Conclusion

"Mississippi Burning" illustrates a lot facts from the investigation, but doesn't give hardly any background on the events leading up to why there was an investigation in the first place. As discussed before, the African American community was not depicted correctly. They were shown to be cowardly, and idol in their cause. That, in actuality, was far from the truth. They were the ones leading the fight to obtain the right to vote with little assistance from white activists.

The white privilege in this movie is shown in how the FBI is portrayed as the saviors of the black community. The film almost makes a hero out of the agents which, again, is not true. They were there because it was their job and there were two white boys that were missing.

It also does not depict the actual violence that occurred. There were few times in the movie that it seemed to be portrayed accurately, but was never shown enough to do it justice.

In the end, what it comes down to, is the fact that this is a fictional movie with historical events embedded. The movie was made first and foremost to entertain, and second to inform.

Bailey: I learned so much from this movie/project. One thing I really took out of it was that you can't always believe something is factual simply because it says "based on true events" in the credits. As silly as that sounds, in the past when I've seen that, I automatically would take everything in the movie for fact. "Mississippi Burning" had a lot of good messages to it, and a few parts were portrayed correctly. However, in all, the filmmakers missed the biggest point of the entire investigation and why the boys were missing in the first place. There was a much bigger picture to what happened that was completely forfeited.

Kent: For me, "Mississippi Burning" has always been a movie I have enjoyed.  That being said, for as many times as I have seen it, I had no idea what was actually happening as far as why the civil rights workers were killed. I just thought it had something to do with civil rights, but specifically what, i didn't know.  The movie itself has many factual events and portrayals, but misses the mark when it comes to actually telling the story of the plight of the blacks receiving the right to vote in Mississippi. It's very dramatized and shows the white FBI agents as caretakers and fighters for the "poor" black folks. I understand that Alan Parker is first and foremost a film maker.  That means money and audience comes first. And for that reason,  is why this film lacks in a lot of the historical information that people need to fully understand the murders of the three boys.


Raquel: I thought that "Mississippi Burning" was an excellent movie. As I conducted research for this project, I truly did gain an understanding of what the actual events of this time period was. I gained a more critical eye and was able to spot out the theories and ideologies of the film. White privilege is very predominant in this film, and features the FBI as the saviors of the movie. The movie was about the Freedom Summer, and it was a long and tedious battle many blacks fought in order to get the right to vote. The director did an okay job representing the facts of the movie, but he also used his artistic license and added different drama and events than actually occurred. 


Marisa: I personally thought that “Mississippi Burning” was a great show. However, after researching the event I don’t think that it was put together correctly. There was really no background to give the film context. While I was watching the film I had no idea why the boys were shot and I didn’t know that the whole movie was because of voting rights for African Americans. I felt like the director glorified the FBI agents and focused the film around them and not the actual events of the time period. I also do not think the film showed the reality of the violence that was going on in that time period. Overall, I thought this film really downplayed this event. I think showing a more accurate reality would have provided movie viewers with a stronger understanding of what was going on in that time period