Racist Movies

Margaret Thatcher's daughter Carol has found herself in the headlines for saying that a black tennis player looked like a 'golliwog'. Lots of white middle class commentators think this isn't an offensive term, so that's alright then. Some would argue that it represents an unreconstructed view rather than an outright racist one, which is probably true, although I'm not sure this is much of a defence. But should we outlaw this type of language?

Someone asked me during one discussion about the controversy whether I thought older films that have what we would now see as unacceptable portrayals of black and ethnic minorities should be banned. The answer is, on balance, no. But this is not to say I don't find this aspect of those films problematic. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) is the obvious example and there is a fascinating forum discussion involving the likes of Kent Jones and Jonathan Rosenbaum which you can see here.

But this is a fairly extreme case. Somehow worse is the more insiduous racism of the black 'mammys' who appeared in the likes of Gone With The Wind (1939) or Belle Starr (1941). Or the 'Uncle Tom' types with their rolling eyes and 'Yassah, masser' way of speaking. One of the most disturbing films of this type is Santa Fe Trail (1940) which tells the story of West Point officers who track down the abolitionist John Brown just before the Civil War. Errol Flynn plays the protagonist Jeb Stuart who more or less puts the case for why slavery should be kept in certain circumstances - a viewpoint seen as a positive! This couldn't be done now and that's probably no bad thing.

Of course, the extreme cases sometimes make for the most fascinating watching. There's a part of me that would love to see the infamous Jud Süss (1940). You can see extracts in museums in Germany or clips on Youtube (which bizarrely have Hungarian subtitles since the film apparently isn't banned there as it is in other parts of Europe). It's a notorious piece of Nazi progaganda set in the eighteenth century in which a wealthy Jew craftily gains influence, rapes a young woman and tortures her fiance before he is brought to justice. Showings of the film reportedly inspired anti-semitic violence. The subject matter is clearly repellent, but as with The Birth of a Nation and The Triumph of the Will (1935) the fascination is definitely there.