Masculinity In The Film Birth Of A Nation

Masculinity means having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men it could either be strength in men or aggressiveness. The way society views masculinity is different from the dictionary definition; society defines masculinity in terms of race and class, roles and culture. Society requires men to be tough, assertive, head of the family and focused, whereas with women, they are required to be modest, tender, submissive and disciplined. When it comes to race and masculinity, the darker you are, the more people think you are dangerous, cannot be trusted and they are lazy while their counter-part who are lighter or white are treated differently with more trust and respect. This paper will explain why black people are seen as dangerous, untrustworthy and how Birth of a Nation portrays black and white masculinity. This movie was the most racist video ever made according to the video as it portrayed black men as predators who were lusting
White women are shown as victims who need to be saved from black men who are dangerous whilst white men are shown as their superiors who will save them from black men. In Courtney’s article she talk about a fight that shown how black men and white men fought, unfortunately for the white man, he almost lost, “ Despite all the fanfare lending up to the Reno fight, the hopeful whites who cheered Jeffries on were again severely disappointed. The news of Johnson’s victory prompted rioting in many cities.. Some eighteen African Americans were killed and many more.” the anticipated fight for other might have showed that black man were masculinity better than white man and some white men were not going to accept it and they wanted to put the black men in his place as he was getting happy for fighting a white man and