Blog Post #3: "The Birth of a Nation" is Propaganda

    Birth of a Nation is a very interesting film to watch. Black characters are depicted as violent, and greedy while white people are looked at as heroic and "good." The film even glorifies the Ku Klux Klan, which is very strange to be. As I was watching the film I couldn't help but wonder about the meaning behind the film. If the maker of the film knew that they were switching the roles of blacks and whites during the Civil War and whether they actually know that what they were telling in the film was wrong. But after reading Michele Wallace's article, "The Good Lynching and The Borth of a Nation: Discourses and Aesthetics of Jim'"  I realized that people at the time actually praised the film for its accuracy. Clearly, we now know that the depiction of blacks in the film is extremely false. The film was anti-black propaganda. 

    Michele Wallace argues that The Birth of a Nation "is a landmark in the development of the feature film and in the history of American racial discourse in the Jim Crow period. This article proposes that the corrective for our current perspective on The Birth of a Nation is that we thoroughly study how the tecnhniques of feature film inscribe and underwrite dominant racial ideologies." She is arguing that The Birth of a Nation is a very controversial and racist film from the Jom Crow Era. But instead of simply dismissing the film as offensive we should study ow it used tehiches to promote and reinforce racist ideas in society. I belive that by understanding how the film worked to support racist ideologies, we can better understand the broader cultural and social forces that shape our perspectives on race. For example we can alanyze the film through its themes, film production, etc to understand how those ideologies are making someone perspective on race change. I think that this film is propaganda and was used to change the way white people looked at black people during Jim Crow era, but today we can use this film to understand how propaganda was used and go against it. We can understand that the film Birth of a Nation is a false representation of blacks during the Civil War and Jim Crow era and we can see how propaganda used film to try and change white people perspective. We can study this film to make sure something doesn't happen like this again.

An example of propaganda. This short clip from the film is showing white people that black people are impolite, rude, and would be bad leaders This will make people belive that they should not trust black people, nor let them run the government. For example oneman is drinking alcohol during the council meeting, another has his bare feet on a table. And when they say that black people are now aloud to marry white women the men give very evil and disgusting looks at the women. The use of propaganda is very prevalent in this film, and is used to make black people look bad.