Media Post #9

1. A transcript for the movie The Patriot can be found at: http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=patriot_the


The Patriot. Dir. Roland Emerich. Prod. Dean Devlin, Mark Gordon, and Gary Levinson. Perf. Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, and Joely Richardson. 2000. DVD. Columbia, 2000.
2. The media item that I will be using is the movie "The Patriot." It is a movie about how a former British war hero in the French and Indian War, Benjamin Martin, organizes a group of militia from South Carolina to battle the British army during the Revolutionary War. During the process he loses two sons and a daughter in law, who give themselves up for the American cause during the Revolutionary War. The reason that I picked this movie is because it is one of my favorite movies. I also thought it had some scenes and lines that had to deal with some things that we have talked about during our class.
3. I think that this movie is related to the movie we watched in class called “Ethnic Notions.” During that movie it said how during the early movie production era, many African American women were overweight and always friendly to their white masters. They were called mammies in that film. I think “The Patriot” displays the mammies also. In the movie, Benjamin Martin’s wife died early in her life, so he had an black slave do the house work and take care of his smaller children during the day, while he was out getting work done. Anyways, the housemaid in this movie was kind of like a mammy from a movie from the 1930’s. She is overweight and is always friendly to Martin and all of his children. She listens to whatever Martin tells her to do and always does it with a pleasant attitude. This reminded me of the mammies that the movie “Ethnic Notions” mentioned. Another thing in “Ethnic Notions” was that in early movies most slaves were always happy to do work for their master. They never rebelled and always obeyed. On Martin’s plantation the slaves are very similar to this. They are happy to work for him and work hard. But in the “Patriot”, Martin and his family treat the slaves very well. He respects them and so do his children. The same goes for his sister-in-law’s plantation. When he sends his young children to her so he can go fight, the slaves on her plantation also are very happy and obey her. They value her so much that when British soldiers come to kill her and Martin’s children, the slaves do not tell the British where they are hiding and even give up their lives for her and the children. Another theme that was discussed in “Ethnic Notions” was the fact that male black slaves were viewed as brutes that were very smart and dumb. This is also the case in “The Patriot.” During the scene where Ben and Gabriel go out and look for militia to join their forces and oppose the British, Ben talks to a man who is unable to fight because of an injury. So he gives a slave to fight in his place. The slave cannot talk very well and can’t write, but he is of large stature and very strong. I think that he accurately depicts a brute the same way earlier films did back in the early 1900's. During the beginning of the fighting, one white man says he would never fight alongside this black man. But after he saves this white man’s life during a battle, he insists that he deserves to be freed after the war. The end of the movie made it seem as if that black man would be free because he fought in the war, but we all know from our readings that this was not the case as slavery continued after the war even for the black slaves that fought during the war.
4. “The Patriot” is right up there as one of my favorite movies. I think the movie may have made a concerted effort to not come off as racist though. In the movie, the Martin’s treat their slaves very well, when in reality at this time most slaves were probably not treated that well by their masters. Also at then end like I just stated in my analysis they made it seem that the black slave that had fought with them would gain freedom and have an excellent life ahead of him. When in reality this was probably not the case. So as a whole I really enjoy the movie, but I think there were a few things involving the blacks in the movie that were probably not accurate.