Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

Social Distancing has a Long History in the Movies

Like your family, we’re watching waaayyy too much TV around here. The Democratic convention, yeah, that was good, but before that we were tearing through serials from “The Americans” to “Madame Secretary” to “Ozark” to “Westworld,” and everything in between. Cheap thrills for those avoiding social contact.

Eventually, we’ll go back to normal and (I hope) get to work fixing what we know is wrong with America — things that have made the pandemic worse for some neighborhoods but enriched others. As innumerable speakers pointed out in the kickoff to Biden’s election, we are a nation of many divisions and we have giant problems — COVID-19, climate change, the path to citizenship for new immigrants, crumbling infrastructure. To solve the problems, we need to do more than pull down statues. We need to come together.

It is painful and extremely difficult to explain what has led to the dangerous lack of inclusiveness, the creation of separate communities that have left some poor and at-risk, and some very rich. But while we might not be able to explain it, Hollywood has left us a visual and audio record of the context of division, at least for the last hundred-plus years. And now that we’re all watching too much TV, it’s a perfect time to reach for understanding. We can sit on our sofas and watch history roll by.

Let’s begin with “The Birth of a Nation,” a 1915 black-and-white silent-film masterpiece that started life as a re-make of “The Clansman.” The first “15-reeler”, it weighs in at three-plus hours and is available on Youtube. Directed by the near-genius D.W. Griffith, much of the cinematography is masterpiece, but the Civil War story creates a very dark picture of our national path. Following two families before and after the War, including their relationships to newly-freed blacks, the script plays on white fears and portrays stereotypes of blacks. For its time, it was exquisitely made and orchestrated and it played in fancy theaters to huge crowds and with great fanfare. Today it is remembered as a film that made history in filmmaking, but also re-launched the KKK, which had been losing favor. As The New Yorker opined, “the worst thing about ‘Birth of a Nation’ is how good it is.”

As a record of white culture, our next stop is “The Jazz Singer,” released in 1927. If there had been Academy Awards, this would have gotten one, hands down. Al Jolson, lead performer, was as popular in his day as Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson — you name it — in their days. And this film made movie history with its sound track of synchronized music. The plot follows Jolson’s life: A Jewish son of prominent cantor, Jolson loved music and had a good voice. Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps in the temple, he snuck off to perform popular music, singing and tap dancing on the street corners of New York. The plot diverges from Jolson’s life when it becomes an homage to the mother of the main character. She survives to see her son become successful; Jolson’s mother died when he was 10.

While the audience would known what was coming, I was shocked when the camera shot Jolson in his dressing room slathering on the blackface and donning a woolly wig. Jolson was known for blackface, and his biographers say he had a true affection for African Americans, and defended at least one couple that was treated rudely at a restaurant. In performing black music, say his biographers, his work paved the way for black performers in the Jazz Age.

That was the New York story. But what was happening in the West? In 1931, Hollywood produced an epic that reveals another root of white supremacy. “Cimarron,” the black-and-white version, has some panoramic views of the Oklahoma land rush that will make you gasp, with hundreds of horses, wagons, stagecoaches and other vehicles racing across the open prairie to stake a claim after the Osage were moved from their land. Did the Americans feel uneasy about claiming what belonged to others? Not much. The Natives mostly disappeared once the land was claimed and the city built … but reappear when oil is found on their impoverished reservation. The film was re-made in 1960 with new Native American characters depicted with a tiny bit more dignity.

While “Cimarron” set the stage, it was John Wayne’s classic “Stagecoach” that confirmed the white supremacist story. Made in 1939, and directed by John Ford, this film features a battle between John Wayne, protecting white folks moving west in a stagecoach, and a band of Apaches on galloping horses, attacking with bows and arrows. Wayne picks off the attackers one after another, with the indigenous folks falling predictably off their galloping horses, one shot apiece. The John Ford/ John Wayne duo use this same basic plot device (one shot, one dead Indian) throughout their careers, at least until the late 1950s.

Film is a hot medium. It gets into our brains in a way print can rarely do. But, good news, it can show us a way out as easily as it showed a way in. Now that we’re watching waaaayyyy too much, we can choose with discretion and start to revise the stories.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History”. Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2020

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