Within the three movies we have watched so far, racism has played an important role. “The Birth of a Nation”, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, and “Redtails” all take place during the 1900’s, when racism was widespread. According to Dictionary.com, racism is defined as: “a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement,usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.” Although all three movies take place in the same time period, we see different scenarios. In the first movie, “The Birth of a Nation”, it is centered around the Ku Klux Klan and fighting against …show more content…
Taking place in 1915, “The Birth of a Nation” is about two families, the Stonemans and the Camerons. The Camerons own a cotton plantation while the Stoneman family is from the North. The Stoneman father is an abolitionist and he owns a very uppity African American housekeeper. As time progresses we see war coming and eventually we get to see the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. “The Birth of a Nation” is considered the most racist movie due to things such as the black depiction, in which many roles were played by white actors who painted their faces black. Within this movie, the African American men are viewed as hyper-sexualized and primitive. We see this when Elsie leaps to her death to keep from being hurt or even raped by Gus. We also see extreme racism when the African American lawmakers appear shoeless and drinking whiskey, such as the scene where they approve of interracial marriage. This movie hypes up the “threat” of having African Americans in power positions and it depicts African American men in a hyper-sexualized, primitive state. In conclusion, it is easy to understand why this movie has earned the title of the most racist …show more content…
“Redtails” is similar to “The Birth of a Nation” in the sense that there is war; however, it is more similar to “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in the fact that there is not a prevalent amount of racism within this movie. Because the movie has all African American men as the major roles, it was not released right away due to many unsure how to market such a movie in the 1900’s. Within this movie, we see an all African American world war two unit, called the Redtails. The Redtails not only fight the Nazi’s in war, but also fight racism at home. The movie also focuses onto the men as individuals. One man is a highly aggressive fighter, but also a rebel. One gets captured by Germans and another has a drinking problem. An additional man is badly injured in a plane crash. The man is flying and somehow gets covered in gas. He crashes his plane and it explodes, leaving him severely burned, which leads to him getting sent home. The pilots eventually get more recognized toward the end of the movie. This movie is based off of the Tuskegee Airmen. It does not have too much racism within it and seems as if it is more focused on African American men equality within the armed forces. During this time period, African American men were not seen as full citizens at home and they are constantly dogged on throughout training. Although this movie does have some subtle hints at racism, throughout the storyline, we get to
The protagonist and hero of our film Colonel Ben Cameron is portrayed as the honest and star struck lover who wants nothing but the love of his life by his side. Yet, this proves impossible with the newly corrupt and hate filled south created by the freed blacks, so Colonel Cameron devises the idea of the KKK on the stereotypical belief that all blacks are superstitious. Dressing as ghosts was an attempt to simply scare the blacks out of the south. Beliefs such as that of all blacks being highly superstitious and use of black face are some of the many racist aspects in “The Birth of a Nation”. The film even breaks down African Americans into a few categories The tom as the loyal slave who is always harassed and beat, the coon a black man who is viewed as lousy and good for nothing, pickanninies are the presentation of black children who were easily moved and had overly expressed features, the tragic mulatto from the one drop rule was a mixed black who was always angry because she had “corrupt” black blood, the mammy was the sexless, overweight female who cared for the kids, and the brutal black back who was centered around nothing but the desire for white women (Bogle 4-10). Each of these roles played a significant role in discriminately dividing the African American community into categories and expressing false differences between African Americans and
The 1989 film Glory is a classic Civil War film based on the history of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. The film focuses on the courage displayed by the first black regiment in the Civil War, also known as the “Fighting Fifty-fourth.” The regiment headed by the admirable Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, Matthew Broderick, must overcome an enormous amount of adversity during the war. The film was daring for filmmakers Zwick and Fields because it was a film not only with, “vivid and frightening battle scenes and finely etched dramatic characters, but a film that shattered the great Civil War taboo-it told a story of African Americans(Chadwick). Many articles and texts leading up to the film failed to mention the participation of African Americans in the Civil War. In fact, the participation of African Americans helped turn the course of the war and nearly 300,000 fought for the North.
The film observes and analyzes the origins and consequences of more than one-hundred years of bigotry upon the ex-slaved society in the U.S. Even though so many years have passed since the end of slavery, emancipation, reconstruction and the civil rights movement, some of the choice terms prejudiced still engraved in the U.S society. When I see such images on the movie screen, it is still hard, even f...
Slow as it may be I think that you see how overtime a lot of things have changed in our culture the way they changed in film, from the start of the film from the hatred and unwillingness to allow the changes of African American students in their schools and allowing for the first African American Head football coach in their town, the town begins to relax and accept the changes and move on. The second film shows again the racial divide and the fight for equality in America. The film Men of Honor is based on Master Chief Carl Brashear who fought to become a Navy diver something that was not allowed in the Navy during that time period which was the 1950’s to 1960’s. You seem from the start the parallels of the time by not allowing Carl to even attend the diving school and sabotaging him in every way. You again see the similarities of what the culture was like then in America, and this is honestly the best example as this was based off of a man who went through these struggles. I chose these films because although they both deal with the same issue of racism I feel they do the best job of capturing the true nature of what our culture was like at the
The entire film is based on significantly different racial opinions, opinions of different writing styles and stereotyping of different people in general. Race is a huge issue in the film and many stereotypes are made.
The USA desperately needed more pilots so they started recruiting black pilots. In the movie they were tasked with escorting heavy bombers to their payload. It was believed that the Tuskegee Airmen never lost a single Bomber due to enemy fire. However, an airforce claim shows that at least 25 bombers were lost due to enemy fire.(“Tuskegee Airmen | HistoryNet”) The film was exaggerated at some points but it captures what the pilots had to face accurately. The army and the whole country did not expect much from the pilots but they stuck with the bombers and only lost about half the average number of bombers compared to other fighter units. As a result, by the end of the war bomber crews were specifically requesting the red tails as their escorts. Although, They were successful in the sky they still experienced racism. One hundred sixty pilots were arrested with three pilots being court martialed for walking into an officers
All through time, the world has been racist and intolerant of people different from themselves. Countless millions have suffered due to the bigotry of people that couldn't understand change or differences among one another. There was a time when any soul that wasn't blue eyed and blonde haired in Germany, anyone with darker skin where immediately classed as inferior and not human. Even now, when you are not aware, racism is still a considerable problem. But sometimes it isn't one person being racist against another, but rather one person being racist against them self. The movie crash shows good examples of how racism against oneself, caused by fear and misunderstanding, is just as malevolent and evil as racism against another person. Fear is what makes people act racist. Farhad is one of many examples in the movie of a person who recognizes his own race and paralyzes himself through his own fear. Farhad believes that since he is Persian he is immediately being persecuted against and cheated. He flips out at the gun shop when the owner was insulting him which just furthers his fear of Americans. After the events on 9/11, which are referenced a lot in the movie, Farhad thinks that anyone who is Middle Eastern isn't welcome in America. Even after the gun shop owner was rude; his shop was destroyed by racist people who hated him. It is this same fear of being cheated because of his race that makes him very untrusting to people he doesn't know. He calls a lock smith to come fix his door because it won't lock. He immediately thinks that Daniel is trying to cheat him and steal money from him just because of his past endeavors.
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.
Throughout the entire film race is one of the most prominent themes. The film shows that racism is not one sided as the characters themselves are Caucasian, black, Persian, Iranian, and Hispanic. The film shows that race assumptions not something that is just in existence, but rather society builds up these prejudices and ideas. This can be seen when the district attorney wanting to advance his political career think he can just honor a black man or woman. He suggests a firefighter who his secretary then informs him is actually Iraqi. He responds by saying, “Well he looks black.” Even before knowing someone’s true race and identity society can put up walls. The cops also pull over the couple because the one believes they are biracial and he believes that is wrong. In actuality both people are black one just happens to be of a lighter complexion. Race and racism the film shows limits one’s ability to experience new individuals and
There are two main issues in the movie the “The Color of Fear” that I will discuss. These two issues include grouping people of color on the basis of the way one looks, and the attitudes of different races towards one another. Including also the idea that the white “do-gooder” feels that subconsciously racism is being taken care of, when in all reality it isn’t. The eight men in The Color of Fear candidly discussed racism not only as "whites oppressing blacks," but also the less addressed sides of racial trouble in America. A white man earnestly stating that he had never oppressed anyone in his entire life, and a Hispanic man talking about being afraid of driving in front of pickup trucks with gun racks, shows how there needs to be more progress towards ending these feelings in America. Stereotypes were openly declared, from Asians as "the model minority" to blacks as "lazy, violent, and dangerous."
Racism comes in many forms ad can be expressed in many different societies in various ways. 1 The dictionary defines racism as the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. This definition of racism makes it clear that it is a perceived point of view that implies prejudice towards people or a person based solely on their race. Racism has been an issue in many societies for many years and still is an issue in modern society. 2 Recently in the U.S. many cases of racism towards African Americans have been shown in the media. However racism is not just a U.S. culture based issue but also a cross-cultural issue
Before we get into the movie specifically, we should first talk about representation and how race is represented in the media in general. Representation is defined as the assigning of meaning through language and in culture. (CITE) Representation isn't reality, but rather a mere construction of reality and the meaning behind it. (CITE) Through representation we are able to shape how people are seen by others. Race is an aspect of people which is often represented in the media in different ways. Race itself is not a category of nature, but rather...
This movie does provoke a dialogue on race that, according to author and journalist Jeff Chang, "has been anathema to Hollywood after 9/11." During the first viewing of
D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was one of the most controversial films of the 20th century. Praised by some and resented by others, it was one of the most popular films around the world for its time because of its chaotic effect on the general public. Set in the Civil War era, Birth of a Nation glorifies the Ku Klux Klan while portraying African Americans as reprobates whom sexually coerce white women. Many historians argue that the racist epic is responsible for the second Ku Klux Klan revival as well as a considerable amount of anti-black sentiment. While D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation glorified the Ku Klux Klan and demonized African Americans, it actually helped African Americans gain support for equality.
Despite many progressive changes, racism is still a major issue. No one is born racist, racism is taught and it is taught in popular culture. Younger generations are exposed to racism through popular culture; one of the many mediums in which racial stereotypes are still supported. Matt Seitz, in his article, “The Offensive Movie Cliche That Won’t Die” claims that metaphorically, in popular culture cinema, African-Americans are mentors of a white hero, but beneath the surface, it is racially offensive towards these mentors because they are still considered servants of whites. Michael Omi, in “In Living Color: Race and American Culture” adds to the claim of Seitz that racial issues in our society brought on by the media and popular culture. He