From The Birth of a Nation, to Mass Incarceration

10/11/2016

Today's episode of the Freedom Train Podcast Series we discussed the release of The Birth of a Nation, and the documentary 13th. What factors led to The Birth of a Nation not living up to expectations at the box office this past weekend? Is the story of Nat Turner overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Nate Parker's past? We also discussed the new documentary 13th, a documentary that covers the how slavery was transformed into its modern form, and how mass incarceration helped to destabilize Black American families. What impact will both films have on the black community? How can we create or use our own black movie production companies to tell our own stories? Tune in to hear what we had to say.

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2 Comments

Valorie Pollard

10/17/2016 08:11:02 pm

THE BIRTH OF A NATION WAS NOT A FLOP.
WHERE ARE YALL GETTING YOUR INFORMATION?

Patrick Irvine

10/17/2016 09:50:00 pm

You are right. It is not a flop in the traditional sense of the word. But it did not meet opening week expectations which is why it is being labeled as a movie that flopped in its opening weekend. It also did not meet the expectations of the average movie goer in terms of reviews. While it did get fairly decent overall marks on most ratings sites it did not garner the high marks that it was expected to. Overall it simply did not do what was expected of it.

That being said if it crosses the 20 million mark it will have broken even. But its been everywhere that the movie has largely been considered a flop. All of these points were spoken to as well as the fact that we believed there needed to be a new metric for hit or flop when it comes to movies of this nature.

Thank you for listening.