On the 100th Anniversary of "Birth of a Nation:" Liberation Rape
02/26/2015
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From my new column in Taki’s Magazine:
Liberation Rape
On March 3, 1915, director D.W. Griffith released The Birth of a Nation, an unprecedented epic about the Civil War and Reconstructionshutterstock_94265743[1] that commemorated the 50th anniversary of Appomattox and the assassination of Griffith’s hero, Abraham Lincoln. …
A little-noticed aspect of media power is the ability to decide what constitutes an anniversary and what doesn’t. Thus, the 100th birthday of Birth of a Nation went unmentioned at Sunday’s Academy Awards, despite the movie’s seemingly timely concern with the rape crisis of the late 1860s.
People have a difficult time avoiding either underreaction or overreaction to the threat of rape. It’s enormously shameful not to protect your womenfolk from rape, so dereliction of duty tends to incite fantasy and rage.
Read the whole thing there.

 

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