The Birth of a Nation (1915)

It's easy to feel there’s nothing salvageable from the past. That much of what’s preceded us, the conformity, suffocating oppression, and intolerance is best discounted and forgotten. That there is enough strife and turmoil in today’s world that outweighs any relevance or similarities a previous decade or generation may have on our current reality.

I look directly to Hollywood, specifically old Hollywood, where delineations and labels are in black and white, both literally and figuratively. Awful, demeaning stereotypes are ubiquitous in early-era films like the egregious The Jazz Singer and The Birth of a Nation. But even further down the line, I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth whenever I encounter racism or subjugation in what are known as "classic films.”  One does not have to venture too far into the old vault to see the awful portrayal of Native Americans in The Searchers or Mickey Rooney’s gross display of a Chinese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  I find it hard to compartmentalize these offensive bits when doing my own investigation into film history.  While there is great quality and originality, it will always be interwoven into these totally unacceptable trends and tendencies.  There is no escaping it.

The history of Hollywood is as ugly as it is beautiful. You can go back and look at decades of iconic films that have graced the silver screen, from Gone with the Wind (1939) to Citizen Kane (1941) to North by Northwest (1959). Most notably absent from Hollywood history, however, are Black-produced films. When movies did feature Black characters, they were always written by White writers and directed by White directors. The stories were never centered around Black people focusing on what it means to be Black.

Developed by Simon Frederick, They’ve Gotta Have Us (2018) is a limited series on Netflix that explores the rise of Black cinema in Hollywood. From The Birth of a Nation (1915) to Black Panther (2018), and everything in between, They’ve Gotta Have Us offers a comprehensive and compelling look at Black representation in film and the surge of Black-produced cinema.

I’ve mentioned before that some of my favorite classes I took in college were film history courses. I love contextualizing movies and seeing how every film influenced the next. However, I learned virtually nothing about the parallel history of Black cinema in Hollywood. They’ve Gotta Have Us proves to be incredibly enlightening, exploring so many facets of Hollywood history that were previously unknown to me.

The series features interviews with prominent Black filmmakers such as Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), Laurence Fishburne (School Daze, The Matrix), David Oyelowow (Selma, A United Kingdom), Kasi Lemmons (The Silence of the Lambs, Candyman), John Boyega (Attack the Block, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights), Carmen Ejogo (Selma, It Comes at Night), and Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle, The Five Heartbeats).

Going into the series, I would have assumed that Black voices had been suppressed in the industry for decades even if I didn’t necessarily know all of the details beforehand; I had no idea the extent to which this happened. The beginning of the series looks at the early years of Hollywood. The Birth of a Nation (1915) defined the motion picture and shaped everything about what movies are and how they are made. Director D.W. Griffith did not believe Black actors were capable of giving the performances he wanted, so he cast White actors in blackface to play horrific caricatures.

To say Hollywood has had a troubled past is the understatement of the century. In Ryan Murphy’s (American Horror Story) new Netflix series, Hollywood, that past is confronted and even rewritten.

As lovers of film, there is a great deal of respect we have for the talented minds that bring us such dynamic and life-changing movies. However, we as film fans cannot be ignorant to the history and reality of Hollywood. It has been a breeding ground for inequality for over a century. Hollywood was literally founded on white nationalism. The movie that defined the feature film — what created the template for the entire industry — was D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). In addition to it being the foundation of Hollywood, it also singlehandedly revitalized the Klu Klux Klan upon its release.

Now in modern times, the #MeToo movement has exposed decades of exploitation and villainy for the world to see. The patriarchal power structure of Hollywood created an environment of toxicity, encouraged by silence as people didn’t want to rock the boat. This was simply “just the way things are.” Racial prejudice, sexual abuse, LGBTQ+ suppression, and gender inequality have festered in this industry since its inception.

What if someone had said something sooner? What if someone had gone against the grain, taken a stand, and said, “No, this isn’t right.”

Hollywood, a seven-episode limited series on Netflix, paints history with a new brush. Taking place shortly after World War II, the series follows a group of up-and-comers in the industry. They each struggle with their own form of suppression amidst an oppressive system. Through a meticulously crafted blend of reality and an alternative take on history, Hollywood conjures what could have happened had someone faced this system head-on a very long time ago.