Actress shunned for role in ‘Birth of a Nation’
Lillian Gish, 1915
BOWLING GREEN – Some are calling for changing the name of the Bowling Green State University Gish Film Theater because of Lillian Gish’s starring role in the 1915 D.W. Griffith film “Birth of a Nation” and its racist portrayal of African-Americans.
“We have to do the right thing and we have to ground what we do in our values,” said College of Arts and Sciences Dean Raymond Craig.
Issues with the theater name emerged soon after installation of the new Gish Film Theater signage in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union during the first week of February. Continue reading
~ Forewords ~
Many of us grew up watching Dracula movies – Nosferatu, the “Undead.” Fearful of the sunlight that could burn him into cinders, Dracula lived in a coffin filled with his native Transylvanian soil by day, only to come out at night to live off the life-giving blood of the living. But to continue his “unnatural” existence, this human-like vampire had to kill his victims by draining them of their own blood, or in the process of turning them into “creatures of the night,” like himself. Welcome to the nature and history of socialism. 
Since the beginning of the twentieth century one of the newer art forms and expressions of our culture has been cinema—“motion pictures.” It was the novelty of live theater and acting captured as moving images in film and presented on a screen. In many respects, like other art forms, film represents what is happening in our culture. At its very finest it is capable of shining a vivid light on our beliefs and values, portraying them, dissecting them, and, like other art forms, it may be used as an instrument to affect or even shape our outlook and our politics.