Clothes In The Film The Birth Of A Nation

In today’s society clothes mean everything to people. Clothes represent a class system not only in today’s society and even back in the segregated times. If you are wearing a gucci purse and you are standing next to a lady with either a no name brand purse or a lesser name brand purse people are going to automatically think you are in a higher class system than the other lady wearing a no name brand purse. That is how it was in segregated times, the whites would have the best high end clothing and would be dressed properly for whatever occasion there was, while blacks did not have that type of luxury also whites portrayed blacks as wearing rags in pictures and movies, this said a lot about the blacks such as they could not afford nice things,

The Birth Of A Nation was a silent film created in 1915 by D.W. Griffith. His purpose was to portray blacks as lazy, drunken, savage beasts, and even murderers. Also that reconstruction, and giving blacks freedom was a terrible idea. The film showed blacks such as Gus who was a black man showed to be terrorizing Elsie Stoneman a white women who eventually plunges to her death because of the “terror” she had because Gus was apparently trying to rape her. In the film Gus and other black people were wearing torn clothing with holes in their shoes and socks. In the film it seems as though unless you are a house worker, you are terribly dressed if you are black. In the film you see Silas Lynch the white man who went and found Gus after he made Elsie kill herself, he is well dressed and he beats up like four or five black people before being shot in the back showing cowardness on the blacks part. But even Silas is dressed nicely while Gus and the other blacks are dressed very

It was a big deal because that showed blacks that what was being shown in films, and in pictures were not true. These two famous black men carried themselves with dignity and a high sense of respect and honor and it empowered other blacks showing them that they can dress just as nicely as the whites. This showed whites that the blacks were serious about what they wanted, because the way you dress in a particular moment says a lot to people. Like you would not go into a job interview wearing sweats and expect to get the job, also this is the reason I love to dress up for basketball games because it shows that this is business to me and not just a game. That is why whenever you saw Martin Luther King, or any other black man during a speech they are dressed up because it shows that you are taking whatever you are presenting is to be taken seriously whereas if you are wearing some ripped shorts and some flip flops you probably would not be taken