The Birth of a Nation Themes
Race
A movie that's responsible for the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan is racist? What a shocker. The Birth of a Nation is rooted in one belief: white people inherently deserve power over Black people—th...
Warfare
Putting aside the rampant racism and historical revisionism (what a one-two punch), The Birth of a Nation is primarily concerned with the subject of war. It's not a big fan. In its depiction of the...
Power
The Birth of a Nation has a complicated relationship with power. On one hand, it claims to be anti-authoritarian, criticizing the North for exploiting its power over the South. On the other, it hyp...
Visions of the South
To D.W. Griffith, the South was the greatest place on Earth before the Civil War. It was like Disney World and Universal Studios combined. After the war, however, everything changes. The old aristo...
Family
Phew—finally a theme in The Birth of a Nation that doesn't involve blatant oppression or historical revisionism. It feels good, we have to say. There are two families at the center of this filmâ€...