No Lynching is Good

    

Week 7

Michele Faith Wallace’s article, “The Good Lynching and ‘The Birth of a Nation’: Disourses and Aesthetics of Jim Crow” examines the ways in which both of these films (“The Birth of a Nation” (1915) and “The Good Earth” (1937)) reinforce and perpetuate the racial hierarchies of the Jim Crow era. Wallace compares and discusses these films side by side, arguing that both of the films have visual and conceptual elements of showcasing white supremacy and violent oppression of people of color. Specifically “The Birth of a Nation” uses extremely racist caricatures of Black people, depicting them with little moral compass, lazy, violent, and sexually aggressive. “The Good Earth” presents a romanticized view of Chinese peasants that emphasizes and reinforces the stereotypes of Orientalism and exoticism. Wallace argues that these films defend the idea of a “white savior” or what she describes as the concept of “good lynching” which involves a white mob taking what they think is “justice” into their own hands. In both movies people of color are punished for being a threat to social order, or those in power. The biggest example of this in “The Birth of a Nation” is when the KKK tracks down and kills a black man for his attempted rape of the ‘perfect victim’; a young white lady, while in “The Good Earth” a group of Chinese peasants violently attack a wealthy landlord who they see as cruel and exploitative. Although these films approach the concept of “good lynching” in different ways, the messaging is clear. The influence of these films speaks to the intensely and widely accepted racism of that time, and by examining those works Wallace creates a discussion of exactly how racially charged and violent this messaging is. These stories perpetuate harmful stereotypes and behvaiors that are not only a reflection of society at the time but also normalizes these ideas and actions in popular culture.