birth of a nation 2

A detailed Summary of birth of a nation 2

D. W. Griffith's epic tale told in Birth of a Nation was a shocking one. The movie set box office records, taking in over eighteen million dollars. When it was released, it was one of the longest films ever made, over three hours in length. Some film scholars say that it is the most important film ever released. But despite all of these records and achievements, the story and the way that blacks of the South were depicted haunted blacks for decades to come. Showing the black man as a sexual predator to white females was inviting the South commence with wide-scale lynchings of innocent black men. If a black man looked the wrong way at a white woman, then he could be lynched without a thought of justice. This film advanced the suspicion and contributed to the practice of "Jim Crow" in the South.

Most shockingly, I discovered that the film is still used by the Ku Klux Klan today for recruitment purposes. The portrayal of the KKK in Birth of a Nation was one of heroes, instead of marauding racists. This appealed to white Americans' views of the mythic South, and helped to boost membership in the KKK. Gri

The film is an incredible piece of propaganda for both the KKK and the Jim Crow system. People who knew nothing about the KKK or thought of them as white villains before Birth of a Nation probably changed their minds and donned hoods of their own upon seeing the film. The mainstream picture was probably the best advertisement that the KKK could have had. The vilifying of blacks also led to the Jim Crow system. When it was portrayed in this movie as acceptable, people in the South felt much better about doing horrible deeds to black citizens, denying blacks their civil rights.

The title of the film is an interesting one. It is unknown whether the title refers to the birth of the reunited states, or the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. I tend to think that the film has a double meaning. In showing the KKK as good guys, it is obvious that Griffith was trying to show their birth as a positive event for the United States. Also, he was showing that the U.S. was once again reunited after the war, leading to the strengthening of the nation. It forebodes the future, when the South and the blacks living the

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Approximate Word count = 758
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History

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birth of a nation 2

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