The myth of white superiority inMississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning purports to tell the story of the civil rights struggle through the investigation of three missing civil rights workers. Although the manifest content of the film appears to be a compassionate representation of the struggles of black Americans in 1964 Mississippi, mythic analysis reveals a much different agenda. The goal of the present essay is twofold. First, it demonstrates how Mississippi Burning is a communication of the myth of white superiority. Myths function to both explain and resolve cultural dilemmas. This film explains how whites have lost power in the United States, and proposes a method for reacquiring it. Second, this essay suggests a revision of the Social Value Model of mythic criticism developed by Rushing and Frentz (1978) and Frentz and Rushing (1978). By incorporating an element of structuralism, the SVM becomes a more useful tool for examining the rhetorical power of myths.