On March 3, 1915 the D.W. Griffith film The Birth of a Nation premiered in New York City. It was three hours long, a silent movie about the Civil War and Reconstruction, and many critics thought then and many still do that the film itself was a masterpiece of cinematic art.
However, the film is also racist and glorifies the Ku Klux Klan while portraying black people as foolish at best, violent and sexually predatory at worst. The movie’s heroes are Klansmen who rescue the innocent young Lillian Gish, daughter of the Confederacy, from the evil black men, played by white actors in black-face make-up, who intend to despoil her.
Film critic Roger Ebert: “Certainly The Birth of a Nation (1915) presents a challenge for modern audiences. Unaccustomed to silent films and uninterested in film history, they find it quaint and not to their taste. Those evolved enough to understand what they are looking at find the early and wartime scenes brilliant, but cringe during the postwar and Reconstruction scenes, which are racist in the ham-handed way of an old minstrel show or a vile comic pamphlet.”
I find it difficult, if not impossible, to separate a work of art from its message. If a piece of music or a painting or a film or a book, says something that is evil or depraved, then it may well be worth viewing or reading in order to understand how some people think—if the person consuming the art is able to remain untainted and unswayed by the message. However, a work of art cannot be truly “good” if its intent is evil, no matter how technically adept and talented the artist.
What is your opinion about “good” art with an evil intent or message?
I’m not sure I want to address the greater issue of what is “good” art. But I did see Birth of a Nation and was fascinated by both the film-making and the perspective presented. I agree it’s very racist, but it does portray how the people of the Confederacy FELT (right or wrong) during Reconstruction – that is, without rights and vulnerable. I think that knowledge of the history of prejudice of any kind & how it developed can often help prevent it in the present.
Psychological studies have shown that the messages of artists, particularly film and music artists, make their way into the audience’s minds, whether the audience agrees with them or not.