Cultural fear in The Birth of a Nation 2016

The film The Birth of a Nation came out in 2016; it took place in Southampton County, Virginia, 1831. This movie is about Nat Turner, an African American slave who became a preacher as an adult. While Turner was traveling to do missionary work, he saw the African American being tortured and raped. Turner couldn’t look at his people being used and tortured anymore, so he started a rebellion. He gathered a small group, and they started working to end slavery. Turner’s group went to each house in the county and killed the white people living there. In the end, Turner’s group was defeated by an American army when they tried to steal weapons from the army storage. Turner was sentenced to death and hung. The movie The Birth of A Nation reveals specific American fears that scare people in our contemporary moment. In Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” he argues that monsters reveal the fears and anxieties that drive a culture at a specific time. What are the cultural fears revealed by the movie The Birth of A Nation? One obvious fear is the concern that violence might erupt because of unfairness in society. In the movie, Turner wants to free his people from being slaves; Cohen would argue that as a monster, he exaggerates social differences that are deemed unacceptable in a given culture. On a deeper level, the movie also reveals the cultural fear of war, slavery and racism. In the movie, African Americans are the slaves of white people. When an African American started a rebellion, it could lead to the civil war. The Birth of a Nation challenges us to truly respect differences in race, culture, and religion. It shows that what was happening in America during the 1830s still has importance now.

In 1915, there was a movie with the same name The Birth of a Nation, it directed and co-produced by D.W Griffith. In the movie, they have explained civil war and reconstruction in the united states. The viewpoint of the people inside the movie was opposite from the modern The Birth of a Nation because the African Americans were a bad guys in the movie. The main character was Ben Cameron, the war’s hero and a founder of the Klu Klux Klan. Cameron was falling in love with Elsie while he recovering in the hospital. Cameron hated the African American, and he did not like when the slaves were free in the United States. Cameron fought the African American by formed a group call Klu Klux Klan, they dressed in white and covering their face. They were dressing this way because Cameron inspired by kids who dressed up like a ghost to scare African American people. Flora Cameron, Ben Cameron’s sister. She died while escaping from Gus — freedman. Ben Cameron hunted for Gus, and the Klan killed Gus as a punishment. After Lynch, another freedman, discovered Gus’ death. He kidnapped Elsie, Cameron’s lover, and Cameron went to rescued Elsie right away. The movie ended with a double wedding as Margaret Cameron marries Phil Stoneman and Elsie Stoneman marries Ben Cameron and, the United States found peace at the end of the movie.

One of the biggest information about U.S history is about slavery. Also, the movie The Birth of a Nation shown how slaves were sold and used in the United States. The beginning of slavery, the British introduced slavery to North America in 1619, and it became legal at the end of the seventeenth century. Slavery was a center of American politics, economics, and social relations. In 1750, there were 144,000 slaves in Chesapeake. Two out of five Virginian were enslaved, and there were more slaves in Georgia and South Carolina. Most of the slaves worked on cotton farms. Slavery and racism grew together in America, and it became the ideological basis for American culture and society. In the nineteenth century, slavery increased in America, and racism also continued during that time. According to Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz, “The region lacked a sustainable cash crop like tobacco that created a demand for slave labor” (“Slavery in the United States”); for this reason, the constitution of vermont decided to end slavery in 1777. In 1793, cotton became popular in the South. Due to increased demand for cotton, the farmer needed cheap labor to work on their farm, and they found cheap labor in slavery. The South had brought back slavery, and they increased to four million in 1860. One of the famous slaves was Frederick Douglass who claimed his freedom by escaping to New York in 1838. He published his autobiography in 1845, called Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, which talked about his childhood and his life as a slave. Douglass also talked about how slaves pushed the North and the South to war with each other in the 1850s because of the disagreement of ending slavery. After the civil war ended, the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery in the United States in 1865.

When Nat Turner returned to town to receiving his punishment, we can see racism in this scene. In the modern The Birth of a Nation, Turner was a monster who threatened the comfort of white people. After the army defeated Turner and his people. The scene focused on the torture of the African American. Turner was the only person who could escape from the army. While Turner was hiding from the army, white people hung and burned the African American for revenge; however, some of them was part of the rebellion, and some of them was not. More than a hundred people were hanged in this scene. The look in their eyes when they were facing death showed that they had guts. It showed that they did not regret to fight for their freedom even if it meaned they would die. On the other hand, the African Americans that were not part of the rebellion was afraid of dying. Turner couldn’t watch his people being torture anymore, so he returned to the town. White people were still angry about what Turner did to them. They attacked Turner right away when they saw him walking into the town. It showed how much hatred they had for Turner. The army brought Turner to the execution place right away. Many people came to watch Turner receive his punishment. Many people clapped their hands and yell at Turner, except the African American who sadly watched Turner die. The film showed white people satisfied with Turner’s death. White people were afraid of Turner’s rebellion because Turner tried to change the role of African Americans in 1831. From Cohen’s perspective, Turner was breaking a rule of the “order of things”, which was African Americans had to remain a slave to white people. To white people, Turner was a monster who resist the law of slavery in the United States.

Cohen state that, “the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threaten to smash distinctions” (70–71). Turner is very dangerous to white people because he started a rebellion against white people. From the audience’s viewpoint, Turner is a hero who willing to free his people from being a slave to white people. Also, the audience thinks white people are the monster because they treated African American so poorly and torturing them. In the book, Unflattening by Nick Sousanis, he explains Unflattening as looking at one thing from many perspectives. In white people’s viewpoint, they might not think of African Americans as part of the United State. Some white people might still think of African Americans as people who rebel and cause the civil war. On the other hand, African American only want their freedom in America. The only ways to fight is to protested, but even the protesting will lead to war with other. If they tries to understand and adjust their opinions to each other, they will find true peace.

The history of African American continued to 1955. Rosa Parks was a secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1955. At the same time, Rosa Parks was known for the bus boycott. When Parks sat in the white section and refused to give up her seat to a white person, she was arrested after the bus driver called the police. After this incident, many African American supported her decision. The African American rebelled for Parks by not riding city buses for more than 300 days. There are many significant civil right movement after Parks’ boycott. Parks’ incident inspired people to stand up for themselves.

These two events happened at the different time, and are led by a different person. Turner‘s rebellion was a rebellion that scares and upset a lot of white people. Parks’ rebellion was one of the events of a civil right movement that led to African American one step toward equality in the United States. Parks’ rebellion might not be as big as Turner’s rebellion, but it showed that they have the same goal. They fought for equality in order to have a normal life in the United States. During these two events, it was really hard to get freedom from Americans. Because white people still were racist at the time, they did not think of African American as human beings. African Americans needed to be free from racism, so they fought in order to make white people accept them.

The Birth of a Nation, slaves were an African American. In that case, many people are curious if slavery still existing in American. If they still exist, and why don’t we know. Slavery is still existing in America, and it is worse than before. This types of slavery come in form of human trafficking. Human trafficking is sex slavery. Many girls and women are forced to sell sex for money. Sex is one thing that some people need, according to CNN, “ Sex trafficking occurs when a young woman is forced into prostitution at a truck stop; when a sexual predator lures a teen on the internet; when a family member makes a child sell sex for cash”(Hawley). People can easily access the internet, so someone uses the internet to find sex online. Also, sometimes family force child to sell sex in order to make money for the family. There are more than a million people trapped for commercial sex. Also, there are more than thousand of calls reported for trafficking. Hawley concludes that human trafficking is insulting human and laws. The government will do their best to protect women in order to stop this problem.

The Birth of a Nation is a movie that reveals the fears of American culture in the 2000s. Turner is described as a monster even though he is a good person to his people; it similar to the same way Parks was being viewed after her bus boycott. One of many significant points in the film is fear of war. In the movie, the monster is fighting for his people’s freedom. At this time, there was a protest against racism in America such as Black Lives Matter, police shooting African American, etc. The Birth of a Nation is representing what is happening in America in the 2000s. Cohen argues that monster are often exaggerations of social differences that are deemed unacceptable in a given culture. Racism is when people do not respect the difference between races, cultures, religion, etc. Even though everybody is classified as human, people set a social standard based on races, religions, cultures, sexual. The reason for racism is that people do not accepted each other because of the differences in race, politic, sexual, cultural, and economic views, etc. Because they have different beliefs from each other, and they strongly believe that their belief is right. If they try to understand other people perspective and adjust them together; they will achieve something greater.