That's Progress
Marc Norman's What Happens Next: A History Of American Screenwriting starts with a description of D.W. Griffith filming The Birth Of A Nation. It's one of the cinema's earliest landmarks--and was created without a screenplay. (And shot about a mile or two from where I'm typing.)
It was based on Thomas Dixon's novel and play The Clansman. On page two Norman notes Dixon had been once been a lawyer, a legislator, and a preacher who demanded justice for all. "But at some point, as Richard Schickel notes, this democracy-praising Progressive turned racist."
Why does Norman (or Schickel, for that matter) consider this strange? Racism, by today's standards, was commonplace a century ago. Being a Progressive simply meant you believed in government action to solve social problems. If the social problem was, say, mixing of the races, then that's what you'd fight for.
It was based on Thomas Dixon's novel and play The Clansman. On page two Norman notes Dixon had been once been a lawyer, a legislator, and a preacher who demanded justice for all. "But at some point, as Richard Schickel notes, this democracy-praising Progressive turned racist."
Why does Norman (or Schickel, for that matter) consider this strange? Racism, by today's standards, was commonplace a century ago. Being a Progressive simply meant you believed in government action to solve social problems. If the social problem was, say, mixing of the races, then that's what you'd fight for.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:30 AM
2 Comments:
"Being a Progressive simply meant you believed in government action to solve social problems."
Not sure it means that and its certainly not simple. While certainly a movement which has used the power of government(like many other political movements), many progressives are far more interested in the outcome than the process.
Sorry, but that's what "progressive" amounts to. Yes, they want "progress," but the desired "outcome" that we're progressing toward changes throughout time. The key is they believed in progress through government programs. I could give you lots of examples of progressives before World War II saying and doing what would be considered today outrageously racist things. Woodrow Wilson is maybe our most famous "progressive" President, and after a private screening of Birth Of A Nation at the White House, he exclaimed with excitement "It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true."
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