it would be replete with scenes infinitely more cruel and damning
April 28, 2022 4:34 AM Subscribe
Eugene Debs wrote a scathing Review of Birth of a Nation [PDF] soon after its release. Ida B. Wells thanked him [twitter link]. (Includes racist slurs, used intentionally by people of good will.)
Via Shawn Gude at Jacobin who is writing a book about Debs.
Via Shawn Gude at Jacobin who is writing a book about Debs.
To add to octothorpe‘s comment, that whole “oh but the standards of the day” argument usually seems to completely ignore large swathes of humanity who were alive in whatever time period referenced. Like, I’m pretty confident that most Black people “of the day” were opposed to white supremacist propaganda, and slavery in the previous centuries (also something I have heard this argument about). The broader counter-arguments are: (a) That the smaller group in power were able to suppress the reach of contemporaneous critique does not mean that critique didn’t exist. (b) The flaws and problems in basing our entire understanding of common opinions from a particular region and era on what was written by educated (read: wealthy) white men in power should be obvious, but of course no one likes to think that they are being unthinkingly racist, sexist, classist, ableist, or whatever - it’s what we were taught in school, so it must be true and representative, right? Not noticing there is also an inherently exclusive “we” in the latter statement as well.
posted by eviemath at 6:49 AM on April 28, 2022 [30 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 6:49 AM on April 28, 2022 [30 favorites]
This was a film I had to watch for my blog early on (this was #3 on my list, after A Trip To The Moon and The Great Train Robbery).
I knew I was going to have issues going into it, but - as I said at the time - "I went into it with an open mind; and I think the open mind made it even worse." I'd heard about the racism but hadn't seen any of the particulars.
The hell of it is - it seems like even Griffith knew how his film might come across, because he puts a disclaimer at the top of the film claiming that it was not meant to be a depiction of any one race as a whole. He also does a whole lot of song-and-dance throughout pointing out examples of "good" Black people. But....compared to the rest of the film, that kind of thing is a fig leaf at best.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:04 AM on April 28, 2022 [10 favorites]
I knew I was going to have issues going into it, but - as I said at the time - "I went into it with an open mind; and I think the open mind made it even worse." I'd heard about the racism but hadn't seen any of the particulars.
The hell of it is - it seems like even Griffith knew how his film might come across, because he puts a disclaimer at the top of the film claiming that it was not meant to be a depiction of any one race as a whole. He also does a whole lot of song-and-dance throughout pointing out examples of "good" Black people. But....compared to the rest of the film, that kind of thing is a fig leaf at best.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:04 AM on April 28, 2022 [10 favorites]
Everything old is new again:
In case you thought "cancel culture" whining was new, here was DW Griffith in 1915, after making the modern equivalent of millions of dollars from his blockbuster (and virulently racist) movie that literally had the endorsement of the US president:
In case you thought "cancel culture" whining was new, here was DW Griffith in 1915, after making the modern equivalent of millions of dollars from his blockbuster (and virulently racist) movie that literally had the endorsement of the US president:
For years afterward, in fact, [Griffith] would make speeches at road show openings around the country, defending the film and complaining bitterly about censorship and other freedoms of expression. He even wrote and published a pamphlet on the topic, entitled "The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America," which he invited everyone and anyone to reprint and distribute at will for no charge.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:06 AM on April 28, 2022 [38 favorites]
Hell, Griffith made a whole other movie in response to the criticism - Intolerance was in part supposed to be a rebuttal to his critics of the time, implying that they were the intolerant ones for trying to curtail his free speech.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:15 AM on April 28, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:15 AM on April 28, 2022 [15 favorites]
I finished Du Bois's Black Reconstruction last month. It was probably begun in earnest a couple years after this letter, the first major academic work on the Civil War from a black perspective. Lots of Marxist economic analysis in there too, so of course I was thinking about that reading Debs's letter.
posted by mark k at 7:16 AM on April 28, 2022 [9 favorites]
If the black people today could tell their story about The Birth of a Nation, it would be replete with scenes infinitely more cruel and damning than those based upon Dixon’s novel and flashed upon the screen to conceal the white man’s crimes behind the Negro’s misfortuneCan confirm.
posted by mark k at 7:16 AM on April 28, 2022 [9 favorites]
I recommend the book "Birth of a Nation: A History of "The Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time,"by Melvyn Stokes. It gives a scope to just how history-changing the film was (for the worse).
For premieres in various cities, Klan-hooded actors would ride in the streets to the movie theater's doors.
Okay, let me get this out of the way: Woodrow Wilson was a bigot. That said, he was a complex bigot, and wrote a historical book before his presidency that presented the Ku Klux Klan as a terrorist group. In the intertitles for Birth of the Nation, Wilson's book was quoted. The quotes were taken out of context and made to look pro-Klan.
According to the book, Griffith presented for Wilson a private screening of The Birth of the Nation in the White House, hoping for an endorsement. According to the book Wilson didn't endorse it, and the "lightning in a bottle" comment was attributed to Wilson at a later time.
I'm guessing Wilson was anti-Birth of a Nation, just because it misquoted him.
Again, there is plenty of evidence that Wilson was racist, but he was likely innocent of supporting this film.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
For premieres in various cities, Klan-hooded actors would ride in the streets to the movie theater's doors.
Okay, let me get this out of the way: Woodrow Wilson was a bigot. That said, he was a complex bigot, and wrote a historical book before his presidency that presented the Ku Klux Klan as a terrorist group. In the intertitles for Birth of the Nation, Wilson's book was quoted. The quotes were taken out of context and made to look pro-Klan.
According to the book, Griffith presented for Wilson a private screening of The Birth of the Nation in the White House, hoping for an endorsement. According to the book Wilson didn't endorse it, and the "lightning in a bottle" comment was attributed to Wilson at a later time.
I'm guessing Wilson was anti-Birth of a Nation, just because it misquoted him.
Again, there is plenty of evidence that Wilson was racist, but he was likely innocent of supporting this film.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:22 AM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
Debs' words read powerful and fresh even today.
I recently watched Gone with the Wind and it's just as racist as I remembered. What I didn't know was how much protest there was about the film at the time of release, in 1939.
My high school showed us students Birth of a Nation in 1987 or so. Framed carefully, my teachers were mostly thoughtful liberals. It was explained as a racist and controversial film. "But also such a landmark of film-making! And let's talk about the racism!" Ugh. I hope the school does better now. Not saying no one should ever watch the film but perhaps fifteen year olds aren't the appropriate audience for a nuanced understanding of it. (Also it was boring AF.)
posted by Nelson at 7:50 AM on April 28, 2022 [20 favorites]
I recently watched Gone with the Wind and it's just as racist as I remembered. What I didn't know was how much protest there was about the film at the time of release, in 1939.
Black folks picketed from coast to coast. Some unions urged boycotts. In Chicago, the Defender called for “a mass protest” and in an editorial observed: “Gone With the Wind is propaganda, pure propaganda, crude propaganda. It is anti-Negro propaganda of the most vicious character. It is un-American propaganda. It is subversive.”Folks in the 30s were woke, too. Particularly Black people who had the personal experience and clear understanding of the harmful lies of the film. I had some dumb idea that Gone with the Wind was considered inoffensive at release and it was only a later, more enlightened generation that realized how racist it was, maybe a little unfairly judging it by new standards. Bullshit! Folks knew the film was racist propaganda at the time and said so, loudly. Just a bunch of white Southerners were so enamored with their fantasy of lost glory they ignored that criticism or took it as another reason to love "their" film.
My high school showed us students Birth of a Nation in 1987 or so. Framed carefully, my teachers were mostly thoughtful liberals. It was explained as a racist and controversial film. "But also such a landmark of film-making! And let's talk about the racism!" Ugh. I hope the school does better now. Not saying no one should ever watch the film but perhaps fifteen year olds aren't the appropriate audience for a nuanced understanding of it. (Also it was boring AF.)
posted by Nelson at 7:50 AM on April 28, 2022 [20 favorites]
I had some dumb idea that Gone with the Wind was considered inoffensive at release and it was only a later, more enlightened generation that realized how racist it was, maybe a little unfairly judging it by new standards. Bullshit! Folks knew the film was racist propaganda at the time and said so, loudly.
Same too with Song Of The South from Disney. The podcast "You Must Remember This" did a whole season about that film, discussing not just its creation but also the reactions (and protests) it generated over the years. (First episode here.)
It was explained as a racist and controversial film. "But also such a landmark of film-making! And let's talk about the racism!" Ugh.
And that is the hell of it - it was a technical leap forward when it came to filmmaking itself. This was the first film to use now-common filmmaking techniques like close-ups and tracking shots, and that's why seeing it was such a mind-fuck - because I'd seen how weird films looked before anyone figured out how to do any of that. So going from watching A Trip To The Moon, where every shot was a long shot showing an entire room and people just sort of wandering around and gesturing and you had to figure out what the hell was happening, to watching this where suddenly "oh, we are seeing a closeup of Lillian Gish's face and I can see her expression, I totally understand what's happening now" was profound. The flip side of that, though, is that the story that he told using these new techniques was a pile of dogshit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 AM on April 28, 2022 [20 favorites]
Same too with Song Of The South from Disney. The podcast "You Must Remember This" did a whole season about that film, discussing not just its creation but also the reactions (and protests) it generated over the years. (First episode here.)
It was explained as a racist and controversial film. "But also such a landmark of film-making! And let's talk about the racism!" Ugh.
And that is the hell of it - it was a technical leap forward when it came to filmmaking itself. This was the first film to use now-common filmmaking techniques like close-ups and tracking shots, and that's why seeing it was such a mind-fuck - because I'd seen how weird films looked before anyone figured out how to do any of that. So going from watching A Trip To The Moon, where every shot was a long shot showing an entire room and people just sort of wandering around and gesturing and you had to figure out what the hell was happening, to watching this where suddenly "oh, we are seeing a closeup of Lillian Gish's face and I can see her expression, I totally understand what's happening now" was profound. The flip side of that, though, is that the story that he told using these new techniques was a pile of dogshit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 AM on April 28, 2022 [20 favorites]
Yeah, the film school stuff about Birth of a Nation is of interest. Sure was a weird lesson at age 15 though, and with no other film theory classes being taught. There's a whole lot of other landmark films in cinema you could teach, why this one in particular?
I think it's because my well-meaning teachers wanted to talk about racism in media. To their credit, that was the explicit lesson. Just in retrospect perhaps "let's enjoy this racist spectacle!" is not the best way to teach that racism exists.
(Also it's Night of the Hunter that has the best closeup of Lillian Gish.)
posted by Nelson at 9:06 AM on April 28, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think it's because my well-meaning teachers wanted to talk about racism in media. To their credit, that was the explicit lesson. Just in retrospect perhaps "let's enjoy this racist spectacle!" is not the best way to teach that racism exists.
(Also it's Night of the Hunter that has the best closeup of Lillian Gish.)
posted by Nelson at 9:06 AM on April 28, 2022 [6 favorites]
DJ Spooky did a remix/response to Birth of a Nation called "DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation" that was really good. I don't know if you can stream it anywhere but DVD.com and my library both have it in their catalogs
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:29 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:29 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
Here is an intertitle from Birth of a Nation with a Wilson quote.
I haven't read the Wilson book that this is lifted from. The notion that the quote is contrary to the import of Wilson was saying, comes from the book by Stokes mentioned above. Stokes was no apologist for the film or the Klan.
Stokes says Wilson was quiet regarding the film, which is damnable enough, if Wilson was maintaining an anti-Klan belief.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:35 AM on April 28, 2022
I haven't read the Wilson book that this is lifted from. The notion that the quote is contrary to the import of Wilson was saying, comes from the book by Stokes mentioned above. Stokes was no apologist for the film or the Klan.
Stokes says Wilson was quiet regarding the film, which is damnable enough, if Wilson was maintaining an anti-Klan belief.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:35 AM on April 28, 2022
There's a whole lot of other landmark films in cinema you could teach, why this one in particular?
I did a media arts major in college and took a required film history course. Even when covering the early landmarks of live-action cinema, Birth of a Nation was never shown, in whole or in part. It was probably mentioned once or twice, but that was it. We were shown clips from Triumph of the Will, but that might be because we studied so much early German film in that class.
posted by May Kasahara at 9:53 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
I did a media arts major in college and took a required film history course. Even when covering the early landmarks of live-action cinema, Birth of a Nation was never shown, in whole or in part. It was probably mentioned once or twice, but that was it. We were shown clips from Triumph of the Will, but that might be because we studied so much early German film in that class.
posted by May Kasahara at 9:53 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
I, like EmpressCallipygos, have been going through the 1,001 Movies to Watch Before You Die although I'm too lazy to blog about it myself. In service of that list, I finally watched Birth a few year ago and while I certainly knew its reputation and legacy, it was really far worse than I expected. It's really a painful watch and not something that I'd want to do again.
posted by octothorpe at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2022 [7 favorites]
@EmpressCallipygos:
See also: Every Accusation is a Confession, It's Always Projection with These People
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:58 AM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
Hell, Griffith made a whole other movie in response to the criticism - Intolerance was in part supposed to be a rebuttal to his critics of the time, implying that they were the intolerant ones for trying to curtail his free speech.Everything Old is New Again.
See also: Every Accusation is a Confession, It's Always Projection with These People
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:58 AM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
Octothorpe - if you haven't seen Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, give that a watch; there's a bit where that gets a screening for an audience of Klansmen and it's pretty powerful.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
DJ Spooky did a remix/response to Birth of a Nation called "DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation
He performs this live occasionally, I saw a show 15+ years ago soon after it was first commissioned and I’m really glad it was how I was able to experience this film as a undergrad film major.
Here’s a performance from 2016 (content warning for racist shit, though powerfully recontexualized).
Here’s a link to a video of him giving an artist talk/Q+A about the project, sampling, remixes, culture…
posted by soy bean at 2:44 PM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
He performs this live occasionally, I saw a show 15+ years ago soon after it was first commissioned and I’m really glad it was how I was able to experience this film as a undergrad film major.
Here’s a performance from 2016 (content warning for racist shit, though powerfully recontexualized).
Here’s a link to a video of him giving an artist talk/Q+A about the project, sampling, remixes, culture…
posted by soy bean at 2:44 PM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is a great counter argument to Griffith apologists who say that you can't hold art up to the standards of today
“You have to consider it by the standards of the day” is how one talks about one’s grandfather’s politics, not about the movie that (re-) popularized the Ku Klux Klan. It seems bizarre even to invoke that idea with regard to Griffith. I’m sure there are people who would insist that the film has an aesthetic value that can be separated from its politics, but if one really believed that it would obviate the need to defend its politics at all.
posted by atoxyl at 6:26 PM on April 28, 2022
“You have to consider it by the standards of the day” is how one talks about one’s grandfather’s politics, not about the movie that (re-) popularized the Ku Klux Klan. It seems bizarre even to invoke that idea with regard to Griffith. I’m sure there are people who would insist that the film has an aesthetic value that can be separated from its politics, but if one really believed that it would obviate the need to defend its politics at all.
posted by atoxyl at 6:26 PM on April 28, 2022
If the United States, as a nation, was really serious about living up to its rhetoric about being a beacon of freedom and justice, Eugene Debs would have been elected president, and Donald Trump would have served time.
posted by TedW at 6:56 PM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by TedW at 6:56 PM on April 28, 2022 [8 favorites]
Back in old days, my college film seminar prof always prefaced his screenings with various quotes from contemporary reviewers. The old silent classics always had plenty of relative context.
posted by ovvl at 7:07 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 7:07 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
It’s honestly so weird to see people applaud stuff like this on the same website and in the same week as they gently forgave and embraced the plumber with the Nazi face tats.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:38 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:38 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
To add to octothorpe‘s comment, that whole “oh but the standards of the day” argument usually seems to completely ignore large swathes of humanity who were alive in whatever time period referenced.
I think the actual answer is like: the standards of the day are relevant for some things and not for others. So for example: what the not-asshole term is for people of color and specifically Black people has changed over the years; it would be disingenuous and wrong to be like "Oh, these people used the best word at the time but now we don't use that, what racists", but that doesn't mean that people who used the worst word at the time were not still racists just because it was socially acceptable to be the worst.
posted by corb at 8:00 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think the actual answer is like: the standards of the day are relevant for some things and not for others. So for example: what the not-asshole term is for people of color and specifically Black people has changed over the years; it would be disingenuous and wrong to be like "Oh, these people used the best word at the time but now we don't use that, what racists", but that doesn't mean that people who used the worst word at the time were not still racists just because it was socially acceptable to be the worst.
posted by corb at 8:00 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
I did a media arts major in college and took a required film history course. Even when covering the early landmarks of live-action cinema, Birth of a Nation was never shownI was a dilettante non-major taking a few classes, but we were shown Intolerance instead, with a lot of discussion before and after to contextualize it. I genuinely can't decide whether showing it with context was a good idea or not, but I believe the film prof meant well. I can't complain about having seen such a strange film; however, there are many better films that don't need as many caveats.
posted by eotvos at 8:29 PM on April 28, 2022
Ida B. Wells was on twitter? Dang.
posted by bendy at 10:05 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by bendy at 10:05 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
Birth of a Nation was released on Feb. 8th, 1915, WW1 started in Europe on July 28, 1914, and the US did not enter the war until mid-April 1917.
Gone With the Wind was released on Jan. 17th 1940, WW2 started on Sept. 1, 1939, and the US did not enter the war until Dec. 7, 1941.
The political climates and public moods must have been pretty similar for the two pretty similar movies.
posted by jamjam at 10:17 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Gone With the Wind was released on Jan. 17th 1940, WW2 started on Sept. 1, 1939, and the US did not enter the war until Dec. 7, 1941.
The political climates and public moods must have been pretty similar for the two pretty similar movies.
posted by jamjam at 10:17 PM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
In digging through classic films, there's just so much racism to deal with. Black-face was just the norm and showed up everywhere from Buster Keaton to Hitchcock to Judy Garland. Heck, the film that launch the talking picture revolution was largely in black-face. Then there's all the yellow-face and brown-face. In reading Dana Steven's wonderful book Camera Man about Keaton, she talks about how even black vaudeville performers had to perform in black-face because that's what audiences wanted.
posted by octothorpe at 7:24 AM on April 29, 2022
posted by octothorpe at 7:24 AM on April 29, 2022
Heck, the film that launch the talking picture revolution was largely in black-face.
You know what totally blew my mind? The Jazz Singer remake that Neil Diamond did also had a blackface scene. Granted, it was for a very, very different in-film reason, but....still.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
You know what totally blew my mind? The Jazz Singer remake that Neil Diamond did also had a blackface scene. Granted, it was for a very, very different in-film reason, but....still.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I watched That's Entertainment which was a clip-movie made by MGM of all stuff they were most proud of from the studio's history and they included a black-face clip in that!.
posted by octothorpe at 8:06 AM on April 29, 2022
posted by octothorpe at 8:06 AM on April 29, 2022
I think we've found a history lesson Governor DeSantis would approve of.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:35 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:35 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ida B. Wells was on twitter? Dang.A few years ago Nikole Hannah-Jones (@nhannahjones) got cited in a major newspaper as Ida *Bae* Wells, because the writer saw her twitter handle and didn't realize that wasn't her real name. I can't seem to find it now. Maybe it's gone. I'd delete it too.
posted by eotvos at 1:10 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
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