Controversial Minority Representation in the Film, Birth Of a Nation Birth of a Nation was a film that broke several artistic boundaries in the film industry yet was seen as the most racist film of any generation. This has caused it to be a film under heavy debate since its release in 1915. One can never look past the racist depictions that this film portrays in it. However, to truly understand the film and explore its importance in the study of minorities in film, one must look at this film from all perspectives. D.W. Griffith grew up in Kentucky under a father who was a Confederate hero and was the first to place the racial views in his head. Here is where the ideals of blacks and whites were created for D.W. Griffith. In his head and in his upbringing, his views of blacks and whites were real. The black race being lower then the whites and never really deserving of equality. That is where the ideal for his film Birth of a Nation originated. As far as he was concerned this was a heroic epic of the white people. This is the first context in which one must explore this film. The second is what was going on in America during the time of this films release. No more then fifty years after the Civil War, this film was made. African-Americans were nowhere near finding equality or having civil rights that they were said to have or presumed to have. Separate but equal was still the main mindset in America. Most of the South still hated African Americans, lynched them, and the KKK was strong. When you look at all these social contexts that were going on during the time of the films release, there is no way that this film was seen as racist in the majority of the population. Most of the South probably saw this mov... ... middle of paper ... ... If it is possible to find one positive racial image, then I am blind. Through its remarkable breakthroughs in film and what the camera could do, Birth of a Nation can be explored as a film that set the standards for future film development and masterpieces. However, one can never look past the way that African-Americans were horribly represented and depicted on film. This has caused this film to be such a great film to explore when studying film and especial minorities in film. This debate will continue way past my life and beyond. One must hope and believe that the ignorance of the few that still see this as a positive image of reality can be overturned and that this film can only be seen as a studying device for all those that look to explore the art of film and the sad realities that can come from the ideals of those who create film and movies.
In the book The Great Inversion, author Alan Ehrenhalt reveals the changes that are happing in urban and suburban areas. Alan Ehrenhalt the former editor of Governing Magazine leads us to acknowledge that there is a shift in urban and suburban areas. This revelation comes as the poorer, diverse, city dwellers opt for the cookie cutter, shanty towns at the periphery of American cities known as the suburbs. In similar fashion the suburbanites, whom are socioeconomic advantaged, are looking to migrate into the concrete jungles, of America, to live an urban lifestyle. Also, there is a comparison drawn that recognizes the similarities of cities and their newer, more affluent, residents, and those cities of Europe a century ago and their residents. In essence this book is about the demographic shifts in Urban and Suburban areas and how these changes are occurring.
Despite the significance of movie making that was developed in the creation of The Birth of a Nation, there is another reason why this particular film captured
At the beginning of the 17th chapter of Candide, we come to find that Candide and Cacambo are stranded after their horses die and they run out of supplies. They eventually come to the bank of a river where they find and take a canoe down the river searching for civilization. They end up on the shores of a village that is surrounded by unclimbable mountains. This village is known as El Dorado and it is unique for this time for multiple reasons. Since it is surrounded by these mountains, no outsiders can really enter or leave. This has made El Dorado into a utopian village. This means that everything is perfect in society and that there is hardly any controversy. This is shown when Candide and Cacambo speak with the old man and also when they speak to the king of El Dorado. When Candide and Cocambo speak with the old man, that is when they learn what El Dorado is truly like. They are fascinated over the fact that everyone concurs...
Hall, A. (2001, August). The Flat Income Tax and the Fair Tax Consumption Tax: A
Birth of a Nation uses its histrionic plot to show how tangled destinies of a southern and northern family before and after the Civil War. It willingly portrays southern blacks as spiteful and uncivil, the northern whites as crafty, dishonest, and conceited, and the film’s southern whites as anguish recurrent radical and erotic mortifications at the hands of white northerners and black southerners before factually being saved by the thoughtful, Ku Klux Klan. The film is divided to show the different aspects of those two sides during this historical time. During this time Africans were coming to America and it started the reconstruction on our country. D.W. Griffith made this film to show us the reality of racism at this point in time.
Mehan, C.. N.p.. Web. 19 Jan 2014. . . N.p.. Web. 6 Mar 2014. . Kirkland, Stephen D. "Should We Have A Flat Tax?." Business & Economic Review 49.1 (2002): 27.
Released in 1915, Birth of a Nation became America’s first full length film. The three hour silent movie reflected on two families, one from the south and one in the north, ...
On March 3, 1915 the movie The Birth of a Nation was released at the Liberty Theatre in New York City. This film was financed, filmed, and released by the Epoch Producing Corporation of D.W. Griffith and Harry T. Aitken. It was one of the first films to ever use deep-focus shots, night photography, and to be explicitly controversial with the derogatory view of blacks.
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Candide is an outlandishly humorous, far-fetched tale by Voltaire satirizing the optimism espoused by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. It is the story of a young man’s adventures throughout the world, where he witnesses much evil and disaster. Throughout his travels, he adheres to the teachings of his tutor, Pangloss, believing that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." Candide is Voltaire’s answer to what he saw as an absurd belief proposed by the Optimists - an easy way to rationalize evil and suffering. Though he was by no means a pessimist, Voltaire refused to believe that what happens is always for the best.The Age of Enlightenment is a term applied to a wide variety of ideas and advances in the fields of philosophy, science, and medicine. The primary feature of Enlightenment philosophy is the belief that people can actively work to create a better world. A spirit of social reform characterized the political ideology of Enlightenment philosophers. While Voltaire’s Candide is heavily characterized by the primary concerns of the Enlightenment, it also criticizes certain aspects of the movement. It attacks the idea that optimism, which holds that rational thought can inhibit the evils perpetrated by human beings.
Suburbanization has been occurring for the last 150 years in this country and in Europe, although the Europeans haven=t had the change that the United States has witnessed. The causes of change on such a larger scale can be pointed at four aspects of metropolitan areas also pointed out in Jackson=s work on suburbanization. The first on is that Americans have such low density residential areas, and often their is not a distinction between urban and rural. Our cities were laid out over space, with even New York City and Philadelphia not as densely populated as some cities in Europe. The next distinguishing factor is a want to own a home. At least two-thirds of all Americans own their own home, with rates less than half of that present in cities in Europe. Next, is the average length that American travel to work, also being much higher than in other countries. Finally, the last distinguishing factor is that social status and income correlate with suburbs, the further away from the central business district...
Would you like to have more money in your pocket? Most people believe that there will be more money in the packet if the worker’s paycheck is larger. Some people believe the solution is found in regulating the minimum wages paid to employees. There is a good reason you are earning more money, spending more money, but retaining less for personal use. There have been eleven recessions since the decade of the Great Depression beginning in 1929. We must do something about this national financial problem before it becomes a crisis. We may not recover from the next recession. This essay describes the attributes of the “Fair Tax” system, which many informed analysts will be in the best interest of the government of this country, and the people , who live here, especially you and your family. In this essay you will discover how we can alleviate the country’s major issues in financial management, enhance enforcement of immigration laws and improve the financial support of our education system. All this is proposed with change to just one government agency.
The flat tax will make taxes fair for all people. No matter what race a person is, what social class a person is in, or who they’re friends with, they will end up paying the same rate. Every single taxpayer will have to sacrifice just as much of his or her life as the next person down the road. One of the three main reasons for taxes is to maintain fairness. This is most reasonable ways to maintain fairness. The wealthy will still be paying more money than the poor person, but they both have the same tax burden.
In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas vividly describes the brutality wrought on the natives in the Americas by the Europeans primarily for the purpose of proclaiming and spreading the Christian faith. Las Casas originally intended this account to reach the royal administration of Spain; however, it soon found its way into the hands of many international readers, especially after translation. Bartolomé de Las Casas illustrates an extremely graphic and grim reality to his readers using literary methods such as characterization, imagery, amplification, authorial intrusion and the invocation of providence while trying to appeal to the sympathies of his audience about such atrocities.
The Birth of a Nation (1915) is one of the most controversial movies ever made in Hollywood, some people even consider it the most controversial movie in the long history of Hollywood. Birth of a Nation focuses on the Stoneman family and their friendship with the Cameron’s which is put into question due to the Civil War, and both families being on different sides. The whole dysfunction between the families is carried out through important political events such as: Lincoln’s assassination, and the birth of the Ku Klux Kan. D.W. Griffith is the director of the movie, and him being born into a confederate family in the South, the movie portrays the South as noble and righteous men, who are fighting against the evil Yankees from the North, who have black union soldiers among them, whom overtake the town of Piedmont, which leads the KKK to take action and according to the movie become the savior of white supremacy. During this essay, I would focus on the themes of racial inequality, racism, and the archetypical portrayal of black people in the movie, which are significant especially during the era when the film was released.