Birth Of A Nation Essay

Although 86 years separates them, Training Day shows that racial stereotypes of black people in the Birth of a Nation still linger in modern film today.
Released in 1915 and directed by D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation is a film that centers on two families during the Civil War and the following Reconstruction Period. Austin Stoneman is an abolitionist in Washington, D.C. with three children. His two boys, Phil and Tod, visit Ben Cameron at his family home in Piedmont, South Carolina. There, Phil falls in love with Ben’s sister, Margaret. Ben also falls in love with Phil’s sister, Elsie, when he sees her picture in a locket. They soon must part ways as the war between the North and the South looms on the horizon.
After the war, the Stoneman’s
return to the Cameron home during the Reconstruction Period. Austin Stoneman and the abolitionists give the power to vote to the newly freed black slaves. They elect Silas Lynch, a mixed race black man, as Lt. Governor. It is soon discovered that the South under black power is chaos. They enact new laws, including allowing interracial marriage. This, the start of the Ku Klux Klan, led by Ben Cameron.
While Ben’s youngest sister, Flora, is out fetching some water for the house, she is pursued by a black man by the name of Gus ‘The Renegade’. He proposes marriage to her and after her denial he chases her all throughout the forest, to the top of a mountain. It is there that Flora decides to jump to her death to avoid marrying him. Distraught with grief, Ben musters the KKK to fight the black establishment. They capture, convict, and kill Gus and overthrow Silas Lynch and the black establishment. The film ends with a double honeymoon for Ben and Elsie and Phil and Margaret. A happy ending with white men back in their rightful position of power.
Although a film that deals heavily with the topic of race, Birth of a Nation employs black actors only as extras. All of the main black characters are portrayed by white actors in black face. There are many stereotypes found in the film. Lydia Brown, Silas Lynch and Gus the Renegade are overly sexualized characters. From a modern point of view, it might not be as obvious, but at the time it was released the way they act and the things they do would be considered risqué (can you cite this?). Lydia Brown rips at her own clothing and runs her hands along her body and into her mouth during a fit of anger and then uses her unkempt appearance to lie to her master, Austin Stoneman, about the treatment she received at the hands of a white politician that had been visiting Stoneman’s house. Silas Lynch has a deep obsession with Elsie Stoneman and repeatedly stares at her in a manner meant to convey an insatiable sexual appetite. Later, he proposes a marriage to Elsie but upon her refusal insists that he will make it a forced marriage. Gus the Renegade is also obsessed with one of the white women in the film, Flora Cameron. He stalks her to the creek where she is retrieving a bucket of water and proposes marriage and when she refuses and tries to flee he chases her down until she jumps from the top of a mountain to her death so as to retain her white purity.
The appearance of black people in the film is very stereotypical. Their mannerisms are animalistic, while the clothes they wear are clownish in appearance. The enslaved black people walk with hunches in their backs, as if they can’t stand up straight because they haven’t evolved to do so. When they’re celebrating and dancing they’re low down to the ground and pound their hands on the dirt, likening them to monkeys. The clothes they’re seen wearing are covered in polka dots and are almost childlike, contrary to the pressed and cleaned suits worn by all the white people. When they’re part of the government during the Reconstruction Period, they take off their shoes and put their feet on their desks, are seen eating fried chicken and openly drinking liquor as the white officials act in a more composed manner.
At numerous points in the film, black people are depicted as cheats, corrupt, or immoral. One man takes more than his fair share of provisions to highlight black greed. When it comes time to vote, one man sneaks in an extra ballot while the white men are turned away from voting at all. After the elections the legislature is made up almost entirely of black people who compose themselves in disrespectful ways. There’s an all black jury that votes against a white family on trial. Black people are shown all throughout the film to be blinded by greed and drunk on power. They’re not seen as appropriate leadership material.
The immediate reaction from audiences was both positive and negative.
Critics hailed it as a landmark film, noting its technical ingenuity. It made an unprecedented $20,000,000 at the box office and was the first film to played at the White House. It earned an endorsement from Woodrow Wilson who said, “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” White audiences saw the movie in droves, but because of its inaccurate depiction of the Civil War and the Reconstruction, it led to the reformation of the Ku Klux Klan. The Birth of a Nation was used as a recruitment tool for the terrorist organization until at least the 1970s.
Negative responses also followed the movie wherever it went. Upon its release, the NAACP fought hard for censorship of the film, citing the racist depictions of black people and an inaccurate retelling of the history of the Civil War. They succeeded in getting some scenes changed in the film, and a few text cards placed within, but never got it stopped from wide release.
For decades, many screenings of the film were met with protests. One such protest in China Grove, North Carolina in 1979, led to the Greensboro Massacre, where five people were killed and several others were injured. All of it was caught on camera by local news teams, but all KKK members involved in the incident that had been prosecuted were acquitted by an all-white
jury.
Released in 2001, Training Day stars Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as Jake Hoyt. Washington won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his depiction of Harris. The story follows rookie cop Jake on his first day training in the narcotics unit of the LAPD under the tutelage of veteran detective Alonzo Harris.
After Jake first meets Alonzo, they promptly set off on their day. They soon stop a drug sale in progress and confiscate the paraphernalia. In the car afterwards, Alonzo directs Jake to smoke the confiscated weed and pulls his gun on Jake until he agrees to do so. While high, Jake stops an attempted rape on a young girl, Letty. Before leaving the scene he notices Letty’s dropped wallet and takes it with him.
Later, Alonzo uses a fake search warrant to search the house of a known drug dealer, Sandman. He steals some drug money that he finds in the bedroom before he and Jake quickly make their escape. After a brief stop for sex with his mistress Sara, Alonzo then takes Jake to visit some high ranking police officers to obtain a warrant to invade the home of former cop and current drug dealer, Roger. Jake, Alonzo and his crew of fellow corrupt cops all go to Rogers’ house and dig up the chest of money that Alonzo knows is hidden underneath the kitchen floor. Alonzo then kills Roger and comes up with their cover story for why Roger is killed. Jake is reluctant to go along with the plan but tentatively agrees when Alonzo threatens him.
Alonzo then drives Jake to the home of a Mexican gang lord named Smiley. Smiley tells Jake about Alonzo owing $1,000,000 to the Russian mob for killing one of their people in Las Vegas before it is revealed that Alonzo paid Smiley to kill Jake. Smiley releases Jake when he discovers Letty’s wallet and learns that Jake stopped her from being raped earlier in the day.
Jake then tracks Alonzo back to Sara’s apartment, where they fight until the local gang allows Jake to walk free with the money Alonzo had taken from Roger’s house, which Jake intends to use as evidence. Alonzo tries to flee the city, but the Russian mob finds and kills him on a deserted road.
Many of the stereotypes of black people present in Birth of a Nation are also in Training Day, most notably in the character of Alonzo Harris. He’s immoral and corrupt. Alonzo’s main motivation in the films is his pursuit of the money he needs to pay off the Russian mob after he beat one of their people to death in Las Vegas. He uses intimidation to get Jake to go along with his schemes, like when he has Jake smoke the PCP laced marijuana, uses a fake warrant to search a house for drug money, or when he concocts the story of Roger’s death to cover their tracks after he and his fellow corrupt cops kill Roger to get at the money he has hidden underneath his kitchen floor.
Alonzo is disloyal to those around him and only out for himself. Early on in the film, when Alonzo and Jake initially visit Roger, Alonzo and Roger clearly have a camaraderie. They hug each other in greeting and speak openly with each other, only for Alonzo to later kill Roger because he has something Alonzo wants. When Jake proves hard to control, Alonzo takes him to the house of a Mexican gang leader, Smiley, and pays him to kill Jake. Later, Alonzo tries to get the local gang to kill Jake and when they refuse he turns on them, threatening them with prison, etc.
He is also overly sexualized. When Jake first meets Alonzo at the beginning of the film, they briefly discuss Jake’s initial training. When Alonzo learns that Jake’s training officer was a woman he calls her a “fine bitch” and asks Jake if he “tapped that ass.” When Jake denies the claim and says he’s married, Alonzo responds, “You’ve got a dick,” insinuating that he has an uncontrollable sexual appetite. Alonzo is married but has at least one mistress, whom he visits for sex in the middle of his shift with Jake. Nearly every interaction or discussion that Alonzo has regarding women, he speaks of them as sexual objects.
Finally, Alonzo is depicted as having anger and violence issues. When Jake first refuses to smoke the weed Alonzo pulls his gun on him and refuses to let up until Jake does as he’s told. When Jake apprehends the two drug addicts that were attempting to rape Letty, Alonzo roughs up one of them against a fence, pulls a knife on him, and then threatens to shoot off one of his balls with two guns aimed at his groin area. When he finishes searching the house of the drug lord Sandman, his wife asks to see the warrant but is outraged when she learns it’s fake. She chases Alonzo and Jake to their car, shouting about the warrant and stolen money until the neighborhood gang opens fire on them. Alonzo then pulls out his own guns and returns fire on the gang until he and Jake are able to flee the scene. After Jake tracks Alonzo down to Sara’s apartment to try and arrest Alonzo, they engage in a gun battle inside the apartment until Alonzo escapes out the window. They then get in a brutal fight, with Alonzo pummeling Jake. After the gang lets Jake walk free, Alonzo screams at them in rage and threatens the entire neighborhood with retribution.
Nearly 100 years separates both of these films, but the similarities in depictions of black people are numerous. It’s not hard to see that racial stereotyping is still a problem and perpetuated in modern film today. Very few actors have won awards in Hollywood’s most famous award show history and most of them are for typically “black” characters. There’s the corrupt cop (Denzel Washington), the maids (Hattie McDaniels and Octavia Spencer), the slave (Lupita N’yongo), and the cheating psychic (Whoopi Goldberg), just to name a few. All fit the image of what it means to be black in the eyes of white society. It’s up to Hollywood to change course and give fully fleshed characters to black actors that don’t rely on the usual, often harmful, stereotypes we’re used to seeing. It’s also Hollywood’s responsibility to give voice to black filmmakers so we can really see these honest portrayals instead of further relying on outdated and racist stereotypes.