Francisco (1927) Depict Minority Groups in A Crudely Racist Manner in

LHIS 223-013: America in the Silent Film Age
Third Writing Assignment

Instructions: Write a 3-5 page paper (double-spaced) in response to
one of the questions given below. When you discuss the films in your
paper, do not be too general: give specific examples of characters and
scenes and plot points. If your memory is hazy and you feel that you
need to see the film again, you can watch any of the movies from this
course at the library. They are all on reserve at the media center. You
should look at the course readings (on the ol.berklee site) that are
mentioned in the question, and you may want to quote or refer to
these sources in your paper. When citing information or quotations
from the sources, you do not need to give a full citation; just write the
authors last name and the page number and put it in a footnote1 or in
brackets at the end of the sentence. [Smith, p. 29]
If you are having a hard time remembering the names of characters,
specific plot points, or the name of the director or screenwriter, I
suggest that you consult the internet. All of the films that we are
watching in this course are well known, and you can find detailed
wikipedia articles for most of them. You do not need to give a citation
for general information about the film taken from the internet (names
of characters, for example), but if you include a detail about the movie
taken from the internet or a book that is not something we have talked
about in class, you need to include a citation.
A hard copy of your paper is due in class on Wednesday, Apr. 29.
Paper Topic #1: Both The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Old San
Francisco (1927) depict minority groups in a crudely racist manner; in
the case of the first movie, it is African Americans who are stereotyped,
in the second case it is Asian Americans. Compare and contrast the
ways in which these two films portray racial minorities. What are the
defining features of the African American characters in The Birth of a
Nation? How do black people behave in that movie? Are they depicted
as dangerous? What is their relationship to the white characters? Does
the movie suggest what their proper role in society should be? Are the
Chinese characters in Old San Francisco depicted in a similar manner?
Do they too represent a threat to white civilization? Are there any
differences in the way the two racial minorities are portrayed in these
films? Is one of the minority groups depicted less harshly than the
1
Smith, p. 29.
other, or is the racism more or less identical in each case? Do you think
these two films reveal anything about the fears and preoccupations of
ordinary (white) Americans in the early twentieth century, or do they
merely tell us what Hollywood thought people might find entertaining?
(To answer this last question, you might want to look at the documents
on the course site by Ida Wells and Senator Tillman for Jan. 28; and at
all of the documents for Apr. 8.)
Paper Topic #2: The 1920s witnessed rapid social change, and
nothing attracted more attention at the time than the appearance of a
new sort of woman: the flapper. With their bobbed hair, short skirts,
and liberated manner, these young women were very different from
the saintly housewives and devoted mothers of the previous Victorian
Era. The movie Our Dancing Daughters (1928) features a number of
female characters who might be described as flappers. Look at the
articles by Bruce Bliven (Flapper Jane), Mary Garden, and Margaret
Sanger on the course site for Apr. 1. From different perspectives, each
of these writers is trying to describe a new sort of modern womana
woman whose appearance and attitudes, and even views on sex and
marriage, has changed. Do you the young women in Our Dancing
Daughters reflect the sorts of social and cultural changes that the
authors of these articles are discussing? How do these young women
differ from the heroines that we have seen in films such as The Sheik
(Lady Diana), Tolable David (Esther), The Birth of a Nation (Elsie
Stoneman, the two Cameron daughters), or the comedies of Lloyd,
Chaplin, and Keaton? (You dont have to talk about all of these films;
you can pick and choose.) Do the female characters in Our Dancing
Daughters serve a different plot function than the women in those
earlier movies? Are they more active? Do they relate to men
differently? Do they have a different code of morals? Does the movie
approve of the flapper lifestyle? When all is said and done, does the
central character in the film (Diana) still have something in common
with those earlier movie heroines?

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LHIS 223-013: America in the Silent Film Age

Third Writing Assignment

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