- Joined
- Feb 15, 2015
I still don't understand the hype of the Birth of a Nation...uh...remake? Retelling? Whatever it counts as. Number one, the star of it who plays Nat Turner himself, has still got sexual abuse/rape allegations following him around from college (the victim herself apparently committed suicide if I recall), you'd think Tumblr would be boycotting it based on that alone since rape surely trumps the "POC can do no wrong!" ideology.
Plus, the real Nat Turner was a murderous fucking lunatic. Yes, slavery is bad, and the original Birth of a Nation is racist as fuck, but this is a man who claimed to have visions and obsessed over the Bible and God, took an eclipse as a sign that he should instigate this rebellion, then went on to murder not just the white masters of the slave-owning elites but children and women too. Plus, his rebellion didn't do shit but get even MORE black people killed in retaliation and put a bunch of law restrictions on slaves AND free blacks to prevent such an event from happening again.
...seriously, of all the slavery-era media to have white guilt over, this is the one where the 'hero' is not one you should really be rooting for.
I don't think the film has any relation to the more famous 1915 Birth of a Nation. The plots seem entirely different (the first one wasn't about Nat Turner, after all).