Essay on Connection Between Culture, Subculture, & Film: Exploring the Relationship

Typically, the connection between films and cultures are sophisticated. Movies can influence various cultures that consume them either directly or indirectly. Videos are also critical aspects of culture. Movies are, at times, products of specific cultures, hence reflection on the concerns, attitudes, and other beliefs. While considering the connection between culture, subcultures, and films, it is integral to remember that some ideologies may be prevalent in a given time. The relationship between movies and cultures includes the influence of culture on the film as well as the influence of the cultures by the film. Therefore, films can alter and are, at times, reflections of the society in which they are made or acted.

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Birth of a nation is a movie that was produced in the year 1915 and was directed by Griffith (Stokes 19). The video was successful and was instrumental to the reputation of this director. The move was based on the novel by Thomas Dixon, The Clansman. The book was a pro-segregation narrative in the south of America after the great civil war. The movie was successful since it had a record of social and cultural events that were causing tension during this period. In the film, the director had dramatized every significant occurrence of those days (Stokes 19). This paper will look into details about the movie and the impacts it had on the society that was the target audience. We will find out the relationship between it and the culture of the people who watched it and whether it altered their beliefs as related to the thesis of this paper that there is an interconnection of films and culture.

In the 20th century, there fear among the American nationals about the increasing rate of immigrants, which was raising the level of racism (Stokes 19). Some groups of people would criticize the movie, accusing it of having racist attitudes which were glorifying a community and blamed the blacks from the south for destroying the war. The film, in this case, shows some relationship between the culture and movie. The movie influenced the community, instilling racist attitudes toward the people. The movie impacted the perspective of the viewers by trying to criticize blacks as unintelligent and sexually aggressive against American women (Stokes 19). By changing the attitude of the people who are viewing the movie by making them racist shows the alteration that the video caused on the culture of the people who might have been otherwise not racists (Black 12). The video was trying to feed information to the people who were watching it and impacting them negatively by instilling racism among the culture.

Conclusion

Overall, culture has a relationship with films as they may convey ideas and information to the people where they may take it up and interpret it in various ways. It is in the interpretation where people may develop ideologies that may impact their way of living adversely or positively, as we can see from the film, The Birth of a Nation, where the citizens were instilled with ideologies that were putting fear to them (Black 12). The fear of the increasing rate of immigrants is what made it easy to make the citizens racist. If the movie was not aired to these people, maybe the attitudes that they developed late would not have been impacted by them. On the other hand, a culture may make people come up with a movie that is inspired by the occurrences in their way of life. The same film was also about the circumstances of the culture during that period. Therefore, it is vivid that there is a connection between culture and movies.

Works Cited

Black, Joel. The reality effect: Film culture and the graphic imperative. Routledge, 2013.

Stokes, Melvyn. "Race, Politics, and Censorship: DW Griffith's" The Birth of a Nation" in France, 1916-1923." Cinema Journal (2010): 19-38.