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Within Our Gates

153 statements
29 feature instances
11 referencing feature instances

Within Our Gates	type	TVTItem
Within Our Gates	label	Within Our Gates
Within Our Gates	page	WithinOurGates
Within Our Gates	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Within Our Gates is a 1920 film written, produced, and directed by Oscar Micheaux.It is one of the earliest surviving examples of the "race film", namely, a film with an all- or nearly all-black cast, aimed at black audiences, and in this case, made by a black writer/director. The story centers around Sylvia Landry, who, at the start of the film, has traveled to the North to visit her cousin Alma. Sylvia is awaiting the arrival of her boyfriend Conrad, who is coming home to marry her. However, Alma also loves Conrad, and contrives for him to catch Sylvia in a "compromising position" with a white man. Conrad dumps Sylvia and storms out. Sylvia rejects the advances of Alma's brother-in-law Larry, a gambler and criminal, and instead goes back south to work for the Piney Woods School, a school dedicated to teaching young black children. The school is running out of money, so Sylvia goes back north to raise funds, meeting both Mrs. Warwick, a wealthy white philanthropist, and Dr. Vivian, a young black man who takes an interest in Sylvia. Sylvia won't marry him, though, so Dr. Vivian asks Alma about her, and hears a harrowing tale of Sylvia's past.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Within Our Gates is commonly believed to have been made in response to D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, which was both wildly popular and appallingly racist. Oscar Micheaux became the most important director in early African-American cinema, making several dozen films over a career that lasted thirty years. Many of his films are lost, and Within Our Gates was considered lost until a single print was found in Spain in The '70s. All but four of the intertitles were lost due to being replaced by Spanish titles, requiring the Spanish title cards to be translated back into English.Compare The Scar of Shame, another silent "race film", made seven years later and The Symbol of the Unconquered, a similar Oscar Micheaux film released later in 1920.
Within Our Gates	fetched	2021-09-18T00:12:50Z
Within Our Gates	parsed	2021-09-18T00:12:51Z
Within Our Gates	isPartOf	DBTropes
Within Our Gates / int_1c445e86	type	Poor Communication Kills
Within Our Gates / int_1c445e86	comment	Poor Communication Kills: Conrad angrily rejects Sylvia and storms off without even bothering to find out what was going on with the white man in Sylvia's room.
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Within Our Gates / int_3fca462c	type	Deus ex Machina
Within Our Gates / int_3fca462c	comment	Deus ex Machina: Sylvia is having a tough time finding money in Boston for the Piney Woods school, until she's hit by a car, which just happens to belong to a rich white lady philanthropist. Mrs. Warwick winds up writing a fat check to Piney Woods.
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Within Our Gates / int_4523420b	type	Love Dodecahedron
Within Our Gates / int_4523420b	comment	Love Dodecahedron: Sylvia likes Conrad, Conrad likes Alma, Larry likes Sylvia, Alma likes Conrad.
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Within Our Gates / int_479d4e5a	type	Would Hurt a Child
Within Our Gates / int_479d4e5a	comment	Would Hurt a Child: The lynchers don't even stop at shooting at Emil, son of the lynched Jasper Landry, so the boy escapes on a horse.
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Within Our Gates / int_53c9fc92	type	Flashback
Within Our Gates / int_53c9fc92	comment	Flashback: Most of the latter portion of the film is taken up by a long flashback in which Alma tells Dr. Vivian about Sylvia, including the terrifying fate of Sylvia's adoptive parents.
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Within Our Gates / int_5bca5a56	type	Surprise Incest
Within Our Gates / int_5bca5a56	comment	Surprise Incest: See Near-Rape Experience above.
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Within Our Gates / int_66e0117c	type	Gambling Brawl
Within Our Gates / int_66e0117c	comment	Gambling Brawl: A dealer is caught using a mirror to see the other players' hands, which precipitates a shootout.
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Within Our Gates / int_6b2b3b59	type	The Reveal
Within Our Gates / int_6b2b3b59	comment	The Reveal: Alma reveals to Dr. Vivian that Sylvia is half-white.
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Within Our Gates / int_792bb47a	type	Heroic Bastard
Within Our Gates / int_792bb47a	comment	Heroic Bastard: It is commonly believed by scholars that Sylvia is in fact Gridlestone's illegitimate daughter through a black woman. Whether the affair was consensual or not is open to interpretation.
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Within Our Gates / int_7febc23b	type	Establishing Character Moment
Within Our Gates / int_7febc23b	comment	Establishing Character Moment: Dr. Vivian is introduced reading a magazine article advocating for "the education of the black race".
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Within Our Gates / int_88dbce75	type	Card Sharp
Within Our Gates / int_88dbce75	comment	Card Sharp: The dealer at Larry's card game has a mirror that allows him to see what cards he's dealing. This precipitates a shootout.
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Within Our Gates / int_8cb01d0e	type	Category Traitor
Within Our Gates / int_8cb01d0e	comment	Category Traitor: Efrem, the cowardly man who falsely accuses Jasper Landry of murder and doesn't miss an opportunity to suck up to white racists. "Old Ned", the preacher who grovels to white folks and says that black folks should know their place. He tells his congregation that blacks shouldn't worry about things like education and the vote because they're going to heaven. In private, he feels ashamed.
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Within Our Gates / int_90d44f44	type	Karmic Death
Within Our Gates / int_90d44f44	comment	Karmic Death: "Divine justice punishes the real killer", as the white man who really shot Philip Gridlestone, and who joined the lynch mob after the Landrys, is accidentally shot and killed by other whites in the mob. Efrem, the traitorous black man who leads the white lynch mob after Sylvia's family, is himself lynched by the mob when they get impatient about finding Sylvia and her parents.
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Within Our Gates / int_9519d89a	type	Wealthy Philanthropist
Within Our Gates / int_9519d89a	comment	Wealthy Philanthropist: Sylvia's quest for funding Piney Woods School is successful when she is hit by a car carrying Mrs. Warwick, a rich lady. Mrs. Warwick writes a fat check.
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Within Our Gates / int_9bf7798d	type	Mixed Ancestry
Within Our Gates / int_9bf7798d	comment	Mixed Ancestry: See The Reveal below. Sylvia is embarrassed and ashamed of her white ancestry, which is why she rejects Dr. Vivian. After he finds her again and reassures her, she accepts his proposal and the film ends. The title card states that Armand Gridlestone was married to Sylvia's mother, but this is probably an error caused by the translation into Spanish, as a mixed marriage of any sort wouldn't have been credible in an American film of the time.
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Within Our Gates / int_a82ff02f	type	Meet Cute
Within Our Gates / int_a82ff02f	comment	Meet Cute: A mugger steals Sylvia's purse. Dr. Vivian tracks him down.
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Within Our Gates / int_a8982539	type	Gray Rain of Depression
Within Our Gates / int_a8982539	comment	Gray Rain of Depression: As Sylvia is leaving to go back south, after rejecting Dr. Vivian.
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Within Our Gates / int_a9b55780	type	Bigot with a Crush
Within Our Gates / int_a9b55780	comment	Bigot with a Crush: Armand Gridlestone is highly racist towards black people, however he was once married to a black woman and had a child by her. His daughter, the protagonist Sylvia, only learns about her parentage after Gridlestone almost rapes her. This character point isn't explained and contradicts most of Gridlestone's character, so historians believe that it was added in by censors to hide that Sylvia's either a Child by Rape or the result of an extra-marital affair.
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Within Our Gates / int_ae4845db	type	Near-Rape Experience
Within Our Gates / int_ae4845db	comment	Near-Rape Experience: Philip Gridlestone's brother Armand tracks down Sylvia, and is about to rape her, when he sees a distinctive scar and realizes that she is the long-lost daughter he had with a black woman. A title card explains that he paid for her education.
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Within Our Gates / int_b53077b3	type	Take That!
Within Our Gates / int_b53077b3	comment	Take That!: It seems that "Old Ned" was created to take a swipe at the "Uncle Tom" characters that were so popular in mainstream media in the 1920's.
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Within Our Gates / int_bb7ae292	type	Child by Rape
Within Our Gates / int_bb7ae292	comment	Child by Rape: One interpretation is that Sylvia was the product of rape between Gridlestone and her biological mother. The film says that she was the product of a married couple, however many scholars believe that was added in by censors.
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Within Our Gates / int_d7c100da	type	Race Film
Within Our Gates / int_d7c100da	comment	Race Film: Within Our Gates is one of the most well-known race films.
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Within Our Gates / int_dc579c91	type	Contrived Coincidence
Within Our Gates / int_dc579c91	comment	Contrived Coincidence: Larry, on the run after the fatal shootout at the card game, makes his way back south—and wanders to the town where the Piney Woods school is located, finding Sylvia again.
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Within Our Gates / int_e07d3d72	type	Uncle Tomfoolery
Within Our Gates / int_e07d3d72	comment	Uncle Tomfoolery: Efrem exhibits the cowardly, eye-rolling behavior associated with a Stepin Fetchit type, but of course in this film it is presented as humiliating.
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Within Our Gates / int_e4b69188	type	Very Loosely Based on a True Story
Within Our Gates / int_e4b69188	comment	Very Loosely Based on a True Story: There's a real Piney Woods School, which is still open.
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Within Our Gates / int_e529d5c3	type	Torches and Pitchforks
Within Our Gates / int_e529d5c3	comment	Torches and Pitchforks: The climax of the film is the terrifying flashback sequence in which an angry white mob hunts down, catches, and hangs Jasper Landry and his wife.
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Within Our Gates / int_e5fd8bc2	type	Hate Sink
Within Our Gates / int_e5fd8bc2	comment	Hate Sink: Efrem is a scumbag if there ever was one. He's the most despicable of the African-American male characters in the film, described as an "incorrigible" tattletale, who frequently drinks his "master's" liquor, and whose only "pleasure was to take from one place to another" any gossip he can obtain. He also wastes no time in taking advantage of his reputation as the "white man's friend", to (wrongfully) accuse well-meaning African-American Jasper Landry of murdering Philip Gridlestone, and babbling about the accusation to every white shop in town, leading to a mob forming to hunt down the Landry family, forcing them to evacuate. He also proves to be a Dirty Coward as after a week of failing to catch the family, the mob gets impatient, turns on Efrem and he's completely helpless in defending himself from being lynched. He even paints Jasper as a ruthless drunk savage for an article.
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Within Our Gates / int_e70127	type	The Mole
Within Our Gates / int_e70127	comment	The Mole: Efrem, "the white man's friend", spies on the black sharecroppers and reports back to Philip Gridlestone.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Within Our Gates	hasFeature	African-American Media / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Bigot with a Crush / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Card Sharp / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Child by Rape / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Gambling Brawl / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Mixed Ancestry / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Near-Rape Experience / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Race Film / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Surprise Incest / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Torches and Pitchforks / int_f7f808a1
Within Our Gates	hasFeature	Wealthy Philanthropist / int_f7f808a1

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