Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the more things change..., January 12, 2007
i won't claim to know enough about american history to question the alternative history presented here. from what i do know though its accurate enough to turn the current history on its head. indeed, just before the end of the film credits inform us just how close perhaps we came to the horror described in this film actually being reality.
at times hysterically and painfully funny, bitingly scathing of the csa while at the same time showing that (sadly), as some people have already pointed current us attitudes aren't that different, even behind a facade of political correctness. this film pulls no punches throughout
using real footage this is essentially a faux english documentary narrated by a ray stubbs soundalike, shown on csa tv interspersed with ads that straddle the border between truly offensive and truly funny (think south park/ borat) ads. it starts off with the south winning the war of independence with the history commented on by two talking heads, a black history professor from montreal and a csa-based white author - both, natch, on different sides. we also get to see the brilliantly odious (little lord - sorry, couldn't resist) white bread presidential candidate fauntroy v. we also see the troubles that this increasingly isolated country suffers from and due to its attitude to slavery. te former includes some of the 'problems' with slaves mentioned below - in fact considering that phrenology was once accepted as good science the acceptance of the concept of freedom diseases like 'drapetomania', which causes slaves to run away should surprise no-one. the csa becomes more and more isolated as other countries recoil from its policy (though hands up europe has more of its share of blood on its hands due to colonialism. sadly too black african leaders don't come out of this too well either.) one of the more shocking revelations is the support the csa lends to hitler and his 'biologically correct' policies - indeed the then president suggests to him why exterminate jews when you can instead 'put them to work' since extermination is a "waste of livestock". maybe not so surprisingly is the fact that the csa fosters a right-wing christian fundamentalist mentality (with the catholic church accepted to be, after much debate, christian). hmmm, where's that mirror???
as pointed out some of the products show in these ads used to exist in the 'real' us. take the slave shopping network or control aid contrari - showing how blacks and mixed race are shown as truly sub-human in this 'brave new world' - with side effects which are not recommended by vets (VETS!!) on servants who are about to 'drop a litter'. to show how well these ads mirror the america of the past, look at the pisstake of 'cops' called 'runaway'. devoted to the capture of runaway slaves (quite the problem apparently), it has a laugh-out-loud theme tune; think the cops tune performed by a bunch of drunken hicks and you're there.
one final thought though - look at this ad and see how close it is to the parallel universe 'cops' show, look again at the faces of the runaways/ criminals and those of the cops. notice anything? just in case you missed it, how close is the 'fantasy' of teh csa to the reality of modern day america? the more things chance...
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yo Bubba, it's a COMEDY!, April 7, 2009
Yo Bubba, it's a COMEDY! Not a spewing Bud Light through your nose at Larry the Cable Guy kind of comedy, but a sub-genre of traditional comedy and satire called... you're really gonna love this... BLACK COMEDY. Feel free to ditch Junior's broken down Trans Am in the cable company's parking lot if they broadcast this movie on your local History Channel.
From Wikipedia: "The purpose of black comedy is to make light of serious and often taboo subject matter, and some comedians use it as a tool for exploring important issues, thus provoking discomfort and serious thought, as well as amusement, in their audience."
C.S.A. does explore some important issues, such as revisionist history. This topic appears important to several other "reviewers." In the Post-Reconstruction era, from 1877 until Brown v. Board of Education, white supremacists, like Woodrow Wilson, were able to revise the Civil War story, making property-owning Christian Southerners victims of a "War of Northern Aggression."
This revised story claims Southerners had no desire to expand slavery, and that the biblical "Curse of Ham" would have likely gone out of fashion... like leisure suits. This delusion remains today, despite the record of pre-Civil War violence in Kansas and Missouri, the passage of The Fugitive Slave Act, and the Dred Scott court decision. This delusion allows John Brown to be rejected by the National Statuary Hall while Brown's captor, Massa Robert E. Lee, is venerated as a freedom loving patriot.
While the actual "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" does NOT contain any reference to unfair taxes or tariffs, the deluded continue to pontificate otherwise. It does list failure to uphold the "rights of property" of slave holders, denouncing "as sinful the institution of slavery" and "the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery" as justification for secession.
C.S.A.'s lampooning of D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" featuring a runaway blackfaced Abraham Lincoln may provoke discomfort in some viewers. Both defenders and detractors of Lincoln are told that it wasn't about slavery, but he rejected the Crittendon Compromise of 1860... as in "bring it on." The original 1915 silent film was based on "The Clansman," a play by Thomas Dixon, son of a Confederate Army colonel and classmate of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, the first post-Civil War Southern President, is quoted in support of the KKK in Griffith's blockbuster. Wilson, when not endorsing picture shows, found time to bring the Jim Crow laws of the south to the federal government...that's called "Git'R'Done."
C.S.A. is not for everybody. Racists, whether they fly the flag in public or only in their hearts, will be offended... as the rest of us are by them, and their abhorrent ideology.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
CSA: Confederate States of America,
Interesting Idea by Mackinley Kantor, but blown out of proportion by this Film. I give it two stars for outlandish humor and 0 stars for content. This next donation to my local library for it's book/DVD sale is where it will end up. The $1.00 the library will get is about what it's worth.
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