Talk:The Birth of a Nation
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And I certainly don't endorse it
[edit]- Please do not place this film in New texts. I intentionally left it out.
I sat through this nearly 3 and a half hour racist film, so that you don't have to...
As the original transcriber of the film, I need to just state for the record that I absolutely do not endorse anything this film stands for. The film (especially in its second half), contains a horrible fear-mongering white supremacist message. The intention of this film was clearly to fan the flames of fear among the white American population of black people, and to outright endorse white supremacism. And, sadly, the message spread pretty far. This was the highest-grossing silent film of all time, and literally one of the highest-grossing films of all time, period, if you can believe it. You can read through the Wikipedia article on this film to learn just how devastating the effects of this film's release were. Just to give you an idea, it literally caused the second rise of the Ku Klux Klan terrorist organization. Yeah, it's not pretty.
...Not to mention the fact that the ideology it spreads is totally ridiculous and nonsensical... It almost seems like something a kid would make up, like seriously...
I greatly discourage for anyone to see this film as an item of any kind of entertainment value. A lot of critics or reviewers like to glorify this film for its technological achievements, and, while these innovations undeniably exist in the film, to praise this film in any way just feels to me like ignoring the elephant in the room. I'd rather live in a world where we had (possibly) less advanced special effects or set design in modern films, than one where the KKK still exists to this day, and where systemic racism in America is a problem we have quite a long way to solving yet. In other words, acknowledging that this film affected film history is a statement of fact, while praising it is a choice someone makes. I don't think anyone should praise it.
Anyway, I'm glad this transcription project is out of the way. It's one that I've been begrudgingly avoiding for obvious reasons, but I figured I might as well just do it and get it over with. And now it's done, so I never have to do it again. In some sense I'm happy about that.
All in all, I hope this transcription can be used for some constructive purpose, like analysis, historical understanding of white supremacist ideology or film history, or debunking of claims in the film itself. Again, please do not watch this film for entertainment value, or god forbid fall for its propaganda. That may sound farfetched to some of you, but believe me, we don't live in that different of a world today than back then... PseudoSkull (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)