Talk:The Birth of a Nation/Archive 2

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Propaganda

Roger EDbert correctly compared Birth of a Nation to Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens. So, why is the lead here so overwhelmingly postive, while Triumph des Willens is clled a propaganda film in its lead?

I think the lead here should be more, decidely, negative - while it can acknowledge the film's technical merits it should reflect the near-unanimous damnation the film's content receives.84.176.228.116 (talk) 22:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Propaganda

(resurrected from the archive to get some feedback) Roger Ebert correctly compared Birth of a Nation to Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens. So, why is the lead here so overwhelmingly postive, while Triumph des Willens is called a propaganda film in its lead?

I think the lead here should be more, decidely, negative - while it can acknowledge the film's technical merits it should reflect the near-unanimous damnation the film's content receives. Wefa (talk) 17:46, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Charges of racism

Is the film racist, or does it portray the racism of the period in question? The intro makes it seem like there's no question about the film being racist:

  • promoting white supremacy and positively portraying the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.

But the footnote goes to a film review site that apparently lets anyone contribute. Who is Dan Devore? (His review is not scholarly and gives opinion but no examples, and he makes no mention of of the director's comments about his intent.)

I think we should change the intro to say that charges of racism were made, rather than saying that the racism of the film sparked controversy. It should be between:

Disclaimer and conflict of interest notice: I have not seen the film! And I'm equally against both (1) racism itself and (2) false charges of racism. --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


User Ed Poor|Uncle Ed would change active to passive voice, always a weak form of writing most often used by those seeking to evade truth, as in, Mistakes were made. Others will be blamed. rather than writing in direct and straight-forward active voice, such as I made a mistake and I take responsibility. Ed writes-- I think we should change the intro to say that charges of racism were made, rather than saying that the racism of the film sparked controversy. Not only is changing the lead to passive voice a bad literary idea, it also understates what is known to be true. The airing of this film sparked violence in many cities across the U.S. Nearly a century after it first aired, it is revealing that there are attempts to conceal what is well-documented about the overwhelmingly racist tone of this film that opened the era to the terrorist activities, including frequent murders of black people, by the second Ku Klux Klan. The film champions the yearning by former slave owners for slavery during the plantation era and is the single most dramatic depiction of the blatantly false stereotype of black men being primarily rapists of white women, and of black men being "justifiably" murdered by mobs publicly for alleged rape. The film is historically significant in that it cheered on the time that historians now refer to as the "nexus of race relations in the United States" when terror, including public murder, directed at African-Americans such as is championed in this film, was at its most prevalent in U.S. history. Skywriter (talk) 14:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making those points, Skywriter. If you don't object, I'm going to copy and paste 2 or 3 of those points into the article, such as:
  1. sparked violence in many cities
  2. film champions the yearning by former slave owners
  3. single most dramatic depiction of the blatantly false stereotype
My aim is not to cover but to uncover; thanks for your input. --Uncle Ed (talk) 01:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
There is good documentation for each point. Unfortunately, I am away from my books and it will be several weeks before I can access the citations.Skywriter (talk) 06:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


More Ebert quotes

  • The film represents how racist a white American could be in 1915 without realizing he was racist at all. [1]
  • As slavery is the great sin of America, so "The Birth of a Nation" is Griffith's sin, for which he tried to atone all the rest of his life. So instinctive were the prejudices he was raised with as a 19th century Southerner that the offenses in his film actually had to be explained to him. To his credit, his next film, "Intolerance," was an attempt at apology. He also once edited a version of the film that cut out all of the Klan material, but that is not the answer. If we are to see this film, we must see it all, and deal with it all. [ibid]

Snow White

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs supposedly took in about $8M, to become the top-grossing film at that time. How, then, could "Birth of a Nation" have taken in $10M? WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 17:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not explain the title?

I think that'd be really helpful to people.

One of my edits a few years ago explained why the film is called "The Birth of a Nation", but that's now been edited out. The "Nation" of the title is "The Invisible Nation" of the Ku Klux Klan. That's how the KKK described itself, "The Invisible Nation".

Here's a lengthy review that mentions that: http://www.filmannex.com/movie/independent/drama/the_birth_of_a_nation/99 —Preceding unsigned comment added by BigGuy (talk • contribs) 22:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The film was a production of a play (written by Thomas Dixon, Jr.) which was based on Dixon's historical novel "The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan." At a private showing after the film was produced, Dixon shouted to Griffith across the room, that "The Clansman" was too tame a title for such a powerful story, "It should be called 'The Birth of a Nation.'" - This according to John Hope Franklin, who has three references in the article. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 23:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
The "Invisible Nation" think is bogus because the Klan's nickname (and this is used explicitly in the movie) is "The Invisible Empire", not "Nation". You won't find any references to the Klan as "Invisible Nation" that pre-date this film.
The "birth of a nation" being referred to is the United States, as its government was executed post-Civil War, with there no longer being any question that North and South were united into one governing country and that individual states were fully subordinate to the federal government. One of the messages of that film is that even though that full union of North and South may be thing to be celebrated, nonetheless the "birth" of that new nation (i.e. the Civil War and period immediately after) was unduly harsh on the white South. Thus, at its inception this new nation had been particularly lacking in liberty for white Southerners who were placed under the thumb of black legislators, and only the arrival of the Klan allowed that to be corrected and the South to be saved to function properly within the new nation. (Filmmaker's POV, not mine, of course.) 143.127.128.10 (talk) 08:15, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

use of Blackface actors

Watching the film for the first time this week, it seemed grotesque that many of the "black" characters appeared to be "white" people in blackface. There is a passing reference in the article ( as a caption to a picture of Gus's capture) but not more. Interestingly, the blackface article mentions that BoaN was the *last* major film to use this technique, as the film served to discredit the idea ! Should this be referenced ?? Feroshki (talk) 09:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I'd find it more grotesque to think of an actual black person having participated in this sorry spectacle... certainly I'd encourage anyone to expand on this with all available sources. I also had the sense that "something" was done to make the Radical Republican characters seem Frankenstein-ish (even the white ones) but I couldn't guess what it was. Wnt (talk) 19:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Plungers

What are the wiggly things the Klansmen wore on their heads that look like bathroom plungers? Do all the tall Klansman hoods have one of those at the middle to keep them standing up in a point? Wnt (talk) 19:36, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

that is one of the (many) original KKK outfits, the pointy white hood didnt become standard for many years after thisfilm was released —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.102.128.225 (talk) 06:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I Think This Article Needs A Damn Good Review...

There are a few 'hilarious' additions to the Uncredited section of the Cast.

Why aren't these little things being picked up by Wikipedia's bots???

Richytps (talk) 21:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of keywords that bots look for, but it's hard to catch these instances. I've reverted the vandalism. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Well done, sir. These vandals think they are so funny. Childish idiots. I should have reverted it myself - I will next time. Richytps (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Why "previous better"?

I don't get what makes the "previous better"... before my edit it first talked about the protests against the film, and then goes slightly off topic for no reason, only to right after jump back to a film influenced by the protests. So I'm not convinced yet on how the previous revision is better. 173.180.202.22 (talk) 12:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Before your edit, the paragraph described the protests and the bans in several cities, and then finished by describing Griffith's reaction (a year after The Birth of a Nation he made Intolerance).
After your edit, the paragraph described the protests, jumped ahead a year to discuss Griffith's reaction, then jumped back in time to mention the bans that prevented The Birth of a Nation from opening in several cities. This seems needlessly disjointed. I also think that "it was banned in several cities" has a bit more life than "in addition, some cities had it banned". Ewulp (talk) 02:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Well I don't know what I'm saying, but I deduce many beliefs I know from assumptions, (I try to be very open to questioning/replacing them it new information suggests otherwise), because there's not a thing wrong with doing so, as otherwise people would know very little. On the article about Intolerance, it clearly describes how it was influenced by the criticism of this film, but makes not mention of its banning. I just wonder, from where did you learn that Intolerance was influenced by the bans? Did you see this / hear this, or did you just deduce this from assumptions? Because such a content on the article on Intolerance is new information, would you please, perhaps, reassess my edit? 173.180.202.22 (talk) 12:50, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Reassessment done. The bans resulted from criticism. Why else would a film be banned, unless somebody thought that the film should not be shown? If further clarification is necessary, sources beyond wikipedia itself may be consulted; this is representative.
The relevant text of our article ("The outcry of racism was so great that Griffith was inspired to produce Intolerance the following year") carries no suggestion that the bans influenced Griffith more than the criticism, or that the bans influenced Griffith less than the criticism. Ewulp (talk) 01:51, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
My version didn't say anything about what caused the bans, and just talked of it after the likely reason was given, because most decisions of this magnitude do not originate from a single reason (I agree the protests were the main factor). But if you want people who agree with you to deduce the protests caused it, you don't really need to revert anything because people who agree with you would deduce the same thing anyhow. I mean, think about it. If 90 people tell me to do X, and another 10 people also tell me to do X, and in the end I do X because there's more than 50 people who want me to do so, Wikipedia should just list the people who wanted me to do X instead of saying "because of those 90 people who wanted 173.180.202.22 to do X, he did so". 173.180.202.22 (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
As stated in my original edit summary, way back on May 13, the existing edit seems better to me—superior to your edit on grounds of clarity and style, as already explained in considerable detail. I do not know who wrote the passage in question, but my impartial judgment is that their version is better. The text seems perfectly lucid to me; you have argued that it is confusing, but nobody has concurred. Please see WP:WIN, and consider whether this discussion has perhaps dragged on long enough. 19:43, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, your previous points have been pretty convincing, but I can't find what point is being made here. You seem to be saying that your previous statements have been correct, but without addressing why it's better to say "because of those 90 people who wanted 173.180.202.22 to do X, he did so," instead of listing possible reasons and writing consequence at the end so readers can decide which reasons were more important themselves. Yes, you may think the protests were a reason for the bans, and I agree it's most likely the main factor, but we cannot imply it's the sole factor.
Also, there is no such philosophy that if a debate goes on for too long, it's the opposing side that's to blame. I'm not wrongfully accusing you of holding such a belief, I'm just reminding that we don't want to go in that direction. 173.180.202.22 (talk) 22:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Continued discussion from my talk page

As I wrote on my talk page, you pretty much implied that none of the sources suggested the protests were a sole reason. They do say the things in one sentence, and it is possible to read it as the sole reason by dumb/casual mistake. But there is no harm in using more than one sentence, as the facts it's a main reason is obvious, and the timeline's overlapping make it a trivial matter. So it is, well, most efficient to separate them as it slightly helps with that mistake. I know this sound small, but indeed, I have absolutely nothing better to do right now and if you don't like debating over something small, you wouldn't... care if I made my edit (remember, neither side could be blamed for disagreeing over a small decision). The fact that our sources didn't (always) say thing in the most efficient ways doesn't mean we shouldn't. We wouldn't copy a spelling error, now, would we?

Also, you wouldn't be unwilling to discuss something if you're willing to start an edit war. I know it might not be officially called one because there are few edits per day, but any exchange of reverts without discussion in between is as problematic. 173.180.202.22 (talk) 03:03, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

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