The film The Birth of A Nation is a film made by D.W. Griffith was released on February 8, 1915. It is based on Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman. This film was highly controversial due to the depictions of the African Americans, as well as the depictions of the Ku Klux Klan. It was unique because while having a cast of more than 10,000 people it managed to get so many historical events inaccurate. Naturally you would think that a movie of its caliber would fail, but that was quite the opposite. In fact it was so gross and dramatized that the NAACP filed to get the film banned or censored because of its defamation of the African American race. Of course they failed to do so and the movie went on to become one of the most famous movies in history.
In the movie you see events such as Abraham Lincoln's death, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction era. Even while depicting these historical events Griffith decided to warp history and make a powerful story about the poor whites and the rising of the Ku Klux Klan. African Americans were depicted as monsters and criminals
with the sole purpose of passing laws so they can prey on innocent white women. They were uncivilized and needed to be restrained because every second they ran free, they were a danger. The worst part is that at the time, this is what Griffith as well as many other racist white people genuinely believed. This was their correct depiction of history and since then it has been debunked for obvious reasons. Now despite being extremely bigoted and racist, the film was of a great production for its time, having never before seen camera angles and a cast that pushed the boundaries of what could be defined as a movie. The goal of this movie from the jump was to be something big, something eye-catching almost like a real retelling of history.
The Ku Klux Klan in this movie were known as righteous heroes, saviors, and guardians. There was a very specific scene that showed a former slave owner's home being under siege by freed African Americans because his son was a part of the Klan. The part that is harrowing is that he is holding his adult daughter by her hair and he is threatening them with her life as if their main purpose is to attack and rape his daughter. This of course is avoiding the obvious problem of him thinking that killing his daughter himself was a better fate than being left with the brutish savages the movie portrays. The Klan goes around shooting innocent black people trying to vote, as well as protecting and getting revenge for their women and all of this is done in "defense". This depiction of the Ku Klux Klan is what everyone at the time was able to see and they believed it wholeheartedly, and it's what empowered the white people around to bring about the second emergence of the Ku Klux Klan.
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