A personal per-peeve of mine about pseudohistory is how people forgot that humans have been travelling and trading Forever. Legit out-of-place artifacts, ancient aliens, similarities between distinct cultures, and rapid diffusion of technology can (partly) be explained by the fact that sometimes a guy will fuck off in a boat. Humans have also had continent-spanning trade networks for millenia and not every link in the chain knew about all the others. Combine that with a lack of writing for many cultures and what is now a mystery was probably at the time very mundane.
Yeah, there's an unexamined assumption that people had no way of passing things along over long distances without modern technology. Hell, even people who aren't into pseudohistory fall prey to this. But back in the 15th century, glass beads from Venice were traded all the way to Alaska. Humanity's always been capable of spreading things around.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
āThe pyramids are so massive thereās no way ancient Egyptians built thatā get a FUCKING GRIP. Ancient Egypt was an extraordinarily stable and well-developed society. It had consistent and reliable access to extremely fertile, arable and highly developed land that employed a massive army of reserve labour in the off season. It had navigable river access to the Mediterranean and coastal access to the Indian Ocean. It was situated right next to the wealthiest parts of the ancient world. Its ENTIRE CULTURE AND RELIGION revolved around the boundary between life and afterlife and the circle of life and death - pyramids started construction far before the pharaohs were even CLOSE to death. There are many MANY examples of protopyramidal structures and direct examples of pyramid construction even outside the reach of the fullest extent of the kingdom of Egypt, in Sudan. Literally what more proof do you need? If there really was strong evidence of alien construction, historians would literally be salivating at the prospect of understanding how that came to be. Denying the incredible human achievement that the pyramids constitute isnt just sad and racist, itās bullheaded; you have to concede so much direct and tangible evidence to believe they werenāt built by the Egyptians.
From the bisexual subreddit in which a bisexual man asks other bisexual men if they believe that Ancient Greece and Rome were bisexual utopias.
They were not. There was a Facebook page claiming that Christianity destroyed ancient Rome. To me, that's code for
"It sucks that Christianity destroyed the morality of men sleeping with underage boys and being misogynistic towards women and girls."
You can't look at ancient Greece and Rome through modern lens. They didn't have words for all sexualities. It's called "Presentism." Ancient Rome simps are the worst. There are better bisexual time periods you can look at for motivation.
i'm bored so i looked at the America 250 teacher toolkit
it's all of two pages. okay. whatever.
apparently this was too exhausting to double check however:
there's a lot of focus on memorization, rather than creation. suggested for elementary:
why? why his poem? why yet another poem by a rich, dead, cishet white guy writing about another rich, dead, cishet white guy, a poem that, frankly, isn't that great? why only one?
why not The New Colossus, by emma lazarus? what would it mean to immigrant students, to have that be the poem held up to them?
why not Let America be America Again, by langston hughes, a beautiful, moving poem. it's not hyper-patriotic, I suppose. but so what? patriotism shouldn't mean "my country, right or wrong". it should mean the full quote, as given by carl schurz, himself an immigrant--he makes some very good remarks on the preceding page as well: "if right, to be kept right; if wrong, to be set right". if we refuse to reckon with our wrongs, we won't have a better country--we'll have a spoilt, entitled child. what message will it send if we platform langston hughes -- a probably queer Black man? why not I, Too? why not?
why not I hear America singing by Walt Whitman, a gay (mayyybe bi???) man who dropped out of school at 11 to go to work?
why is only one voice allowed?
but not the fact that he owned slaves? not the fact that he claimed to decry slavery, but in fact added to the number of slaves he owned over time? not the fact that his "justification" for keeping slaves was that it was so convenient? not the fact that he didn't free his slaves upon his death?
like what?
the idea of songs isn't bad. protest songs could work. i did a unit on labor history that incorporated union songs.
but patriotic? what does that mean?
unquestioning? so awed by the guns that they refuse to see who it's shooting? sycophantic? chauvinistic?
what does that mean? a fake-nostalgia, rich-abled-cishet-white-dude's idealization of pseudohistory??
they also keep recommending you visit Great American Road Trip sites. To be clear, this is one of them:
also, it's weird and biased. like, I get it, you want diversity of places. but...there are other places you could list. like, you know what has more historical interest and a noah's ark connection? kennywood. it's one of two amuseument parks that are designated national historic landmarks. it has several rides that are the last of their kind left--including a "Noah's Ark" attraction from 1936.
to be clear, i don't think it should be highlighted either. there are other, much more deserving locations--in allegheny county alone, there's the Braddock Carnegie Library, the first Carnegie Library in the US; the Cathedral of Learning, the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere and the second-tallest in the world; Clayton, Henry Clay Frick's house and now a museum; the Fort Pitt Block House, one of the oldest European-built structures west of the Alleghenies; and Saint Anthony's Chapel, home to the largest collection of religious relics in the world outside of the Vatican, among others. none of those are listed.
(i was going to list something about the homestead strike, but the only thing from allegheny county they do have listed is the carrie blast furnaces in homestead, so.)
anyway.
what if you don't?
(i do -- in the sense of the people, in the sense of a deep gratitude that they let my ancestors in, combined with a rage that they did not let in others'. in the sense of the complicated love that exists despite what the country may have done. in the sense of love that leads to disappointment when they elect a fascist. in the sense of a complicated feeling that doesn't quite have a word, a tangle of emotions that, it can be argued, is love, just as it can be argued it's rage, sadness, gratitude, or something else entirely.)
Sometimes the answer to the question these reviews pose is extremely obvious. This is one of those times. Unlike usual, I havenāt even bothered to cover up my score because I want it to be clear from the start that D. W. Griffithās The Birth of a Nation, the 1915 silent epic film that is based on Thomas Dixon Jr.ās āLost Causeā pseudohistorical novel and play The Clansman, is a film I absolutely abhor. And while spoiling my verdict might seem a bit strange, I think thereās a more interesting discussion to be had here.
The question for The Birth of a Nation is not really going to be āIs this film bad?ā because there is a definitive answer: Yes. This is a morally repugnant piece of racist propaganda and revisionist history, and there was zero chance I was ever going to like it. The real question is, āIs there any value in this movie?ā Is this filmās legendary reputation as a progenitor of numerous filmmaking techniques warranted, or is it nothing but gross exaggerations? Does this movie deserve to exist at all, or would it be better if it was lost to time like many silent films, almost all of which were probably more worthy of preservation than this shit?
The āGoodā
From a technical and a basic storytelling perspective, this movie is monumentally important. So many camera techniques were introduced here, from close ups to tracking shots, and Iāll admit that it is kind of interesting seeing these things put into practice for the first time. And this is the first attempt at massive storytelling on such a grand scale, so for the first time so many tropes make their cinematic debut here. In particular, it has been argued by many such as Alan Moore that this movie is the genesis of the āmasked heroā popularized later by superhero comics, right down to the quote-unquote hero being inspired by seeing a white sheet used to scare black children. Certainly a possibility, but it also reads like Moore once again being (mostly rightfully) bitter at an industry that burned him.
The other āgoodā quality here is that, when viewed through a modern, non-racist eye, this film is really fucking funny due to the sheer over-the-top nature of its racism. For instance, one scene features a black man attempting to propose to a white woman, to which she shrieks and flees from him as he gives chase. To the audiences of the time, this was meant to imply he wanted to rape her, but to someone with a brain that doesnāt have lethal levels of racism poisoning she just looks like the most racist bitch alive. It gets darkly hilarious when, rather than talk to the man at all, she flings herself off a cliff and smashes her head off a rock. Now thatās what I call a cracker!
Later, the Klan decides to go after this guy, and the narration cards assure us they want to bring him to a fair and just trial. Soon after they catch him and bring him toā¦ a Klan rally! No points for guessing the verdict. They then dump his corpse on a politicianās doorstep, complete with a fancy greeting card. Itās all just so horrifically absurd and stupid that you pretty much have to laugh so you donāt lose your mind at how fucking stupid and gross it is.
And ok, maybe itās not fair to pit a sci-fi fantasy against a historical fiction narrative, since the former is very light on plot and characterization by nature. But thatās the thing! The Birth of a Nation is ALSO light on characterization! For three hours we follow the flattest characters imaginable. Literally the only person in the film worth giving a shit about is Abraham Lincoln, and not only is he barely in it by design but they STILL ignore anything that canāt be used for Confederate apologia!
And yes, all of that is bad. But itās the reasons behind why itās bad that are beyond heinous and get a whole section to itself.
The Ugly
Guys. I donāt know if you know this, but the KKK arenāt heroic good guys who saved the South.
This film is propaganda, pure and simple, bolstered by numerous exaggerations. No, Woodrow Wilson, racist though he may have been, was not whooping and hollering and claiming this was like writing history with lightning; as far as history is concerned, he got up when the movie was over, thanked Griffith for the screening in a letter, and never commented on its quality one way or the other. And sure, this film was the first in a lot of regards which makes it technically impressive, but films after did everything it did way better while usually being less racist.
In this film, the white āgood guysā are either naive and too trusting of the black people, or are defined by being extremely racist. The black people are treated as wild animals who are undeserving of the freedom theyāre given, something exacerbated by the āreasonableā black people all being servants who are happy in slaveryāand thatās if theyāre even black, as most of the āPOCā are white people in obvious blackface (canāt imagine why black people wouldnāt want to star in this!). Worst of all, though, are the āmulattoes,ā the results of miscegenation and the evil conspirators who wish to bring about black supremacy and rule the South with an iron fist. None of this lends itself to a pleasant viewing experience for normal people.
This is illustrated pretty well by the abnormal freaks who loved this film: the Klan. They pretty much got pulled up out of the dirt thanks to this filmās propaganda and all the bullshit urban legends inflating its importance (as well as the actual, tangible things of importance it did) and their membership went up over the next decade. Like there are plenty of examples of films having negative effects on society throughout history, but nothing else approaches what this film did. It is genuinely an evil and amoral picture that emboldened domestic terrorists to regain honor that had been rightfully stripped from them with disgusting revisionist takes on Reconstruction as well as how it pushes the eye-rollingly stupid āLost Causeā narrative.
One of the most baffling things of all is that Griffith almost immediately had huge regrets about this movie. No, not the fact that this is one of the most racist works of art ever, but that people thought he was racist. Yeah. Contrary to popular belief, Griffith was very proud of this film and followed it up with his (bold for the time) anti-racism film Intolerance not to repent but to say āSee guys? Iām not racist!ā And I meanā¦ Itās cool that he did the right thing even if itās for the wrong reasons, but I donāt think it makes up for reinvigorating the Klan.
It just blows my mind, though. Even people at the time thought this film was too much, so how could he possibly be so dense? The movie ends with a violent Klan insurrection putting black people back into terrified squalor after they finally got a crumb of dignity and respect after three hours of portraying black people as tastefully as Mel Gibson portrays Jews. How the fuck is this not meant to be seen as racist? Like he was getting shit for this in the 1910s, do you realize how racist you have to be in the early 20th century for people to say āThis is too much?ā
Is There Any Value In This Film?
Sadly the answer is yesā¦ kind of.
If you, like me, love the medium of film and want to learn where certain tropes and techniques originate, you sometimes have to watch films like this. Innovation and great art are not the sole domain of the good and righteous; great innovations can come from evil places, and great art can be created by shitty people. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging it.
Thankfully, for the latter point we donāt have to worry, because as a piece of art this film is shit even setting the racism aside. This is a long, tedious film where barely anything interesting happens in the first half and where the only character arc anyone goes through is āSomehow becomes more racist,ā which just is not interesting character progression no matter how you slice it. You canāt expect much from an adaptation of a racist book written by a racist asshole, because racists of the caliber needed to deify the fucking KKK are going to be incapable of crafting any kind of coherent narrative. Art and innovation can come from anywhere, but there is a point where your bigotry precludes you from producing anything worthwhile.
One thing I hear about Mein Kampf is that, as historically important as it is, itās almost unreadably awful because Hitler fucking sucked at writing. And that applies to this movie too, Iād say. Is it a pioneering work of art that pretty much codified what cinema could do going forward and showcased camera tricks and storytelling tropes to the world for the first time? Yes! But is it also a tedious, nigh unwatchable racist screed that is so hellbent on being propaganda that it forgets to tell a good story or have engaging characters or do ANYTHING to entertain a person who isnāt a racist troglodyte? Also yes!
So ultimately, my verdict is this: If you have an interest in film history, watch this movie. Otherwise, donāt. I would hesitate to call a work of art evil under normal circumstances, but has any other work bred hate quite like this? Donāt subject yourself to this unless you absolutely have to or unless you really want to learn the origins of filmmaking techniques or what the ugly face of 20th century racism looked like.
Or maybe I should just say the ugly face of racism, period. It's truly disturbing and unfortunate that, despite the world rightfully condemning this film, we are in a time and place where the sort of views this espouses are now seemingly socially acceptable for sitting politicians to post on the internet.
There's a lot of movies people say couldn't be made today, but honestly? You'd be able to put this movie in theaters, and the Republicans would help it gross a billion dollars. We're witnessing a birth of a nation right now, and it's exactly the one this movie showcased. Fuck this movie, and fuck the United States for not learning a single goddamn thing from history.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
ā Live Streamingā Interactive Chatā Private Showsā HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ā¢ No registration required ā¢ HD streaming
remarkable how all the "evidence" of ancient people interacting with dinosaurs portrays said dinosaurs how they were being reconstructed around the time of the artefacts' "discovery" and not how we know them to have looked today. considering the ancient world had artists as talented as any era one would think they would make more of an effort to portray their lacertine megafauna as faithfully as their mammals.
Oceania: Abandoned Theories of the Peopling of Oceania
From the discovery of the peoples of Oceania, there have been many theories to how it was peopled, many of them being quite strange or racist by modern standards. The modern theory is based on genetic and linguistic evidence as well as the stories that were preserved by the indigenous peoples of Oceania.
Perhaps the first explanation by Europeans for how Oceania was settled is that there was a sunken continent, a counterpart of Atlantis known as Pacifide, allowing Oceanians to walk across the area, moving to the peaks of tall mountains as the land began to sink, leaving behind the Pacific islands. This was first put forward by a naturalist on James Cook's third circumnavigation and was written about as late as the early 20th century. It is now known that the vast majority of Pacific islands are volcanic in origin and that Sahul and Sunda did aid in the earliest movements, but that Oceanians also were very skilled sailors and navigators.
A nineteenth century theory was that the MÄori specifically were 'said that many of their customs, civil and religious, correspond to a remarkable degree with those of the Jews. The facial features of many MÄori bear a strong resemblance to those of the ancient race, the same exorbitant, shining eye, the same coarse, aquiline nose, and the same fine, sensuous mouth. (ā¦) Are the MÄori descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel?' This was accepted by some MÄori, with the leader of the movement claiming to be a descendant of Moses. This movement blended precepts from the Tanak with MÄori rites. The cult 'had a major influence on the HÅne Heke revolt in the north of the country and the MÄori royalist movement of the 1850s, with the first MÄori king Potatau Te Wherowhero claiming descent from the last kings of Israel'.
At the end of the nineteenth century, an effort was made to prove that Polynesians were descended from Indo-Europeans. This was an attempt to link Polynesian languages, which are in the Austronesian language family, are in the unrelated Indo-European language family. At this time, study into Indo-European languages was at its peak and there was a desire to 'demonstrate a common origin between the British settlers and the Maori [sic] populations'. These arguments were considered weak and 'reflecting an ethnocentric and colonialist ideology presenting Polynesians as "white savages" who could easily be assimilated into western culture'.
In the mid-twentieth century, a theory was proposed that stated Polynesians were from Native American peoples. This is based on the prevailing winds blowing toward the west, making travel in that direction easier to do, tools that resemble those found in South America also found on Polynesian islands, and the presence of sweet potatoes, which had their origin in the Americas. In an effort to reach Tahiti, the researcher and five crew members built an Inca style raft of balsa wood, which is a porous wood, but the raft was waterlogged less than halfway through the journey. Now, there is consensus that the Oceanians were the ones to reach the Americas and initiate contact and trade.
Just about every "AKSHUALLY, this thing is SECRETLY PAGAN!" claim can be traced back to:
Protestants making shit up to try and "prove" whatever shit they decided to hate on was secretly Satanic.
German nationalists making shit up trying to "prove" that Christian holidays had no connection to anything Jewish.
People failing to understand that European converts to Christianity retained many of their old customs and traditions, because Jesus being Lord doesn't mean there's no dragons in that there lake or that the plant lore everybody knows is all bunk.
People making wild assumptions due to a failure to comprehend that similarities between traditions does not inherently imply connection between traditions.
