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Spotlights

Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "white supremacy" (10)

Midwife to the Upper Class (Sage-femme de première classe)

Alice Guy-Blaché (director/lead)
Yvonne Mugnier-Serand (lead)
Germaine Mugnier-Serand (lead)
Gaumont (production)

Language: Silent, released in 1902, month unknown
Minutes: 4

Remake of the 1900 film The Cabbage Fairy (La Fee aux Choux).

Featured elements:

: birthing; fantasy; white supremacy

The Strenuous Life, Or, Anti-Race Suicide

Edwin S. Porter (director)
Edison (production)

Language: Silent, released in Dec 1904
Minutes: 5

A satirical answer to President Teddy Roosevelt's call for Anglo-Saxon women to keep up with the birth rate of ethnic minorities, or risk 'race suicide'. Mike Judge's 2006 'Idiocracy' essentially makes the same call, and is considered a 'cult classic'. Maybe Teddy's call was ridiculed just because it was ahead of its time.

Featured elements:

: birthing; comedy; eugenics; social commentary; white supremacy

The Watermelon Patch

Edwin S. Porter (cinematographer/director)
Wallace McCutcheon (cinematographer/director)
Edison (production)

Language: Silent, released in Oct 1905
Minutes: 11

As usual with Edison, the length far exceeds the interest. But don't chuck this one: skip the long boring chase and fast-forward to the uncredited cake-walking babies strutting their stuff and rocking the house.

Featured elements:

: chase; comedy; dance; dance-cakewalk; ethnic stereotype; kiddie act; torture; vigilante; white supremacy

How A British Bulldog Saved The Union Jack

Walturdaw (production)

Language: Silent, released in Sep 1906
Minutes: 9

It's the golden rule of American vaudeville and British music halls: when your act is doing badly on stage, especially if you've got zero talent, just start waving the flag - because then no one would dare boo you. Here we see that rule's early migration from stage to screen.

Featured elements:

: action; animal act; anti-colonialism; armed conflict; emblematic shot; ethnic stereotype; goofs; patriotism; South Africa; white supremacy

That Chink At Golden Gulch

D.W. Griffith (director)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Emmett C. Hall (writer)
Anthony O'Sullivan (lead)
Dell Henderson (lead)
Biograph (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Oct 1910
Minutes: 14

Who could pass up a title like that? After all, over a century later ESPN was still relying on chink power to grab eyeballs with its “Chink in the Armor” headline for a Jeremy Lin story. Here, reknown Massa of ethnology D.W. Griffith spins a tale of a Noble Pagan who “though a saffron-skinned Pagan, his soul is white and real red blood pulsates his heart” the Moving Picture World synopsis tells us. The Moving Picture World review however was a bit less sentimental: “Perhaps if everyone could see such heroic self-sacrifice in a Chinaman as this one displayed, the aversion which most men feel toward them would disappear. It is doubtful, however, if such unselfishness and generosity abide in more than an occasional individual. The picture is not up to the Biograph standard...” - which already sets the bar quite low.

Featured elements:

: cowboys; displaced persons; ethnic stereotype; heroic defender; melodrama; persecution; prejudice; redemption; revenge; social commentary; torture; white savior; white supremacy; zero to hero

Broncho Billy And The Greaser

Broncho Billy Anderson (director/lead/writer)
Lee Willard (lead)
Marguerite Clayton (lead)
Essanay (production)

Language: Silent, released in Oct 1914
Minutes: 17

Broncho Billy weighs into the debate on multiculturalism. Definitely not starring Jerry Mathers as "The Greaser".

Featured elements:

: action; comedy; cowboys; ethnic stereotype; fighting; heroic defender; home invasion; rescue; revenge; white flesh lust; white supremacy

The Cheat [1915]

Cecil B. DeMille (director/producer)
Alvin Wyckoff (cinematographer)
Hector Turnbull (author/writer)
Jeanie Macpherson (writer)
Fannie Ward (lead)
Sessue Hayakawa (lead)
Jack Dean (lead)
James Neill (lead)
Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1915
Minutes: 59

Stone-cold yellow man burns hot for white flesh of loose lady. Interracial dating, theft, lies, flesh-peddling, brutal sadism, revenge, blood splatter, lynch mob, and the slickest eyebrow in showbiz - welcome to Pulp Paradise.

Featured elements:

: courtroom; crime; ethnic stereotype; female avenger; lynching; melodrama; prostitution; psycho; revenge; sexuality; social commentary; torture; white flesh lust; white supremacy

A Natural Born Gambler

Bert Williams (director/lead/producer/writer)
Biograph (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jul 1916
Minutes: 22

Fired up to see the legendary comedy of Bert Williams, but only got an historical drama reenacting the racial aspect of the US criminal injustice system. Sad, sad, sad.

Featured elements:

: addiction; alienation; comedy; courtroom; ethnic stereotype; gambling; language; prejudice; prison; social commentary; white supremacy

Wolf Lowry

William S. Hart (director/lead)
Joseph H. August (cinematographer)
Lambert Hillyer (writer)
Margery Wilson (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in May 1917
Minutes: 51

Yes, once again Hart plays a cowboy who is changed when he falls for a woman. But, from that point, this story rides off on a different trail. For starters, he's the big boss instead of an outlaw - a meanspirited bully. And, even though the cowboy sees only goodness in the woman, viewers may wonder what is really behind her amused looks and questionable judgment. In short, this stretches away from the predictable film fables, offering more of the depth and ambiguity encountered in everyday life.