Paper detalis:
Assignment description from prof:
This week you’ll be watching Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 film, Within Our Gates.
For your assignment, I’d like you to consider the character types represented in Within Our Gates. We have learned a good deal about the pejorative racist stereotypes that dominated depictions of African Americans in American popular culture for much of the 20th-Century from Ethnic Notions and Birth of a Nation. Micheaux seeks to refute those stereotypes in Within Our Gates. In doing so, however, Micheaux depicts other African American characters types. Some of these are positive portrayals, others more negative and critical. In a short informal essay, please compare and contrast two or more of these character types. You might consider the “New Negro,” the “Southern Reformer,” the “Southern Preacher,” the “Northern Urban Gambler/Gangster,” and/or any others that you can identify.