Lara Reyes-Terry, Week 6: KKK ≠ Superheroes…Right?
What if I told you that the first superhero movie was about the KKK?
It sounds dramatic, but it’s true. The 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation is based on the play The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, written by Thomas Dixon Jr. This film follows a Confederate colonel from the end of the Civil War into Reconstruction who ends up forming the KKK.
This film is not only notorious for its glorification of racism and the KKK, but it inspired the famous robes and cross burning practices adopted by the second KKK.
Clearly, its impact stuck.
Personally, I love the superhero genre. It’s the perfect combination of “suspend-your-disbelief” fun and social commentary, at least with what I consume. Examples of the latter include The Boys (political commentary), the most recent Superman movie (themes of immigration), and the X-Men (symbolic of queerness). I’m even writing a story in the genre with similar goals to The Boys--so you could imagine my shock when I randomly saw a Youtube thumbnail with the words “The Racist Origins of Superhero Films” with Batman alongside a KKK member both doing a Nazi salute.
I highly recommend watching the video essay, “The Birth of a Nation: The First Superhero Film.” It’s very interesting and thoroughly educational (and my following overview does not do it justice).
TBOAN’s protagonist and many superheroes are ex-military and can/have been used as military propaganda. Sound familiar? Green Lantern. Captain America. Falcon. Wolverine.
TBOAN’s protagonist “must don a costume in order to become a vigilante and defeat the threats the city is unwilling and incapable of dealing with.” He “dons the mask” to fight what he perceives as evil and “avenge a loved one.” Sound familiar? Batman. Flash. Spiderman.
TBOAN’s protagonist assembles a team of other “costumed vigilantes” to seek out the villain. Sound familiar? The Justice League. The Avengers.
TBOAN’s protagonist now “takes up a crusade” against “crime, corruption, and evil.” A little too close to home by now, right?
There are other similarities presented, but these by far made me rethink my life, and at which point I decided that Thomas Dixon Jr would be my POAS (unfortunately I had to switch as the only autobiographies existing are under page requirement or from his era…expensive and rare).
But as a fan of this genre, these tropes surrounding how the hero actually comes to be are so common and so important to developing empathy towards the hero, and why we as the audience celebrate with the hero’s wins. That is exactly what makes TBOAN so notorious as an art piece in my mind, the fact that its methods to glorify the KKK are tried and true.
Many fans of the superhero genre will often deny claims that the content they consume has any inherent meaning or commentary, something that Anansi addresses and I have seen. Regardless of domain, people will often pull the “it’s not that deep” excuse. As for the film, a study done at Harvard shows that “lynchings became four times more likely to happen in towns where the film was shown…Everywhere the film was played, lynchings and violence followed.”
It’s possible to impact people with your art, and this is one of the most brutal examples of it. As I said with these storytelling tropes being used to invite empathy and belief in the hero from experience, I wonder what those people, incited by the film, were thinking about when doing those violent acts. Were they thinking about the woman that killed herself to avoid getting raped by a Black man? Were they thinking about the Colonel fighting against political corruption, with more Black men entering government? Or did the film inspire them to think even harder about the world around them, only the questions that film was asking them to answer were the wrong ones.
Dare I say, the film (and its creators) wanted no one to question it.
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Image + Video Essay: Birth of a Nation: The First Superhero Film
Lara, I personally am not a huge superhero fan but it was extremely shocking to find out that the first superhero movie was based off of a play about the KKK. I liked how you tied the film The Birth of a Nation back to all the classic heroes everyone knows (Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, ect.). This really highlights just how much of the classic superhero movie is related to the KKK, from the costumes to the hero's nature to take up a crusade against crime and evil. I thought it was really smart to add in the study done by Harvard, about how lynchings are four times more likely to occur in towns where this film was shown, because it further proves your point that these movies are based in KKK ideals and as much as people try to ignore the history these movies still have a major impact in the world. I will definitely be checking out the video essay and can’t wait to see what you write next!
ReplyDeleteThe title and the opening sentence for your blog are super eye-catching and are an excellent hook to get people to read your blog! I also like the use of manly shorter paragraphs to really emphasize the severity of the topic at hand. The one sentence paragraph format helps break up the text and lets people have more time to process compared to if the text was formatted in typical paragraph format. The discussion of how superhero movies tend to serve as social commentary is a point that I’ve never quite noticed or thought about, since I’m not a superhero movie kind of person, but it seems like an interesting topic to discuss. Using one of your POAS options as inspiration for your blog post is honestly a genius idea as well!
ReplyDeleteThe style of your blog is also really passionate and that tone contributes to the issues that are brought up through the discussion of this particular film and its associations. The last few paragraphs especially show your deep interest and feelings on the topic and the examples and insights into the minds of the directors of this film really helped me get a deeper understanding of the issue.
Lara, I didn’t want you to tell me that the first superhero movie was about the KKK. And then you did…and I was disappointed and shocked per usual, learning the tragically racist history of American culture. In my USH class today (I have Mrs. Mishal), we also learnt about The Birth of a Nation—which was highly praised by a Progressive president, Woodrow Wilson. It was hard to believe that this blatantly racist propaganda aired all across the nation, garnering significant praise for the ending scene of a white woman jumping off a cliff to avoid being raped by an aggressive African American (a white actor with blackface). So I got to learn more about the “notorious” factor of this film, which was neat as I skimmed your blog the weekend before. But honestly, all the connections you revealed pertaining to a wide array of famous heroes was so disheartening. I can see why people would want to cope with these facts with the ever so ignorant “‘it’s not that deep’”—yet your blog voices something I very much agree with: the impact art can make on people. This wry(?) ending sentence you wrote is a wonderful way to finish the blog as it tied a nice little bow on this present of racially prejudiced history we must grapple with.
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