What Birth Of Southern Honor Analysis

Wesley Prude

11/11/15

History 4990

Joe Perry

The Rebirth of Southern Honor:

What Birth of a Nation says about Southern Honor?

Since its introduction media has been influential in shaping the culture of society, for example films can create emotion for causes, define honor and even inspire crimes. Films in general have been noted as having the ability to rewrite history and influence societal norms The latter of these effects, society is just now recognizing as an adverse effect of the power of cinema, to move citizens to commit crimes. It can even be speculated that during the birth of American cinema films were significantly more influential on the mass population than ever. The motives of different acts of passion have often been linked

The first section of this exposition will be the breakdown of the film. It will summarize the film breaking down key scenes and overarching themes of the film. This will be an opportunity to examine the plot for all three sections of the film. This section will also examine the examples of the illustration of masculinity and honor in the film for both representation of white male honor and masculinity as well as those examples for African American men. The examination of stereotypes created from the film will also be discussed as the film message that blacks cause anarchy and only want white women are played up throughout the film. The black militia soldiers are seen gallivanting through the streets terrorizing women and children and pillaging anything they can get their hands on. The key focus of this section of the exposition is in conveying the means in which this film use its misc-en-scene and other cinematic tools to create a new culture of manliness in post-war America. This section will also discuss some of the less conventional tools used by Griffith in the film to convey his message such as the use of blackface and historical inaccuracies. With all that said the primary goal of this section will be to spar the reader the expense of watching the film in order to understand this effects of this

The Stonemans, the Northern family, live in Washington, D.C., and own a rural getaway in Pennsylvania. The Honorable Austin Stoneman, an abolitionist politician, presides over his family, which includes a delicate daughter named Elsie, a dandy prankster named Phil, and a younger brother named Tod. The Camerons, the Southern family, preside over a modest but peaceful plantation in Piedmont, South Carolina, where slaves pick cotton in contentment and happily dance to entertain their masters. Margaret is the eldest sister, while Flora, the younger sister, is wistful and naive. Of the three Cameron brothers, Ben develops into the main character, defending the South’s ideals at all costs, and will become the caricature of southern masculinity and