By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
An all-star petition is circulating among some film scholars and actors trying to get Bowling Green State University to reverse its decision to remove the Gish name from the university’s film theater.
The university stated today that it has no intention of doing any such thing. “The decision to remove the Gish name from the relocated film theater was made with the values and best interests of our community in mind, and we stand by it.”
The statement calling for the reversal, written by Michael Kaplan and Joseph McBride and titled “An Opportunity for Fairness and Justice at Bowling Green State University,” claims that removing the names of Lillian and Dorothy Gish because of Lillian’s role in the 1915 silent film “The Birth of a Nation” “is a disservice to film history and to the university itself.”
Kaplan produced Gish’s last film “The Whales of August” and McBride was a co-writer of “The American Film Institute Salute to Lillian Gish.”
The name was removed from the theater in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union at the end of the semester after objections by members of the Black Student Union. A task force was convened to study the issue, and issued a report recommending the name change. The university’s Board of Trustees unanimously concurred with the report’s findings.
Even those supporting keeping the name admit “The Birth of a Nation” is a racist film that played a role in the revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
Kaplan and McBride describe Gish’s part in the film as a supporting role. The task force report called it a starring role.
The McBride-Kaplan statement asserts the film “takes an indefensible, racist approach to the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction.”
It adds: “But as even the university admits in its task force report on the theater’s name, Lillian was no racist.”
The university’s report noted that throughout her life Gish defended Griffith’s work and never addressed the racist nature of the film.
In their letter, the authors claim that “inadequate language” on the display at the student union was to blame for the outrage. No reference to Lillian Gish’s role in “Birth of a Nation,” the highest grossing film of its time, when the theater was located in Hanna Hall.
The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Film Theater was moved from Hanna Hall its location since 1976 to the student union when work began on transforming Hanna into the Maurer Center, the new home for the College of Business. The theater’s founder Ralph Wolfe, a professor emeritus of English, objected to the relocation and then to removing the name.
That wording on the display, Kaplan and McBride said, paid too much attention to Lillian Gish’s role in “The Birth of a Nation” and not enough to the rest of her nine-decade-long career and her philanthropic efforts. They recommend “a more informative and artful display should be created to acquaint students and others with the full context of Lillian’s legacy in all its varied facets.”
They write: “This is a supreme ‘teachable moment’ if it can be handled with a more nuanced sense of history.”
BGSU statement maintains: “(W)e are proud of the way our community dealt with this issue — coming together to have a respectful dialogue.”
The process involved “extensive input from students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the public.”
Members of the Black Student Union complained about the name after noting the irony of the screening of the documentary “13th,” which uses clips of “Birth of a Nation” to illustrate racism in the United States, in a theater named for Gish.
In the two town hall style meetings hosted by the BSU, dozens of students of color said having the theater associated with “Birth of a Nation” made them feel uncomfortable and unwanted on campus.
During the second meeting, a student crouched before Wolfe and his friend and supporter Wally Pretzer and asked why they were so adamant about retaining the name in the face of student’s reactions. Neither answered.
In its statement today, the university noted that it has “ an obligation to create an inclusive learning environment” and that its primary responsibility was to the campus community. “That obligation outweighs the University’s small part in honoring the Gish sisters’ legacy.”
Whatever the decision, the university statement continues, someone was going to be displeased.
Kaplan in his letter claims: “We’re receiving strong support for our effort from an eclectic coalition that includes: James Earl Jones, Helen Mirren, Martin Scorsese, George Stevens, Jr., Bertrand Tavernier, Lauren Hutton, Jay Cocks, Mike Hodges, Taylor Hackford, Annie Ross, Malcolm McDowell, Illiana Douglas, Shep Gordon, Joe Dante, three former presidents of the Writers Guild — Victoria Riskin, David W. Rintels and Howard A. Rodman and James Frasher (Lillian’s longtime manager), and prominent artists, critics and scholars from major colleges and universities. There are now 53 names in support. There is also an on-line petition with nearly 800 signatures.”
