Talk:The Birth of a Nation/Archive 5

The category "" was removed for not being relevant, although the film seems pretty clearly relevant to far-right politics in the United States. It was controversial when it came out because of its racism and it helped revive the KKK (a far-right organization both then and now). It is also still relevant to far-right politics. Unless the category is redundant, not sure why it should be removed. Wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:00, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Missing sections tag
The lead paragraphs states "The film's release has also been acknowledged as an inspiration for the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan only months later." There is little to no information in the article to substantiate this claim. But, there is content on Ku Klux Klan stating the film led to a revival of the clan.

The second missing information is the film innovations that are attributed to this film. There is no section treating this topic. According to Dirks, Tim, The Birth of a Nation, filmsite.org, a list of 22 unique innovations are attributed to this film. Mitchumch (talk) 13:23, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in The Birth of a Nation
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of The Birth of a Nation's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Cook1968": From Thomas Dixon Jr.:  From Lost Cause of the Confederacy:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 19:10, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I removed this from the "Change of title" section
" to reflect Dixon's belief, taken from his professor, the historian Woodrow Wilson, that the United States emerged from the American Civil War and Reconstruction as a newly-unified nation. " because I have found no reference to Wilson being Dixon's "professor" (they were students together) nor could I find any mention of the name change in the reference given. Carptrash (talk) 15:09, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, that was my mistake. Wilson was not his professor. deisenbe (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Budget for Birth of a Nation
If someone can find out if the budget listed in the main article (>100,000) is in 1915 dollars or 2019 dollars would be appreciated and that detail should be added in the main article. Danke! CharlesM2000 (talk) 05:14, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's in 1915 dollars and it is already included in the main article: "Griffith's budget started at US$40,000[30] (equivalent to $990,000 in 2018) but rose to over $100,000[3] (equivalent to $2,480,000 in 2018)". Betty Logan (talk) 07:20, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Effect on Red Summer
This movie came out just 4 years before the mob violence of 1919's Red Summer. It seems pretty obvious that The Birth of a Nation stirred up anti-black sentiment and contributed to that violence. Can anyone tie this in? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.11.25.233 (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Academic assessment?
Under Current Reception: Academic assessment, I was expecting an academic assessment of the film. The first paragraph seems ok - one academic and his assessments of the influence of the film as published on a single page in a book. (The 2nd half of the 4th paragraph is also taken from the same source, which seems fitting in this section.) The Ebert quote doesn't even relate to this film, only the films DWG made after. The rest of the section appears to be editors' comparisons of the film to history, not (an) academic assessment(s) of the film. If these comparisons were made in academic sources or by established historians, they should say so in the text. That's what this section should be for - what the academics have to say. I don't know what to do about it. The historical comparisons need to be in the article, but they should be merged into the previous section, Historical portrayal. I know precious little about Reconstruction, and I just saw this film today for the first time, so I don't think it would be a good idea for me to try to fix it. I want to learn about it. I realize this can't be an easy article to work on, so big thanks to anyone who can fix it up and help me learn the history and context of this bizarrely great and horrific part of American film history. Dcs002 (talk) 10:46, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Recent edits by Deisenbe
recently made this edit. This edit has been partly reversed by and myself. There are three problems here which I will outline below:


 * 1) Firstly, I don't find adding the location of the screening in the White House to be particularly useful or helpful. The film's claim to fame is as the first film to be shown at the White House. The actual location within the White House is secondary information and is not "lead worthy" IMO. Also, the way the sentence is structured could be misread that it was the first film screened in the East Room. If other editors feel differently then I am happy to concede this point providing the ambiguity can be be removed.
 * 2) The second problem is a mis-characterisation of the HistoryNet source. Deisenbe replaced "The film has been condemned for its racist depiction of black Americans" with "His assassination made possible the horrors of the Reconstruction period, in which Blacks held political offices. This racist view has been denounced." What the source actually states is this: "The film has been praised for its technical virtuosity and damned for its demeaning and racist depiction of black Americans." Clearly the original summary transcribes what the sources says more accurately. Diesenbe's re-write smacks as WP:EDITORIALIZING to me. The sentence taken on its own terms is perfectly reasonable but it needs to be supported by appropriate sourcing. The existing source does not do this.
 * 3) The final problem is describing the KKK as a "heroic force" in Wikipedia's voice. I support NicholasO's edit to explicitly qualify this as the film's depiction, otherwise it could be misread that Wikipedia is endorsing the film's depiction.

I hope these issues will be resolved cordially on the talk page. Betty Logan (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for explaining this so carefully, deisenbe (talk) 12:57, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * The reason "inside" needs to be included is because the film wasn't the first film screened 'at' the White House. A year before Cabria was screened outside the White House. And if we include non-fiction films, Teddy Roosevelt screened nature films in 1908, years before Cabria or the Birth of a Nation. https://moviessilently.com/2015/09/07/silent-movie-myth-the-birth-of-a-nation-was-the-first-feature-and-the-first-film-shown-at-the-white-house/ 199.168.200.2 (talk) 21:59, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Nobody was disputing whether "inside" should be included. Betty Logan (talk) 22:23, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Edits to the lead by Kanefo
has repeatedly added substantial content about the KKK to the lead of the article. The purpose of the lead is to provide a concise overview of the article's content and summarise the film's notability. While the The Birth of a Nation did bolster KKK recruitment, that is only a small part of the film's notability. The film's place in history owes more to how it shaped the film industry, and that should be the primary focus of the lead. The content that has been added is overly detailed and disproportionate. Moreover, as MOS:LEAD points out, the lead should not contain material that is not already included in the main body of the article because it is supposed to be a summary. I note Kanefo is a newly registered editor, but if this disruption continues then we will have to consider some kind of sanction. Betty Logan (talk) 21:09, 21 April 2022 (UTC)