Lillian Gish: should a great actor be judged by a racist film?

An Ohio cinema has removed ‘Gish’ from its name due to her role in notorious 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. Cultural myopia – or proof of newly enlightened times?

DW Griffith’s 1915 film epic is still dangerous, perhaps increasingly so. The movie, which prompted protests from the NAACP and cinema riots on its release, praises the Ku Klux Klan and contains deeply offensive representations of African Americans in the years following the civil war. It was held responsible for a surge in KKK membership and has always had a toxic reputation, while being lauded for its technique.

MOVIELAND, May 10

When D. W. Griffith gave us The Birth Of A Nation

it was seen as and, rightly, deemed a sensation.

In black and white, his skillful directorial hand

celebrates hate and the Ku Klux Klan.

(Am I alone in finding that name

silly, illiterate and exceedingly lame?)

Anyway, as I had started to say

this flick was a hit back in its day,

way before anyone would call attention

to what is, at least, its extreme condescension.

(Well, it is actually more propaganda,

pandering slander from a racist grandstander.)

This “classic” agitprop still is deployed

to make down-market whites more paranoid,

assuring they never get to a place

where they can see there are no races.

Therefore a #MAGA conflagration

climaxing in The Death Of A Nation?
We have a leader who is such a jerk, he'll
likely lead us in this full circle.