the First Black American Empire. Ben ultimately saves Elsie, leading his Klan friends to the rescue of white womanhood, white honor, and white glory.

13. Filtering Ben�s actions through Franklin�s theory, Ben embodies this fear of emasculation, being denied the right to be in control and protector of white womanhood. White masculinity is, according to Franklin, embedded in obtaining the illusion of innocent and pure white middle-class femininity.

14. So how does this movie resonate today in the 21st century? In ��The Birth of a Nation�hood: Lessons from Thomas Dixon and D.W. Griffith to William Bradford Huie and The Klansman, O.J. Simpson�s First Movie,� professor Riche Richardson argues that �the old sham white supremacy forever wedded to and dependent upon faux black inferiority� exists today (par.1). We can see it play out in how O.J. Simpson was depicted in the media.

15. He explains: �The official story has thrown Mr. Simpson into a representative role. He is not an individual who underwent and was acquitted from a murder trial. He has become the whole race, needing correction, incarceration, censoring, silencing; the race that needs its civil rights disassembled; the race that is a sign and symbol of domestic violence� (par.2)

16. American National Identity Birth of a Nation shows how race and gender is intricately woven into American persona. So what does it say? That until the Civil Rights Movement, America was automatically associated with whiteness, that whiteness was really an effacement of rich cultures and special ways of knowing and being and thinking, that America today must still come in terms with this reality, that white privilege still needs to be exposed and challenged, that we must own our past for a liberated future.

17. Question Although we can all identify the egregious racist and hateful images of African Americans, is Birth of a Nation still relevant today? That is, does it expose white privilege and white racist fear that has not disappeared, but have taken on a more subtle and less vicious �face�?

18. Works Cited Birth of a Nation. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Perf. Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, and Henry Walthall. 1915. Videocassette. VCI Home Video, 1998. Franklin, J.H. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African American. 11th ed. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1999. Richardson, R. �The Birth of a Nation�hood: Lessons from Thomas Dixon and D.W. Griffith to William Bradford Huie and The Klansman, O.J. Simpson�s First Movie.� Mississippi Quarterly 56.1 (winter 2002-2003):3-31. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Lake Sumter Comm. Coll. Lib., Leesburg, FL. 28 Aug. 200<http://web.ebswhost .com/ehost/results?vid>.