Confederate States Of America (2005)

Yahoo Movies ^ | 12/31/04 | Me

[Caipirabob]

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Stars with bars:

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

Some things are better left dead in the past:

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

Compelling story or KKK wet dream?:

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

So what do you think of this movie?

[R. Scott]

Very few people even owned slaves, perhaps 5% or less.

Even with Robert E. Lee supporting his one slave acquired through an inheritance in retirement – the slave was too old to work – and U.S. Grant owning several slaves, people (Yankees) still insist the War of Northern Aggression was all about slavery.

[R. Scott]

And Delaware.

[Caipirabob]

We can blame Spike Lee, it will probably part of the introduction credits in his film.

It's mearly presented as fodder for discussion. I thought the moon shot was pretty cool. Don't care for the shot of Abraham Lincoln at all.

[Noachian]

It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

In any scenario that sees the South as the victor one has to ask what was the purpose of its army before it was engaged by the Union army?

If it was an army mainly for the defense of the southern states its "victory" would be limited to the security of the borders of the Confederacy, and it would have gone no further north unless attacked by the Union army.

If it was an army of expansion of southern ideals then it would be an army of invaders pushing north. It would have preemptively attacked the Union army along a broad front, and its "victory" would only be complete when it took the New England states.

So, the question comes back to: What was the purpose of the Confederate army?

[tallhappy]

Spike Lee usually makes better movies than his own rhetoric. He's a one dimensional hack when he talks, but his films are much richer.

I don't see any movies anymore, but Spike Lee believe it or not would be much better making a movie like this than a typical hollywood player.

[ishabibble]

I saw 25th Hour and was impressed. My question is, "How did we all get so immune to the horrors of movie reality, that I actually enjoyed a film that featured a drug dealer as a hero, a pedophile as a sympathetic character, a teenaged Lolita, a coward as best friend, a useless father figure, and a love intrest who is never to be trusted?"

That's Spike Lee for ya'....

[R. Scott]

The other issue was pure cultural, where we still find the war raging, the socialist anti god elitists of the New England States could not tolerate the God fearing South.

Yes, yep and oh yea.

[x]

The movie is a satire. Put yourself in the filmmaker's shoes. His parents or grandparents might have told him about how things were under segregation, and how much effort it took to change laws and attitudes towards race in America. Then he hears someone saying that if the Confederates had won, "of course" they would have abolished slavery, and "eventually" they would have come to support racial equality, without anyone having to suffer or get mad or protest.

Can you understand his anger at such self-serving excuses and evasions, at the waving away of a century of conflicts and problems like they didn't exist? Can you see that he might have some reason to be angered or saddened by such a brushing under the carpet of some of the hard realities of American history?

Of course, we don't know what America would have looked like had the Confederates won. And the filmmakers do exaggerate things for effect. They're not writing a thesis or making some mathematical model of an alternative universe. They're not trying to be fair-minded above all else. They're using a certain amount of absurdity to point out the absurdities in another point of view.

Most people who know the history will likely leave the theatre recognizing that the movie exaggerates and isn't entirely fair, but perhaps they'll question some of the assumptions of the neoconfederate propaganda of recent years. We can recognize the absurdity and exaggeration, but also see the point. By contrast, some of today's Confederate propaganda is absurd, but pretends to be true. I don't know if the film works or not, but good satire can have a cleansing effect, but deflating some of the bad arguments that come to predominate in public controversies.

[wardaddy]

I love the South and my heritage ...all of it.

I have never insisted others feel the same way.

Lincoln? I'm ambivalent....he was a damn sight better than his radical republican brethren but I often wonder if he couldn't have done better at putting the flames out.

As for lampooning him or anyone.....I can think of anyone but Spike Lee who I would rather do that.

Spike is still sore his daddy went all "jungle fever" with a white broad.

[x]

Maryland was a slave state and in the Union yet they retained their slaves.

For how long? Do they still have slaves there? Was slavery ever abolished in Maryland? If so, how?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Slavery was officially abolished in the United States when the 13th Amendment was passed in 1868. An interesting bit of history, when the southern states refused to ratify the 14th Amendment because in it was language that prohibited any ex-Confederate soldier or politician from ever holding any public office, the Northern dominated Congress refused to seat any of the Southern reresentatives or senators, declaring them "illegitimate holders of the seats". They then put in political hacks that could be counted on to be good little yes-men and proceeded to institute Reconstruction which was a continuation of northern appointed political hack carpetbaggers who made sure that NORTHERN interests were of top priority while the interests of the Southern states and people were ignored.

Can you begin to understand why Southerners were so pissed at the damnyankees for so long?

[Restorer]

Maryland was a slave state and in the Union yet they retained their slaves.

And KY, DE and MO.

BTW, Missouri and Maryland freed their slaves by state action before the federal government did. The actual constitutional amendment therefore only freed the (hundred or so in) Delaware and those (a much larger number) in Kentucky.

[Restorer]

Yes and there was Illinois, Linkums home state, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, that also were slave states.

Sorry, dude.

In 1860 Ohio, Illinois and Indiana were not slave states.

You have a right to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

[wardaddy]

You have a right to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

LOL...good line.

At one time was not the entire Americas part of the trans Atlantic slave trade...even Canada?

Not counting the indig slaving, but that's another thread

shame how so many folks under middle aged think slavery is the worst thing ever foisted on mankind...for some it's turned out to be a blessing.

[Restorer]

At one time was not the entire Americas part of the trans Atlantic slave trade...even Canada?

I suspect there were a few black slaves in French Canada, but they would hardly have been common. French Louisiana, of course, was another story.

One statistic you may not be familiar with: Of all the slaves transported across the Atlantic during the black slave trade, only about 10% were taken to what is now the United States. 90% went to Brazil and the Caribbean. The slaves in these areas had a much shorter average life, as the closer distance to Africa made them cheaper to replace than to maintain. Slaves in America were more expensive due to distance and "shipping losses," and were therefore on average much better treated.

IL, OH and IN never had slaves, as the Northwest Ordinance (passed by the Confederation) banned slaves from settling in the territories that later became these states. Same is true of MI and other states that were entirely or in part included in this area.

This Ordinance, of course, was passed when even southerners still agreed that slavery was a bad thing and the only question was how to get rid of it. Over the decades after about 1820, the South gradually developed an ideology of slavery as a positive good, which would have made the southern founders imitate a lathe. The proponents of this racist and inherently anti-democratic ideology were the most forceful proponents of secession.

[wardaddy]

Happy New Year.

[wardaddy]

btw...I am very familiar with slavery. I am a 7th generation Mississippian and was once married to a Brasilian and have lived throughout the Carib Basin and South America and West Africa.

The reasons slaves fared better in North America was not simply economic or climatologiocal but cultural as well.

There are reams of works out there detailing that mistreatment of slaves was frowned upon here for the most part.

The great irony is that slavery in Brasil where it was harsher inadvertantly resulted in a more mixed race society ultimately even under harsher conditions....

Yes...there were some slaves for a time in Canada.

The brakes on slavery began with the UK if I'm not mistaken and involved recompense...an idea that never got very far here.

Too many zealots on both sides....not unlike today actually but of course I feel as right now as they did then..lol