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First was the portrayal of the Indians in the nursery rhyme. Their deaths were violent, and they certainly portrayed as minorities, and how minorities were viewed at the time. In addition, as the guests began to group together and form alliances, it seemed the film could be referring to the alliances of the Allies against Hitler and Japan in 1945. There were different groups forming alliances in the film, and they could have represented the alliances of Britain and the United States against Germany, Italy, and Japan. There were also veiled insinuations about other races, such as when one of the guests comments that the Butler could not be the killer, because the "shape of his head" indicated he was not smart enough to come up with the idea. This could have referred to the Japanese, who were consistently portrayed as buck-toothed, slant-eyed, black-haired caricatures in the newspapers of the day. Critically, the film was certainly not the best acted or filmed movie of the day, but the plot was excellent, and the mystery was convoluted enough to not be able to figure it out until the very end. However, the undertones were disturbing, and distracted from the other elements of the film that worked. Prejudice was certainly active and accepted at the time, and this film seems to be an excellent example of both good writing, and a heavy dose of discrimination thrown in for added interest.
Thus, if the conjecture about this film is correct, the historical value of this film to an Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) may seem non-existent at first,...
Since there were no actual Asians in the film, it is quite difficult to tell if the insinuations were correct or not. However, that they exist at all says much about filmmaking of the day, which was obsessed with the war and the stereotypes of the enemy. The Japanese were seen as "Japs," "Gooks," and worse, who were shuffled off to internment camps because they were a "threat" to the whites of the U.S. This film indicates how filmmakers did not include any minorities in films of the time, and that Asians were further ignored, no matter their ancestry, because they were all considered the enemy. These items hiding underneath what at first just seems to be an entertaining film make it more dark and ominous and the murders even more frightening and suspect.
In conclusion, this was a very interesting film that seemed to indicate the sociological feelings of the times. There were no minorities portrayed in the film at all, and the portrayal of the "Indians" in the nursery rhyme was quite prejudicial and mocking. The film seemed to have dark undertones of warring nations, perhaps because of the time when it was made, when America was still at war with Japan, and because of this, some of the film faded into obscurity when the darker undertones were discovered.
References
And Then There Were None. Dir. Rene Clair. Perf. Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, and Roland Young. Twentieth Century Fox, 1945.
Yet, these were small amenities that did not mask the horrible conditions of the camps very well. Most of those within the camps were American citizens, and should not have had their liberties taken away with such blatant disregard for upholding American principles of freedom. Many Japanese-Americans, who were born in the U.S., paid taxes, and even bought war bonds, were treated like criminals during the relocation, "The Japanese-Americans suffered
Japanese internment camps are a dark period of American history. The forced incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent was based solely on racism and a culture of fear. During World War II, Americans also counted Italians and Japanese as their archrivals but of these groups, it was only Japanese-Americans that were rounded up and placed into concentration camps. Just as African-American soldiers could not serve alongside their white counterparts,
The provision that persons cannot be deprived of liberty without due process of law takes precedence over the war powers." Both authors therefore agree that the American Constitution prohibits the unwarranted detention of citizens based on their ethnicity alone. Only the Chicago Daily Tribune article uses the type of language befitting an editorial. For instance, the author uses terms like "prejudice" and "hysteria" to describe the issue. The Los Angeles
internment camps for the Japanese that were set up and implemented by president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The writer explores the history leading up to the decision and the decision itself. There were six sources used to complete this paper. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor the American public was outraged and stunned. American citizens had lived with a false sense of security for many years that the soil of the United
Japanese-Americans in the West Coast lived peacefully before President Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 that condemned them to misery in internment camps in the deserts of California. Those who owned property had to sell them. Some had to give up their belongings. The Japanese-Americans could not wage any form of resistance because this would be suppressed by brute military force. Nobody would be foolhardy enough to
Internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II When the national interests are threatened, history has shown that American presidents will take extraordinary measures to protect them, even if this means violating the U.S. Constitution. For example, the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act enacted immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, watered down civil liberties for American citizens. Likewise, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War