/tmp/zhwzx.jpg The Great Epic – Hidden History of Hollywood

“Only the colored people themselves can determine their political, social and economic future.”

William Monroe Trotter

Prof. EA Kiss

This course surveys a hidden canon of African American film while also uncovers the roots of representational injustice in Hollywood and the secret, but cardinal role Woodrow Wilson played in the production and distribution of Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” that led to the rebirth of the KKK. Wilson’s policy of segregation was adapted by Hollywood as a self-censoring industry regulation of representation. Black people could only appear on screen as subservient and marginal characters, never as equals, partners or leaders. This industry code, Wilson’s legacy, has become second nature to Hollywood.

12/06

The Great Epic

Mudbound

Dee Rees

(2017)

Daughters of the Dust

Julie Dash

1991

The Birth of a Nation

D. W. Griffith

(1915)

Orson Welles’s Radio Broadcast on Isaac Woodard

1946