Author: alexisfehring

• Discourse communities I belong to:
• dsw associate
• student at UC
• member at yoga studio

Getting into school/student provides me with a degree and long term job

associate at dsw gives me money and job

studio member joins me with like minded individuals and doing a common exercise liked among all

• writing produced:
• associate- we follow the Source/ corporate rules, produces sales
• student- follow textbooks, produces literate, professional, scholarly work
• member of studio- follow instructor, produces energy and exercise

all of these discourse communities have changed the way I see the world and how I act in different circumstances. I speak and write higher and better of myself now that I have been in these discourse communities.

• ideology:
• a lot of times we reject the ideology at DSW, what corporate thinks our conversion, sales, and online sales goals should be while also tasking on the floor, customer servicing and having a speedy checkout time. However, we have to accept it and sometimes even further embrace it when an incentive is provided.
• embraces and accepts ideology in yoga studio, i choose to be there and can even change the “document” or style of instructor/ class by providing my opinion on what we’re going to work on at the beginning of class
• accepts and moves on with the ideology of UC student, we don’t like some things but its all part of getting a degree and in some ways think, sooo many people go through this same degree/ school as a student that what makes my opinion different on how important advising appointments are and when we get to schedule

sorry for the late upload…

In this time, law and science were very false, or very different from what we know today. Scientists, writers and film creators believed African Americans were inferior, diseased in some cases and a false evolution of the race. Now we know that it is just a gene pigment of a difference. However, this previous belief fits into the film creators’ discourse community. It wasn’t hard for these writers and film makers, politicians and Northern families to put this image of the blacks out there for the public because others in their community already had their same belief. The Birth of a Nation was no different in these beliefs and it became the most popular, pure and raw film in 1915. The film was primarily produced by D.W. Griffith, nicknamed “father of racist cinema”. It capitalized on the Ku Klux Klan, Lincoln’s assassination, and two families in the North and South. This film was also the first to use complex techniques never before seen such as fade out, cross cutting, close-ups, extra cast and even an intermission. In assignment one, I analyzed Morgan’s, The Race Question. Morgan worked to further set the belief into his readers that if blacks were to get more freedom, such as the right to vote, they would become too educated and smart. This newfound freedom for African Americans, he believed would then mean whites lose superiority and African Americans would take vengeance with their new freedoms. Morgan, as well as many of his colleagues, worked to instill fear into his readers. Griffith, in Birth of a Nation about two decades later, uses the same discourse belief via film. Griffith takes these preexisting ideas into his film and uses a straightforward storytelling method, being precise in how and when the characters are seen by his audience. John Tyler Morgan and Griffith are alike in more ways than one. In both pieces, Griffith and Morgan build on their discourse community’s idea that blacks will always be inferior, we should fear them and elaborate on the different outcomes of blacks having power and rights.

To paraphrase Hoffman, in his writing he states that when you mate two races, you get anger, violence and different sexuality. Griffith builds on this preexisting idea. Because this idea already exists, Griffith just has to hint towards it and the audience will understand. Such as when Lydia, Stoneman’s maid begins talking to the rich, white, strong man. Griffith can easily assume his audience knows this is wrong. At the time, it was believed black and white people did not have relations. Lydia clearly shows in her facials in the film that she knows her seeing this man is wrong. Griffith produces the scene a different level of visual by showing Lydia bending down to pick up a hat, trying to seduce the man by ripping her clothes and showing an inappropriate amount of skin and breaking the fourth wall to the audience by making eye contact. Lydia becomes shy and flirty and seeking for Silas to protect her. White men at the time, were viewed as rich, white and strong.

Both producers, Morgan and Griffith, used emotional appeal to their audience. Morgan used his writing fear of blacks gaining new freedoms and whites becoming inferior to scare his audience. While Griffith also used his screen to instill fear and terror and get a reaction of his audience. Griffith made the audience feel like they were watching something bad between the mixed women and white man. He made it obvious how much time he spent working on the characters’ parts, costumes, and emotional language before putting anything out into his discourse community. It was Birth of a Nation that inspired the Ku Klux Klan to continue because blacks were seen as dangerous.

In my opinion, Griffith did a better job at portraying the same message via film that Morgan wrote about 25 years prior. I think Griffith used a lot more techniques to get his message across way more bluntly. Morgan danced around the topic and doesn’t obviously use characters to say what he needs to for him. After all, Birth of a Nation is a widely popular film that many discourse communities and public eye caught sight of. Overall, Griffith did a more exciting piece on the race segregation in American in the early 1900s.

Overall story:

• the Civil War happens:
• Sherman’s march to the sea (devastating and what the family scene was all about)
• two Cameron brothers die in the war–bromance in death
• one Stoneman bro dies during the war
• Leaves: Phil Stoneman and Ben Cameron
• Phil falls in love with Ben’s sister, Margaret
• Ben falls in love with Phil’s sister, Elsie
• Driven by Gus and Flora’s relationship
• Reconstruction
• Silas Lynch goes to SC and organizes AA voters
• political, social, legal and familial life in disarray
• the Klan is formed by Ben Cameron to restore order
• Lynch and Congressman Stoneman think Dr. Cameron is the founder, organizer of the KKK

women have to be protected by the bestiality of men of color

213-224 The Birth of a Nation:

Griffith is telling us we should be afraid of Gus, hes an animal, he is not able to control his desire and is going to chase Flora down (Gus played by white actor but playing black man in black face, hides in the shadows, sees eyes and nothing else . Gus is designed to be a predator and monster

disney film- Flora talks to animals and is seen as good in other films

second film set:

Griffith shows the definition of whiteness and what is appropriate behavior for white folks. cannot suffer dishonor of having an interracial family.

striking use of visual imagery

Griffith shows Jesus with hands over new union

they all marry each other, blue screen over everything, south and north are reunited

gate opens, whiteness is most important if we maintain these standards we all end in paradise

Yates film article

• Basic terms:
• Auteur: french for author, used by critics to indicate the director stamped with his/her own personality
• Diegesis: includes objects, events, space and characters that inhabit them, including actions, and attitudes not explicitly presented in narrative
• editing: joining together of clips of film into a single filmstrip, cut is simple edit but many possible ways to transition from one shot to another
• flashback flashforward: jump backwars and forwards in deigetic time, with use of flashback/ flashforward the order of events in plot no longer matches the order of events in story
• focus: refers to degree to which light rays coming from any particular part of an object pass through the lens and recoverge at the same point on a frame of the film negative, creating sharp outlines and distinct textures that match the original object
• genres: types of film recognized by audiences and/or producers sometimes retrospectively, these types are distinguished by narrative or stylistic conventions, or merely by their discursive organization in influential criticism
• mise-en-scene: things put in the scene: setting, decor, lighting, costumes, performance
• story/plot: refers to audience infers about events that occur in the diegesis on the basis of what they are shown by the plot
• scene/sequence: segment of a narrative film that usually takes place in a single time and place, often the same characters, something contain two lines of action, occurring in diff spaces or even diff times
• shot: single stream of images, uninterrupted by editing
• Mise-en-scene:
• representation of space affects the reading of a film, depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a film cna be manipulated through camera placement and lenses, lighting, decor, effectively determining mood/ relationships between elements in diegetic world
• decor: objects contained in and the setting of a scene, used to amplify character emotion or dominant mood of a film
• rear projection: used to combine foreground action, often actors in conversation, with a background often shot earlier on location,
• lighting: intensity, direction, quality of lighting have a profound effect on the way an image is perceived, affects the way colors are rendered in hue and depth and can focus attention of particular elements of the composition
• three point lighting: classical narrative cinema, in order to model an actor’s face or another object with depth, light from 3 directions is used
• high key vs low key lighting: high/fill light raised to almost same level as key light, produces images that are very bright and few shadows// low/ very little fill light, strong contrastcs between brightest and darkest parts of an image and often creating strong shadows that obscure parts of the principal subjects- for suspense or “hard boiled” films
• deep space: elements positioned near to and distant from camera
• frontality: staging of elements, often human figures, so that they face the camera square on
• matte shot: process with two photos combined into a single image using an optical printer, adds realistic scene or creates fantasy space
• offscreen space: space that exists in the diegesis but that is not visible in the frame
• shallow space: image staged with little depth, occupy the same or closely positioned planes, loses realistic appeal, flatness enhances its pictorial qualities
• typage: selection of actors on the basis that their facial or bodily features readily convey the truth of the character the actor plays
• editing:
• transitions
• cheat cut- shows continuous time and space from shot to shot but mismatches position of figures/ object in scene
• cross cutting aka parallel editing: editing that alternates shots of 2 or more lines of action occurring in diff places, usually at the same time
• cut in cut away: instantaneous shift form distant framing to closer view
• dissolve: transition between two shots during which the first image gradually disappears while the second image gradually appears
• iris: round, moving mask that can close down to end a scene, emphasize detail or it can open to begin a scene or to reveal more space around a detail
• establishing short/ reestablishing shot: involving a distant framing shows the spatial relations among important figures/objects and setting in a scene
• eyeline match: cut obeying the axis of action principle
• graphic match: two successive shots joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements (colors, shape, etc.)
• montage: emphasizes dynamic, often discontinuous relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas not present in either shot by itself

How do you think the discourse communities of law and science shaped the literacy, thinking, and imaginations of audiences watching Birth of a Nation?

I think at this time law and science were very false, or very different from what we know today. At the time, scientists, writers and film creators believed African Americans were inferior, diseased in some cases and a false evolution of the race. However, we know now that it is really just a gene pigment of a difference. I think Mirabelli and Swales would say this fits into the film creators’ discourse community for the time period. It wasn’t hard for these writers and film makers, politicians and Northern families to put this image of the blacks out there for the public because they already had their same belief. Then, this film further advocated for that thought process on blacks and their role in our society.

Foucault- studied the courts and prison, hypothesized discourse is broadcast from these discourse comm and reinforce traditional values, or even reshaped those values in hopes of maintaining an overly status quo. “Episteme” right, wrong, good and bad

Saphir- Wolf hypothesis- the structure of language determines a native speaker’s perception and categorization of experience “It paints the world”

Mise-en-scence https://filmanalysis.yale.edu/mise-en-scene/

• Griffith relies on typage heavily
• physical and dress say about how character will be and the idea broadcasts how we should be thinking about them
• cross cutting and parallel editing, two diff people doing two diff activities but things are happening at the same time and audience knows that
• iris reveals something “iris in”, jump cuts common in early films like Birth of a Nation but since new ways have come about since of course

• concepts in first 47 -48.50 clip:
• iris- clipping from family to people walking in field
• parallel editing- knowing family in distress as war is going on
• typage- white family not used to such hard times
• decor- blue lighting and sad music
• costume- old aged look
• Griffith wants viewers to know the hard times this woman and her family are going through and what its like, at the same time to be right in front of it and surrounded by it

• second clip 19-21:42:
• Griffith with language structuring perception from his discourse community. Griffith wants the viewers to know “milatto” not being pure and seducing a white man. At the level of the visual, we are being told this relationship is wrong and they should be ashamed of it, these two people don’t belong together
• the lady is shy and flirty
• action: the actor does on the screen, not ad-libing with screaming, spitting?, crying and throws herself on the floor, looks intrigued and in love after the man leaves, witty smile, eyes big, crying, martyr role, he cannot touch, breaks fourth wall
• Griffith wants us to believe about Lydia- that she knows the relationship is wrong but she is attracted regardless, to this strong, white man. Details above of cues to give me this answer.

• third clip-Silas Lynch:
• after Lincoln assassinated, Stoneman seen
• lydia not loking like a maid, or being treaetd by one
• Silas Lynch and her alone in room, her continuing to break foruth wall
• two things happening, him in room alone waiting for her, her going out to talk to guy sitting down, then him to follow with her back in the room
• lots of cross cutting to show seriousness on screen
• lydia listening in on conversation outside door, while we can see both her and Silas
• griffith wants us to know there is a corruption in Silas and logical facilities
• lydia has come up in the world, Congressman Stoneman’s lover at the time
• behind Silas Lynch being introduced to Stoneman, theory that they are all together

I feel Griffith made the audience feel like they were watching something bad. Griffith made me feel and recognize how much time he spent into working the characters parts and emotional language before putting anything out into his discourse community

real world events caused by scientific racism and Jim Crow Laws:

plessy v ferguson
civil war
assassination of Lincoln
Gone with the Wind- same racist idea and people are paying for this
NAACP and “within our gates” and respond to Griffith’s film

civil rights movement

 After viewing the first half of Birth of a Movement, which real world events do think were caused (at least in part) by scientific racism and Jim Crow laws? 

• Birth of Nation becomes flash point that starts the American Civil Rights Movement
• while Birth of a Nation is extremely racist, it was the most honest, pure though of the time
• Birth of a Movement- the battle against America’s first blockbuster film
• Boston is the birthplace of freedom- a magnet for skilled African American workers, activists for those in their own towns
• Trotter Massachusetts, offspring of white master and black mistress
• Trotter moves to Southern Ohio, free state and moves for freedom
• Trotter looms in the mind of his son, be the best one can be
• Trotter is in a all white school and VD of high school, goes to Harvard
• Trotter’s fellow black student at Harvard is DeBois
• the two believed their fate depended upon rise of all African Americans
• Griffith born 10 years are Civil War, his family considered white trash in the South
• Griffith ten years old, father dies and family is in poverty
• after civil war- people can now travel the world together and thats what actors were doing together and learning to be an actor and play writer- Griffith as well doing this
• Plessy v Ferguson 1896 at this time the film came out- AA leadership is undergoing change
• before segregation started, Trotter only experienced the best of America (before PvF) and got out of his harvard bubble and saw segregation closing in on Boston
• as a filmmaker, Griffith wanted a reaction and to get audience to identify what they saw on screen and feel fear and teror
• federal agencies before segregated- corporate buildings under Woodrow Wilson
• friend tells Griffith about ‘The Clansman” book by Dixon
• the most dangerous in the film is the mid-breed, intelligence of white man, brutality of black man
• Wilson, Griffith and Dixon were all children of reconstruction
• 3 hour drama that portrays blacks as beast, and everyone in White House thought it was a brilliant piece of work
• Griffith uses a quote from Wilson’s book “The American People…” in his movie
• movie inspired the Klan to continue
• Griffith named “father of racist cinema

In John Tyler Morgan’s The Race Question, he addresses his opinion that if African Americans have the right to vote and other freedoms, whites will lose superiority. In 1890, Morgan was a part of a board helping to defeat the Blair and Force Bills. These bills would combat illiteracy among blacks and help the community become educated. Through his writing, Morgan worked to further set the belief into his readers that if blacks were to get more freedom, such as the right to vote, they would become too educated and smart. And that then, blacks would be superior to whites and take vengeance. Morgan, as well as many of his colleagues, worked to instill fear into his readers.

Morgan both wrote for his readers to agree with him and side to deny these bills, as well as, for his discourse community. The community of scholars around Morgan also agreed with his racist attitude. Morgan uses the rhetorical appeal of emotion to put fear into his readers about what might happen to our country if blacks had the right to vote. He also uses this tactic to appeal to his discourse community and what they already believe, to keep his title as a trusted author. He gives reason that blacks cannot do the complex things to participate in our US government because of their nature, creation by God. Morgan states that there are physical and mental differences in the two races.

 “The separation of the races under different governments will alone cure this flagrant evil, by giving to the negro race an opportunity for self-government; and to the white race an unobstructed course in the accomplishment of their destiny. The feeling of unrest among the negros, which has made them homeless, and sweeps them in revolving eddies from one state to another, is a plain indication that they are preparing for a general exodus.” (page 75) The reader could be convinced by Morgan’s piece just from the fear his instills about what could happen to whites and the not so “scientific” evidence of how each person was created. However, his argument isn’t effective and only shows a very racist view of what could happen if African Americans become educated.

Birth of a Nation 1915 notes:

• praised for its “technical virtuosity” moving, tracking, panning shots, crosscutting editing, cameo profiles and close ups
• often panned for its demeaning and racist interpretation of African- Americans
• characters played by Anglo-Americans
• film portrays pre-civil war south in “moonlight and magnolias” fashion
• opposing views: Dixon and Griffith (the travesty of Reconstruction); NAACP (historically inaccurate and inflammatory)

REACTION TO FILM

• how film is being made
• lighting, music, “sound”
• how things are set up
• slate (stop for words to pop up)
• Griffith not sophisticated at story telling, straight forward
• two sons of Cameron family going to visit South and meet a family
• north is idealic, childlike, pleasant music
• Camerons have two homes- in town and plantation
• shows gentle life but no system of labor or how the whites/rich labor to live this life- clear not to show this part
• Griffith has a purpose with his storyboard in how and when characters are see by audience
• scene: 50 years after civil war, still have veterans alive
• movie happening without authoritarian structure
• to own a slave was EXPENSIVE- dollar amounts on people- wrong!
• when going out to plantation- film lens is green to symbolize money, nature, green softens image because didn’t want to show labor in film
• no colored film but could still use light
• green color of Spring season, spring is associated with love
• “if the north carries the election, the south will sucide”
• any race that comes after whites, are interlopers/ guests and are problems/ weird
• Hoffman says with two races mating- you get anger, violence, diff sexuality- Griffith is taking preexistin ideas
• old white man sick, diff boots, wig- multiliteracies says hes weak and frail– Hoffman talks about born a particular weak not only weak and frail physically but mentally and thats because of breeding
• able to be seduced by woman because he is weak and frail- but also he is a senator for the north- this is Griffith saying the gov is corrupt and weak at this time
• Griffith is layering this discourse idea in the film because it already exists, he just has to hint and show specifics and the audience will understand
• woman breaks the fourth wall- audience a few times which is diff
• Griffith says multi race women are crazy and try to seduce white men