Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how in his novel "The Souls of Black Folk" W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the problem of the 20th Century is the problem of the color-line and how written in 1903, Du Bois' analysis proved correct for the rest of the century, particularly the first two-thirds of the 20th Century when Hollywood films depicted blacks as inferiors. It shows how a comparison of his portrayal of African Americans with D.W. Griffith's 1915 landmark film "Birth of a Nation" reveals a vivid contrast in the depiction of African Americans. It looks at how Du Bois portrays African Americans as a people who experience racial suffering and injustices, but also as a people with great strengths and resources who must fight as opposed to the film industry which stereotyped them as ignorant savages or grinning, dancing stooges or people who could only hold menial jobs and who lacked morals and intellect.

From the Paper:

"Before the release of "Birth of a Nation" blacks remained for the large part politically indifferent to the derogatory images presented by the film industry. One historian attributes their lack of interest to the deep puritan fundamentalist roots that dismissed film as needless frivolity (Cripps 11). Another reason could be that African Americans had so many areas that required their attention that leaders did not have the time to deal with film. The depiction of African Americans in Hollywood films was horrific, with stereotypes of them as ignorant savages or grinning, dancing stooges or people who could only hold menial jobs and who lacked morals and intellect. D. W. Griffith, the single most influential director of his time, took the stereotypes even further in A Birth of a Nation,@ portraying African Americans as brutal, lusting menaces who represented a very real threat to society."

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