Racism in Film

The matter of racism is a very sensitive in the film/movie industry. Many directors have different approaches when confronting it. The lives of the directors themselves play a key role in addressing racism. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List is the story of a German business man named Oskar Schindler who saves the lives of 1200 Jews during the holocaust by convincing Nazi members that he needs the people to work in his factory. Though a Nazi party member himself,  Schindler knows the value of a human life, Jewish or not. Spielberg has great knowledge of this event in history, but what makes him more connected than most is that his family were oppressed by the holocaust. His Jewish background helped him direct what it would be like for the Jewish workers at the time. Another example of a director with background to the movie is Spike Lee and his  work, Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee set up an average day in the streets on Brooklyn, New York. In this setting, people of different ethnic backgrounds such as blacks, Hispanics, and Italians interact with each other. When some problems happen around the community, racial tensions start to build up. Spike Lee new of this problem himself because grew up in Brooklyn. He himself had similar experiences with racial tensions when he was a child and adult, so he used that personal background in his films to bring up the problem with racism.