Connecting to the Future
Film As History Teacher? One Thumb, Partially Up
I do not remember Hollywood movies being used very often as a teaching tool when I was a student. Generally, if we were watching a movie, it was because half the teachers had been snowed in in Westchester and we were being herded into the auditorium to watch The Little Mermaid. Again. However, there is one film which my AP American History class watched in 12th grade that really did stick with me. It would fail miserably in comparison to the likes of Glory and Amistad which, for all their flaws, do aspire to some degree of empathy with their subjects and to some level of even handedness. The film was The Birth Of A Nation.
Now regarded as hugely influential for the technical developments it displayed, D.W. Griffith's film is essentially reprehensible propaganda, filled with grotesque caricatures of southern black people and northern Reconstructionists and functioning largely as an apologia for white supremacy, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan. Obviously, Marcus's and Stoddard's objections to the depiction of white "saviors" and black people stripped of individuality to serve as noble types do not apply. The film is more or less relentless in its defamation of Reconstruction and those who opposed the white supremacist social order that prevailed before and after that interlude.
However, it was the very explicitness of bias which made The Birth Of A Nation such an interesting picture to watch in a history class. History is not simply about what happened. It's as much about who is telling what happened and what their interests are in that particular account. Adapted from a play by a well-educated and well-connected (friend to Woodrow Wilson) North Carolinian, the film represents a point of view, of the post-Civil War era in general and the proper place of African Americans in particular, which was extremely prevalent in American society and American historical scholarship well into the twentieth century. More or less thoroughly discredited now, my class discussed what the motivations of such a portrayal were and what the implications for later public life and American race relations were.
I think Marcus and Stoddard do a good job of suggesting how to make use of films like this in "The Burden Of Historical Representation." By contextualizing the film and treating it as an argument that comes out of a particular point of view, one can make a historical film into a vivid example of how history is constructed and transmitted. It is tempting, however, to treat a Hollywood movie as a "what" object, a complete story which wraps itself up in 120 minutes. When bringing it into the classroom, it is important to consider it as a "why" object, determining why the story was presented in that manner and not in another.
Now regarded as hugely influential for the technical developments it displayed, D.W. Griffith's film is essentially reprehensible propaganda, filled with grotesque caricatures of southern black people and northern Reconstructionists and functioning largely as an apologia for white supremacy, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan. Obviously, Marcus's and Stoddard's objections to the depiction of white "saviors" and black people stripped of individuality to serve as noble types do not apply. The film is more or less relentless in its defamation of Reconstruction and those who opposed the white supremacist social order that prevailed before and after that interlude.
However, it was the very explicitness of bias which made The Birth Of A Nation such an interesting picture to watch in a history class. History is not simply about what happened. It's as much about who is telling what happened and what their interests are in that particular account. Adapted from a play by a well-educated and well-connected (friend to Woodrow Wilson) North Carolinian, the film represents a point of view, of the post-Civil War era in general and the proper place of African Americans in particular, which was extremely prevalent in American society and American historical scholarship well into the twentieth century. More or less thoroughly discredited now, my class discussed what the motivations of such a portrayal were and what the implications for later public life and American race relations were.
I think Marcus and Stoddard do a good job of suggesting how to make use of films like this in "The Burden Of Historical Representation." By contextualizing the film and treating it as an argument that comes out of a particular point of view, one can make a historical film into a vivid example of how history is constructed and transmitted. It is tempting, however, to treat a Hollywood movie as a "what" object, a complete story which wraps itself up in 120 minutes. When bringing it into the classroom, it is important to consider it as a "why" object, determining why the story was presented in that manner and not in another.
Comment
About
© 2009 Created by Bethany Smith on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of NCSU College of Ed to add comments!
Join this Ning Network