Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning

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Mississippi Burning : Reaction

The 1988 film tells a fictionalization version of the

investigation into the real-life murder of civil rights workers in

Mississippi in 1964 . The film focuses on the two fictional FBI

investigators who go to Mississippi to investigate the murders . The FBI

agents are portrayed as heroes who descend into this injustice in the

hundreds , however in reality the real FBI agents and the justice

department reluctantly protected the Civil Rights workers and the

protestors reportedly witnessed the beatings without interfering

Mississippi Burning

claims to highlight the injustice of

southern society in 1964 . The FBI agents are given the job to

investigate the disappearance from a Mississippi town . It is made as a

point of fact that two of the men were white . The FBI agents , one a

former by-the-book Yankee determined never to violate the rights of the

interrogated , the other agent , is a local man who has been tainted by

the South . He is a streetwise complex character who believes that to

handle Scum ' You must sink to Gutter level

At first glance the audience recognizes these characters

bringing out the old buddy-buddy film formula however , the film expands

this cinematic clichy by becoming an ideological statement . Mississippi

Burning brings out the resistance of a Southern community to change

from an old way of thinking at a time when anti-liberal values of a

small town in America still seem right when the Supreme Court is

chipping away at the achievements of the 1960 's . The films message is

that all these battles have to be fought again and much harder than

before at any cost for the lives of the men who were unjustly killed

Mississippi Burning

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The film like Birth a Nation ' is stereotypical is historically

inaccurate . Black men in Birth A Nation ' are portrayed as shiftless ,lazy , rapist , criminals whereas the black men in Mississippi Burning

are seen as only mute victims . Southerners are portrayed as red-necked

ignorant , racists who are all members of the KLAN

The Klan is doing the church burnings , cross burnings , lynching

and murders of the three activists however , everyone does not want to

speak up because of fear of retribution from the KLAN and the mutual

bigotry that is rampant in town . The KLAN is a major terrorist force

that keeps the people in town quiet . The investigators become the

embodiment of the conflict , which is the essence of the film . A diner

scene where the investigators enters an obvious segregated diner

question a black kid who was brutally beaten up the KLAN . Another is

when the investigators visit the Deputy 's wife in the hospital where it

is found the KLAN beat her because she helped the FBI agents

The investigators end their personal differences to come together

as a force at the end of the film to resolve the central problem

Anderson hires someone to get out important crucial information from

the Mayor of the town with threats of castration...