Birth of a Nation

Most shockingly, I discovered that the film is still used by the Ku Klux Klan today for recruitment purposes. The portrayal of the KKK in Birth of a Nation was one of heroes, instead of marauding racists. This appealed to white Americans’ views of the mythic South, and helped to boost membership in the KKK.

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It would have been incredible if the movie had been made in the era where sound came into movies. It is unknown whether the title refers to the birth of the reunited states, or the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. In showing the KKK as good guys, it is obvious that Griffith was trying to show their birth as a positive event for the United States. In seeing the huge battles, I did not need sound to hear the sounds of battle in my imagination. To think that the movie was released only fifty years after the end of the Civil War makes the feat seem even more incredible.

Birth of a Nation was a powerful film that was a technological advancement, but it lacked the correct historical prospective. People who knew nothing about the KKK or thought of them as white villains before Birth of a Nation probably changed their minds and donned hoods of their own upon seeing the film. Griffith later released a version of the movie without the KKK, but the damage had already been done.

The film is an incredible piece of propaganda for both the KKK and the Jim Crow system. When it was portrayed in this movie as acceptable, people in the South felt much better about doing horrible deeds to black citizens, denying blacks their civil rights. I tend to think that the film has a double meaning. was once again reunited after the war, leading to the strengthening of the nation.

Though the portrayal of both blacks and the KKK were extremely off track, the movie itself was an amazing work of cinema for its time.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 761
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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