Jar Jar Gabor
Posts: 250
Joined: 30/9/2005
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Dr Lenera
You wouldn’t know it from the film, but Lincoln was actually a racist who still believed in white’s superiority over blacks and intended to ship all the freed slaves back to Africa.
I'm glad Spielberg and Kushner did a little more research on Lincoln than your good self. Because that's a hugely simplistic generalisation of Lincoln's often complex and evolving attitude towards race and slavery. You don't, for example, make it clear that Lincoln's policy of colonisation was entirely voluntary, nor that it was based on Lincoln's fear that blacks and whites would struggle to live peaceably together as free men. Indeed, the following 100 years of violence, segregation and inequality would show that that fear was somewhat justified.
Yes, Lincoln held some views of black people that today would be deemed racist. But he also held some views of black people that in his own time could be deemed radical, open-minded and progressive. However, the film does make it clear that, in comparison with someone like Thaddeus Stevens, Lincoln was far less 'modern' in his views than many abolitionists would have preferred. But even so, at the time the film is set, Lincoln's attitude and philosophy towards slavery and race had evolved quite significantly from his earlier, less moderate views. He changed, he modified his views, and, yes, he sometimes necessarily compromised those views in order to get things done.
I think one of the most objective and accurate summations of Lincoln, both as a man and as a president, is the following Oration given by the black abolitionist Frederick Douglas in 1876. In it he describes both Lincoln's negative feelings and actions towards race but also his incredible and vital achievements.
Here
"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.
Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery. The man who could say, "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.
Fellow-citizens, whatever else in this world may be partial, unjust, and uncertain, time, time! is impartial, just, and certain in its action. In the realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is a great worker, and often works wonders. The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgment of time. Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war.
But now behold the change: the judgment of the present hour is, that taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln..."
quote:
ORIGINAL: Dr Lenera
The film exaggerates Lincoln’s role in abolishing slavery to an uncomfortable degree, ignoring the contributions made by many others including black people [in a film which is borderline racist in its tokenism and almost-ignoring of them, and this is coming from someone who hates political correctness], the fact that the campaign to end slavery was actually began by a group of proto-Feminists, and that many slaves had already risen up against their masters. Of course all this would have got in the way of writer Tony Kushner’s portrayal of Lincoln as a superhero who abolished slavery all on his own.
This reminds me of the argument made against Saving Private Ryan, which essentially stated that since Spielberg's film fails to show the actions of Canadian and British troops at Normandy, Spielberg's implicit purpose was to highlight the superiority and predominance of American soldiers and, therefore, undermine the significance of others. It completely ignores the necessarily limited scope of narrative drama, asking for a level of historical and contextual realisation that makes a complete mockery of cinematic storytelling. Choosing to focus on one person or group of people as part of a limited narrative scope is not the same thing as a denouncement or diminishment of those things that don't fit within that scope. It may implicitly inflate the significance of that on which its focus lies but this is unavoidable and completely understandable.
This article does a fine job of showing the slippery slope nature of asking for absolute historical and contextual instruction within Lincoln's narrative drama.
"If we’re going to tell the story of abolitionism and the agency of slaves, surely we cannot leave out the larger history of slave revolts throughout the Americas and the changing role of the Atlantic system in the global political economy of the first half of the 19th Century, correct? It would be “inadequate” to assume this is an exceptional American story. Surely we’d have to continue the story into Reconstruction so that viewers don’t misunderstand and think that slavery really, truly completely came to an end? Surely we need to show what industrial labor in the North was like between the 1830s and the 1870s to give the audience a fuller context for understanding labor, freedom and rights? Surely there are other stories of antebellum political and judicial drama that need to be told alongside the story of the Thirteenth Amendment, so that it (or Lincoln) doesn’t appear entirely exceptional. Surely we need still more of the story of ordinary soldiers on both sides? Of the role of gender in abolition and slavery? I am only very slightly kidding here: this is precisely the stuff of scholarly historiography, as it should be. But when we view a film and begin to inevitably see its incomplete nature as ‘inadequacy’, we’re committing a category error on several levels."
_____________________________
"My mother did throw me against a brick wall when I was an infant. I didn't get hurt at all. I've mentioned it to her a couple of times. She said I was a little prick."
DVD's wot I own.
|
Printable Version
RE: Bone-biting weariness... - 
); so I have no idea how closely the film mirrors actual events or how realistic the character portrayals are. But the acting was quite convincing and after seeing the film it made me want to read up on American history; so in that sense Lincoln was very successful. 
Or just google it.
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread