Three Questions (well, actually 5)

Questions regarding Williams' "Playing the Race Card" chapters & Mickey's Mellerdrammer

1. Williams highlights Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a primary example of racial melodrama. This novel was also very controversial at the time it was released (which Williams discusses). Did Harriet Beecher Stowe purposefully use melodrama to make the book even more controversial?
2. Does the “silent” aspect of Birth of a Nation make the film more melodramatic? What do critics think?
3. Woodrow Wilson’s “It is like writing history with lightning” quote is highlighted. In what context was this said? How does this apply to what we have read so far in class?
4. Why is “asbestos” misspelled on the curtain in Mickey's Mellerdrammer? What significance does it have?
5. What song was sung in the background at the start of the play during the cartoon? What is it trying to communicate?