D. W. Griffith's Racial Portraiture

D. W. Griffith drew on the multiracial history of the United States in many of his more than 400 films. His & his contemporaries' treatment of white ethnic minorities was not heavy-handed & was sometimes generous. Orientals were shown in more stereotyped ways. Griffith's portraits of blacks reflected the dichotomous attitudes of white society, which saw blacks either as good & submissive, or as wicked & rebellious. Griffith strongly admired the antebellum aristocracy of the South. Indian motifs were given far greater stress; they were portrayed as noble, capable of culture, but unassimilable. In some films Indians were heroes & whites villains. Marriages between whites & any other race were invariably shown as ending in disaster. Griffith shared the biases of his time, but not in their most virulent form. W. H. Stoddard.