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| Did the North sellout black ex-slaves? August, 2007 |
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| What if the South had REALLY won the Civil War? |
Comparing reality to fiction can be an eye-opening experience.
What if the South had won the Civil War?
C.S.A. - The Confederate States of America*
A film by Kevin Willmott
“What if the South had won the Civil War” is the question posed and answered in the documentary parody by Kevin Willmott. The film designed as homage to the Ken Burns’ classic documentary The Civil War, is replete with faux commercial interruptions and fake news reports. It gives the viewer a disconcerting look at American History.
 Beware! This satire has a bite to it. The viewer should have firm grip on our historical roots because Mr. Willmott turns everything upside down. There is the unspoken assumption that the viewer lives in the alternate Universe where every middle class family has at least one Negro slave. The viewer is watching a documentary of his own American History except that the South had won the “North’s War of Aggression”.
The filmmaker presents a fictionalized alternate reality that is not really that far-fetched. In CSA, Abraham Lincoln was not killed by John Wilkes Booth but was trying to escape capture by southern troops with the help of Harriett Tubman! In the “documentary” Lincoln was caught and sent to prison. And Tubman was hanged. (In actuality the opposite is true, Lincoln was killed while in office and Harriett Tubman lived a long life into the 20th century. She died in 1913.)
American History is cleverly reversed. In Willmot’s world, the Confederate States of America reconciled with the northern states and erected a wall along the Canadian border to stem the flow of slaves escaping into Canada. During WWII, America conducted a sneak attack on Japan and became friendly with the Nazi German government of Adolph Hitler! Such preposterous scenarios seem plausible in the film.
The film is funny and NOT funny at the same time. The fake commercial “Runaway” gives us a disturbing look at today’s social ills of crime and poverty by using the “COPS” TV show as a surrogate motif of police repression.
If you get the film, be sure to bone up on your history. It is confusing. Some viewers might be offended and assume parts of the film to be true. Willmott offers his explanations in a bonus feature on the DVD disc, “The Reality of the Fiction.” Check it out.
Visit the official movie webpage at:
http://www.csathemovie.com/index2.html
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