15 Controversial Movies That Actually Live Up To The Hype
1. The Birth Of A Nation
The Film:
One of the most important films of all time, this more or less wrote the cinematic rulebook in terms of film-making techniques. The film is a story of two American families - one Northern, one Southern - during and after the Civil War.
The Controversy:
This has been overwhelmingly criticized for its racism and for its romanticization of the Ku Klux Klan. It's a film people can't decide if they admire or loathe much of the time.
Why It Was Right:
The Birth of a Nation is even worse than people say it is.
The first half is good, but the second half is one of the hardest-to-watch bits of cinema ever. In this story, the villains are African-Americans, who are mostly portrayed by white actors in blackface make-up. They are depicted as sexually aggressive, thuggish and unintelligent, and as being responsible for society's problems. The heroes of the story are the Ku Klux Klan and we are all meant to cheer as the black people are lynched, murdered, humiliated and intimidated into not voting.
It gets worse. This led to the reformation of the KKK and was used as a recruitment tool as well. So, we're now looking at a film which is responsible for the deaths of hundreds - probably thousands - of people.
Thanks to its true technical brilliance, its place in cinema history is cemented, but it's unfortunate that such a morally repugnant film holds any kind of significance.