The Birth Of A Nation Film Analysis

Black characters and even black extras are predominantly played by whites in blackface. Sometimes their make-up is that of minstrel shows of the nineteenth century (large white lips, face covered with dark paint), where white actors mocked blacks as dumb, lazy, superstitious, eating watermelons, and continuously self-entertaining with dancing. And that is how they are shown in The Birth of a Nation – when they are not busy murdering white men and raping white women, of course. Despite hiring thousands of black actors for the film, we see none in the main roles, and often, even among extras playing black mob scenes on the streets or black militia, close-ups reveal white actors in blackface. An unintended irony of constantly replacing “blacks” with black-faced whites is revealed in a scene in which Elsie sees two “white spies” disguised as blacks hide in plain sight from the black mob. Since both the mob and two spies are played by white actors in blackface, all equally unconvincing as African Americans, it is really impossible to tell how she told one from another.
The actors’ make-up was not provided by the producer; white actors playing black or “mulatto” characters had to paint and smear themselves. Some of them, for example Walter Long, ostentatiously made little effort to look authentically African American. Not only do they not resemble African Americans at all, but also, more importantly, they do not resemble humans. Ridiculous …show more content…
Reportedly, it was even endorsed by the President Woodrow Wilson after he watched it during a special screening at the White House in 1915. The vision of a new, united, Anglo-Saxon and white nation largely contributed to this