Mississippi BURNING!!!

Ms Huang showed us this fantastic film during Language Arts class for the past few lessons and I really enjoyed the movie. The main reason I felt so was due to how interesting the movie was and also how successful the movie was in bringing out the events that occurred in 1964.

Mississippi Burning was a movie about the prejudice to the Blacks and also about the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) who went extreme measures to vent their anger on them. The KKK believed that "White Anglo Saxon Protestants" (WASPs) were superior to the Blacks and there was a need to get rid of these Blacks because they dirtied the image of a pure WASP community. The KKK was then formed with this intention and therefore they burned down many Black churches and lynched many innocent Blacks just because of their skin colour. To show this situation, the producer of the film went quite in depth to relate the story and provide background information on this prejudice towards the Black. Due to the strong emphasis on history and also the interesting use of camera angles to keep the viewers at the edge of their seats, I enjoyed the film alot.

In my opinion, after watching Mississippi Burning, the main burning question I had was why did the Whites hate the Blacks that much? Was it just because of their skin colour? Unfortunately, yes. >.< Being someone who believes that everyone should be treated equally, I could not help but empathize for all the Blacks who appeared in the movie. Especially when there was this one specific scene which showed the lynching and hanging of a Black man in front of his burning house in great detail while his son watched helplessly from afar. At that moment I really felt for the coloured community and the Blacks as a whole and from time to time, I even had this hatred against the Whites. I think Mississippi Burning was a film which was slightly tilted more towards the Blacks. The Blacks were portrayed as holy, spiritual and pure while the Whites were portrayed more of being cruel, heartless and merciless. I think the director of the film purposely shifted the focus of the film to allow the audience to empathize more for the Blacks and lesser for the Whites in order to cause the audience to view the entire situation from a different point of view. As the Blacks were the victims in this situation, I think it was also sensible and logical to film the show from the perspective of one who was receiving this prejudice. This would make a greater impact on the audience and thus cause the film to be more touching and emotional.

Cheers,
Raphael