e South (Guerrero 17). The depiction of the mindless lust and violence of the "Gus" character was so starkly drawn that it could not easily be replicated in an even slightly convincing manner in lesser films. As Diawara notes, Gus's pursuit of "Little Sister" and her death-before-dishonor decision to kill herself "supports a Manichaean world-view of race in which Gus represents absolute evil and Little Colonel and his sister embody absolute good" (213). This is so broad and severe a division of the world that without the skills (and racist commitment) of a Griffith it would probably be revealed to any audience as the absurdity that it is.
A second reason is provided, however, by Guerrero who notes that the Hays Code (officially the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930) specifically prohibited the presentation of interracial sexual relationships of any kind. The words of the Code warned that "miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races) is forbidden." The specification of "white and black" relationships as opposed to t
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