Race, Social Responsibility, and D.W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms"

This week my colleague Kris (aka WonderYak) and I are talking about D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1918) and its interesting and, possibly, progressive portrayal of race.




R: I wasn't really sure what to expect before I sat down to watch this movie. Birth of a Nation is so racist in its portrayal of "savage" African-Americans that prowled the South after the Civil War looking for young white women to corrupt. It really bugs me. However, in Broken Blossoms, I thought that D.W. Griffith's portrayal of Chinese immigrants was much more sympathetic. Still problematic, but nothing like Birth...

K: I completely agree! In fact, so did many of my students -- almost all who wrote about Broken Blossoms (their other choice was Chaplin's Gold Rush) commented on how it felt like Griffith's penance for Birth... The fact that the villain is a white male, and that almost all white people are portrayed as conniving or cruel or boorish, nearly makes up for the stereotypes that Richard Barthelmess perpetrates as the "Yellow-Faced" Cheng Huan (overly squinted eyes, hunched back, shuffled walk, etc.).

Even Huan's one vice, opium addiction, is portrayed not as something of his own fault, but something forced upon him by Western civilization.

Then there's the fact that the entire narrative is designed to lampoon Western values in general -- "The Orient" is an entirely peaceful, beautiful place in Griffith's recreation; the West is vile and dank. The "chink" comes to spread peace, but even in his earliest attempts (with the "Jackies" at port) he is trampled, both literally and figuratively.

Is Griffith himself trying to claim that he is merely a product of his own broken society?

R: That is an interesting point. D.W. Griffith is from the South and had relatives that fought for the South in the Civil War. Does this excuse his stereotyping of newly-freed African-Americans in Birth... then? And do you think that he could have made a Broken Blossoms-esc film with the same amount of cultural empathy based around the story of an African immigrant?

K: This is all speculative, of course, but I feel Griffith could have made any film he wanted, really. His cinematic creativity was only bound by the narratives he chose to film.

We discussed the idea of "excusing" artists in class. The two main questions I posed were, "can one separate an artist from his or her work?" and "does a filmmaker have a responsibility to be socially conscientious?"

I'd personally say "yes" to the former and "no" to the latter. While I deplore the racism that Griffith perpetrated in his work, I can safely say that I admire his skill and respect his additions to cinematic language. I'd also come to his general defense and say that he had a right to express whatever views he wanted. I think I mentioned this to you, but I am thankful that, for instance, The Westboro Baptist Church exists. What they say makes me want to vomit; but if they weren't allowed to say it, how long would it be before I weren't allowed to say what I felt?

"Does a filmmaker have a responsibility to be socially conscientious?"

A discussion cropped up today w/r/t Buster Keaton's The General. One student was terribly offended by the fact that Keaton used the Civil War as a backdrop for what is essentially a slapstick comedy. "Why," he argued, "use such a terrible event in our history as a playground for antics?" I rebutted that it is because of the shared history, the almost culturally universal understanding of events like War, that they are ripe fodder for art: there is no need for a backstory. It's just there. And then, with Comedy, you get the wonderful underline of tragedy. As love stories are best told against the specter of death, great Comedy is best told in the shallow waters of tragedy.

The same goes for Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds -- yes, he makes light of WWII, but it's only because he used WWII that the film functions. Or Benigni's Life is Beautiful, another film that came up today, with equally contentious debate.

Did Keaton or Tarantino or Benigni act irresponsibly?

Filmmakers, and artists in general, only have a few responsibilities (if one can call them that): to entertain (in the classical, escapist definition of the word); to push boundaries; and/or to inform.

And by push boundaries, I don't mean be purposefully offensive...I just mean try to create something new (or, more specifically, tell us something in a new way). Make it funnier, or more exciting, or sexier, or more scintillating, or more pornographic, or more violent, or emotional, or beautiful, etc., than the last work.

And by entertain, I really just mean create a world the audience can escape to. It might be terribly unpleasant (ala Mysterious Skin) or wondrous (ala Avatar), as long as it's compelling.

So, long midnight ramble made short, Griffith does all of those three things with Birth... therefore, can he really be blamed for the work he created? Does he need to be excused?

And he also did those three things in Broken Blossoms, but with the added bonus of being significantly less offensive (though not entirely).

R: I agree and disagree. I don't believe that artists should censor themselves, but I do believe that they should be conscious of the art that they produce and its impact on society. For instance, if we take Birth of Nation, D.W. Griffith may have just wanted to show a sympathetic portrayal of what happened in the South after the Civil War because he had family that lived through that time and it was, by all accounts, a very difficult period in American history. However, his valorous portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan at that point in history inspired the actual Klan in the 1910s to use the film as a recruitment tool. They used the film to sway new members up until the 1990s by some accounts. His intentions for Birth... may have been very different from the impact that it had on the public, but its impact was widespread and devastating to African-Americans in this country. The film inspired people to commit heinous hate crimes in the name of racial purity.

The other thing that we do in Cultural Studies is look for systematic representations. It is interesting that your student brought up how the backdrop of The General is the South during the Civil War. While there were two sides fighting during the actual war we don't have a lot of filmic representations of the North, but we have a fair amount of the South, epic films at that: Cold Mountain, Gone With the Wind, Raintree County, etc. In fact, going from memory I couldn't think of any film that was from the perspective of the North, but then was reminded that Glory was about the first African-American unit in combat. So if we think about how much we want to empathize with the South in film there is something there that says a lot about our culture and what we value. If you compare this to films about World War II you do not have empathetic portrayals of the Nazi's, unless, like in Valkyre, they are trying to kill Hitler.

On the other hand, if we look at Broken Blossoms and its portrayal of a completely high "Yellow Man", it is harder for me to think of other celluloid characters that are Chinese drug addicts. Now if he magically knew some sort of martial arts then he might fit into a cliched representation that is actively working to warp the popular consciousness of the film-going public. Singularly, "bad" representations of people are not harmful. It is when they are systematic that you have this cultural absorption of grains of "truth" from their repetition. And this isn't on a conscious level. I could go on and on about this, but if interested readers might want to check out my posts on "The Cinematic Other: Dominatrix" and "'Avatar' and How White Men Are the Best at Everything".

The one thing that is systematic about his character is that he is actually a white actor in "Yellowface". This is systematic: Katherine Hepburn did it in Dragon Seed (1944) and Mickey Rooney did it (horribly) in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) amongst others. This also fits into the idea that White Men (and women) Are the Best at Everything, even playing cultural minorities. There is a really great article about this on Racebending.com.

Since there is no way we could ever wrap up this conversation I figured that we might put on our teacher hats and maybe list what questions we would pose to students regarding Broken Blossoms, race, and the social responsibility of artists/filmmakers:
• Do filmmakers/artists have a responsibility to make socially conscious work?
• Can you separate the intent of a film/filmmaker versus the impact of that film on society?
• Can you separate an artist's personal ideology/life from his or her work? (Think Roman Polanski.)
• Is it ever appropriate to use Yellowface/Blackface in a film?
* Is there a "caste" system in film? Meaning do darker colored minorities get treated worse than their lighter-skinned peers?

Other Resources:
• Slaying the Dragon. Dir: Deborah Gee. 1988.
• "Yellowface: A Story in Pictures" from Racebending.com

Things I Love: "Female Agents"

I love Les Femmes de L'Ombre (Female Agents). I saw it at the Seattle International Film Festival several years ago and cried my way through the opening sequence; war films tend to get the better of me as I think about the real life death and destruction that they are based upon. However, this particular sequence made me tear up for completely different reasons - it was a series of still images from World War II showing women in uniform serving their countries. Yep, I cry when I see images of women in power. It is so unusual on celluloid that it brings out a lot of emotion in me. Strange, I know. But we all have the things that make us descend into waterworks without control.

In Female Agents Sophie Marceau plays Louise Defontaines. The character of Louise is based on the real life of Lisé Marie Jeanette de Baissac Villaneur, a French female agent in the French resistance during World War II. While the screenplay has been sauced up for dramatic effect, Lisé had a dramatic effect on the success of the resistance and Allies before the D-Day invasion. In the film she is the reason for Allied success at Normandy beach as she races with other female spies to keep information about the D-Day invasion a secret from the Germans. In the film she and her crew get to shoot machine guns (cool), blow up buildings (cooler), work in a team of women without getting catty (seriously, it is possible), and generally make the German commander on their tail miserable. At the same time, the women show compassion for one another and fear in the face of danger ultimately making the film a fabulous mix of action and true emotion. The film also stars Julie Depardieu, the daughter of Gérard Depardieu, so it passes the requirement that all French films are held to - that they contain at least one Depardieu.

Now, unlike Avatar, where women ultimately bow to the power that the white male main character has over them, the women in Female Agents do no such thing. When things get rough they band together. When things get even rougher they think of a new plan. There are men in the story, including Louise's brother Claude, but the women and men stand on equal ground and, ultimately, it is up to the women and just the women to save the day.

While I worry that even with my vagueness has given too many spoilers away, I know that not many of you in the U.S. will ever even see this movie. I am not trying to say there is some sort of conspiracy, but there is - Female Agents is only available on PAL (European format) DVDs. However, those of you with the ability to play PAL in the Seattle area (aka you have a computer with a DVD-ROM) can pick it up at Scarecrow video and watch it in all its glory. Its unavailability everywhere else does make me wonder why? why?! WHY! Why is it not available in the U.S.? Do distributors think we do not want war films based on real life events and people? There are so many of those - Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Band of Brothers, The Great Escape, Pearl Harbor, The English Patient, Patton, etc. etc. Do distributors think that we do not want films that re-invision World War II? Can't be that - the masses turned out for Inglorious Basterds this past summer. Hey, but I see a trend in these films! They are all about men and their forays into the field during war. The women, at best, get to be strangled by psychopathic German officers who are based on real people, but most of the time they are just nurses. While nurses do play a vital part in wartime situations isn't it about time that we show images of women in combat gettin' it done. And not like Courage Under Fire where Meg Ryan fights and, just like so many films with women with any sort of agency in them, dies. I mean really gettin' it done. Like being in the mix and living to tell the tale, exerting their full emotional and physical power, and doin' it like we know we can. Seriously. Someone make this film.

"Avatar" and How White Men Are the Best at Everything

Re: Some See Racist Theme in 'Avatar' - Movies.msn.com

The director of Avatar, James Cameron, has made a living out of making films with paper-thin narratives, cliched characters, but with lots of pretty things to look at. Avatar is no different. I must admit that I enjoyed the thrill-ride while I was on it, but looking back on the film now just makes me ever so sad.

The story goes that the Na'vi, the indigenous population (read: Native Americans) in the way of the progress of a greedy corporation (read: white Europeans), live on a remote world called Pandora (read: pre-colonial America). To try and convince them that they should move so that we can take over their land and cultivate the precious metal that lies beneath their sacred tree-home, we send Avatar Na'vi to integrate with the locals. The "dreamwalkers," as the Na'vi call them, are humans who, through the power of technology, can put themselves into the bodies of laboratory-grown half-Na'vi half-human beings. And thus, the futuristic reenactment of Manifest Destiny begins. However, this time the Avatars side with the Na'vi as the greedy corporation tries to plow down their sacred tree in order to mine the precious metal below and win in the face of interstellar corporate greed.

Now, there have been a lot of comments about how Sully, the protagonist/dreamwalker/Avatar, is highly reminiscent of the character that Tom Cruise played in The Last Samurai and Kevin Costner played in Dances with Wolves. Sully is, in effect, the white man who abandons "his" people to become the best damn minority ever. This is, because, white men are the best at everything. He gets to ride the toughest beast in the sky, he gets the village "prize" in the form of the highest ranking spiritual lady in waiting, and he hatches the plan that defeats the evil corporation that is trying to destroy Pandora's beauty. He proves that white men are really awesome at everything; including being an alien racial minority.

Truth be told, this plot device is not really new, but neither is the one that really bothered me about the film. Admittedly, being female I tend to judge films on the basis of what they let or don't let the women in the film do. The human women in the film, played by Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Rodruigez, represent two generations of actresses that have been allowed to kick butt and take names on celluloid. Sigourney Weaver totally blew them away in the Alien series (even with James Cameron at the helm!) and Michelle Rodruigez's break-through performance was in a film aptly titled Girlfight.

Spoiler alert in the paragraphs ahead. You may want to stop here if you have not seen and wish to view Avatar.

Michelle Rodruigez, once again, plays the hot-tempered Latina who is a military pilot with a soft spot for the blue Na'vi. Sigourney is relegated to the head maternal scientist role. She really wants to be a Na'vi and enjoys her forays into their world in her Avatar body. This bit of typecasting is not what bothers me (older woman as mother, Latina as "spicy"). It is the fact that for all their agency in the film that they are eventually killed off. Frequently, maybe more so than the white men as the best damn racial minority trope, female characters that embody some sort of power physically or mentally, are killed off because they are threatening to typical notions of white, male patriarchy.

Meeting their untimely doom, does not generally affect male characters who challenge authority in film. Avatar proves no different. Norm (Joel Moore), the other lovable scientist/Avatar survives the battle at the end. Not even the baddie head of corporate (Giovanni Ribisi) croaks. Nope. Once the human ladies decide to fight and challenge authority it is curtains for them and their sense of empowerment.

The only other main female character is also the only one who survives the climactic battle: the Na'vi princess, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). And this is because Neytiri conforms to stereotypical notions of femininity. For instance, although she is a Na'vi warrior/spiritual leader, she bows down to the power and influence of the white male outsider, Sully. She is, in effect, tamed by him when she chooses him as her partner and, in a really strange scene, copulates with him in the glowing woods. She literally defends him and his authority during the climactic battle and delivers him to the glowing tree at the end so he can be permanently fused with his Na'vi body and take his place as chief of the tribe. She exhibits a lot of physical, mental, and spiritual authority, but once she meets Sully it is all in service of him and his mission. Lame.

Undoubtedly, Avatar broke new ground technologically with its combination of human actors and computer generated effects. However, I wish that more time had been taken to think about how the story perpetuates very old notions of gender and race that are deeply troubling to those of us who do not identify with the white, male majority. I want to see a movie where women get to kick butt (mentally or physically), take names, don't lament over their relationships with men and survive to tell their tale.

To see Sigourney Weaver talk about her character in Avatar click here.
To see Zoe Saldana talk about her character in Avatar click here.