C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America is a 2004 mockumentary Mockumentary is a genre of film and television in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format; the term can also refer to an individual work within the genre. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself directed by Kevin Willmott. It is a fictional Fiction is any form of narrative which deals, in part or in whole, with events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary and invented by its author(s). Although fiction often describes a major branch of literary work, it is also applied to theatrical, cinematic, documental, and musical work. In contrast to this is non-fiction, which deals tongue in cheek account of an alternate history Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate history works may use tropes from any or all of in which the Confederates The Confederate States of America was the government set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S. The CSA's de facto control over its claimed territory varied during the course of the American Civil War, depending on the success of its military in battle won the American Civil War Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi – Pacific Coast and established control over all of the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. This viewpoint is used to satirize subsequent issues and events in American culture The development of the Culture of the United States of America has been marked by a tension between two strong sources of inspiration: European ideals, especially British; and domestic originality. C.S.A was released on DVD DVD, also known as Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, is an optical disc storage media format, and was invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Time Warner in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage. DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs , but are capable of storing just under seven times as much data on August 8, 2006.

Willmott, who had earlier written a screenplay about abolitionist John Brown John Brown was an American abolitionist, and folk hero who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859, told interviewers he was inspired to write the story after seeing an episode of Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films known for his style of making use of archival footage and photographs. Among his most notable productions are The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), and The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009)'s The Civil War.[1] It was produced through his Hodcarrier Films.

Contents

Overview

The movie is presented as if it were a British documentary Documentary film is a broad category of moving pictures intended to document some aspect of reality. A "documentary film" was originally a movie shot on film stock—the only medium available—but now includes video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a television programme. "Documentary" has being broadcast on Confederate network television. As such, it disagrees with the orthodox Confederate American interpretation of American history and opens with a (fictional) disclaimer A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally-recognized relationship. In contrast to other terms for legally operative language, the term disclaimer usually implies situations that involve some level of uncertainty, waiver, or that suggests that censorship Strict censorship existed in the Eastern Bloc. Throughout the bloc, the various ministries of culture held a tight rein on their writers. Cultural products there reflected the propaganda needs of the state. Party-approved censors exercised strict control in the early years. In the Stalinist period, even the weather forecasts were changed if they came close to preventing the broadcast, that its point of view might not coincide with that of the TV network A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small number of broadcast networks. Many early television, and that it might not be suitable for viewing by children and "servants".

It portrays two historians, Sherman Hoyle, a conservative Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were." The first CSA white man White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin. Rather than a straightforward description of skin color, the term white also functions as a color term for race, often referring narrowly to people claiming ancestry exclusively from Europe, and Patricia Johnson, a black The term black people usually refers to a racial group of humans with skin colors that range from light brown to nearly black, according to a recent scientific study human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan African populations. It is also used to categorize a number of diverse populations together based on historical and prehistorical Canadian, as "talking heads," providing commentary. Throughout the documentary, a Confederate politician and Democratic The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. It is one of the world's oldest political parties and boasts the lengthiest record of continuous operation in the United presidential candidate, John Fauntroy V (the great-grandson of one of the men who helped to create the CSA), is interviewed. Narration explains faux Faux is a French word for false or fake. It is often used in English phrases such as faux pearls historical newsreel A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers until television supplanted its role in the 1950s footage, which is either acted for the production, or made of genuine footage with fictional, dubbed Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting schedule. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be speaking a different language. The narration.

Racist CDE · CEDAW · CERD · ILO C100 · ILO C111 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR ads aimed at white slave-owning Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages. In some societies it was legal for an owner to kill a slave. In others it was a crime to kill a slave families appear throughout the movie, including an electronic shackle for tracking runaway slaves, a Runaway television program (satirizing COPS COPS is an American documentary television series that follows police officers, constables, and sheriff's deputies during patrols and other police activities. It is one of the longest-running television programs in the United States and the second longest-running show on Fox, and along with America's Most Wanted, the first of the longest unchanged), Darkie Toothpaste, and the Coon Chicken Inn. Additional commercials were produced but deleted from the final cut, including ads for the Confederate States Air Force and the children's show Uncle Tom and Friends Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the United States, so much in the latter case that the novel intensified the sectional conflict leading to the American Civil War. The sitcom Beulah is portrayed as Leave It to Beulah.

At the film's end, titles note that parts of the fictional CSA timeline are based on real-life Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or may be thought to be. In its widest definition, reality includes everything that is and has being, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible history, and that some of the advertised products actually existed.

Alternate timeline

American Civil War

In the fictional timeline, politician Judah P. Benjamin Judah Philip Benjamin was an American politician and lawyer. He was born a British subject in the West Indies, became a citizen of the United States and then the Confederate States of America. After the collapse of the Confederacy, he settled in England and died in France succeeds in having the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927. It was formed by the merger of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, with Ireland being governed directly from Westminster through its Dublin Castle administration and France France is a founding member state of the European Union and is the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and in the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th aid the Confederacy, so that the Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg (locally /ˈɡɛtɨsbɜrɡ/ , with an ss sound), fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated favors the South. A fictional D.W. Griffith David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance (1916) movie shows Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown helping Union During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 Southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the Confederacy. Although the Union states included the President Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led the United States through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. Before his election in 1860 as the first Republican president, Lincoln, reared in a (disguised in blackface Blackface is theatrical makeup used in the United States in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, and around the world. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and propagated American racist stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the "dandified coon ". In 1848, blackface minstrel) escape to Canada The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three after the CSA's military defeat of the Union, when Confederate soldiers capture them. Tubman is put to death and Lincoln imprisoned. After two years, Lincoln is pardoned and exiled to Canada, where he dies in June 1905. Before dying, Lincoln laments not having made the civil war a battle to end slavery.

Post-war expansionism

After the war In the history of the United States, the Reconstruction era has two definitions, the first in reference to the entire nation in the period 1865-1877 following the Civil War, and the second to the transformation of the Southern United States from 1863 to 1877, with the reconstruction of state and society in the former Confederacy and the addition, the South tries to bring the North into their way of life. John Fauntroy I introduces a tax that is alleviated by purchase of slaves, and the works of Samuel A. Cartwright dominate American medical science Medicine is the science and art of healing humans. It includes a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Before scientific medicine, healing arts were practiced along with alchemical and ritual practices that developed out of religious and cultural traditions. The term &. The CSA becomes the Western hemisphere's superpower — conquering and occupying all of the continental US The contiguous United States are the 48 U.S. states on the continent of North America that are south of Canada, plus the District of Columbia. The term excludes the states of Alaska and Hawaii, and all off-shore U.S. territories and possessions, such as Puerto Rico, Mexico In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory, which was administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain which would eventually become Mexico, Central America Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. Central America is considered to be part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, excluding the southern portions of Panama, and South America South America is the southern continent of America, situated in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest, with a blend of segregation Crime of apartheid · CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR and apartheid Bantustan · District Six · Robben Island . Only Canada is not a CSA "client state Client state is one of several terms used to describe the subordination of one state to a more powerful state in international affairs. It is the least specific of these terms and may be treated as a broad category which includes satellite state, associated state, puppet state, neo-colony, protectorate, vassal state and tributary state. The idea", becoming home to refugee abolitionists In Western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. The slave system aroused little protest until the 17th century[citation needed] when Quaker and evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian and the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for and escaped black slaves; the American wall constructed to separate the two countries is called the "Cotton Curtain" (counterpart to the real Iron Curtain The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances:). Hatred of "Red Canada Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon communal ownership of property" dates to the late 19th century, when Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining renown for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. Douglass also actively supported women's suffrage. Following the Civil War, he worked on behalf of equal rights for convinced the Canadian Parliament The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch – represented by her governor general – the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and organisation. The governor general summons against repatriating slaves. The humane decision, despite the trade impediment of the "curtain", is vindicated when Canada reaps the greater reward of becoming the popular culture capital of the world (the African cultural contributions profitably feeding Canadian culture), whereas the CSA's culture never evolves beyond government-inspired propaganda such as The Lawrence Welk Show.

In 1895, the Confederate government, which did not separate the Church from the State, outlawed all non-Christian religions. After much debate, the Roman Catholic Church was permitted as a Christian religion. Originally, Judaism, too, was outlawed, but, after grasping the contributions of the Jewish Judah P. Benjamin to the Confederate cause, the government decided to house American Jews in a reservation (similar to a Native American reservation) in Long Island, instead of executing or deporting them.

World War II

During World War II, the CSA was friendly with Nazi Germany, but disagreed with Hitler's Final Solution — the CSA preferred enslaving non-white races, instead of destroying them. The CSA agreed to remain neutral in any German war. Instead, the CSA preemptively attacked the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941 (counterpart to the attack on Pearl Harbor), as the opening blow in a defensive war against the "Yellow Peril". The CSA military commissioned a black regiment to fight that race war, by promising the black soldiers freedom if they would agree to fight (which was later revealed to be a lie), which is ended by the atomic bomb. This was dubbed the "Long Island Project" and involved capturing Albert Einstein, who was en route to Canada to provide the atomic bomb as a solution against the Nazis, and convincing him through deception to develop the bomb for the C.S.A. instead, stating they would use it to attack Germany but attacking Japan instead (though this is mentioned on the film's website and not in the film itself)[2] — the bomb's development is referred to as "the Grace of God", by historian Hoyle. However, the European World War II still ends in German defeat, but with many more Soviets dead.

Cold war with Canada

During the 1950s, a series of abolitionist attacks cause some Confederate Americans to question the need for slavery. In 1960, when only 29 percent of voters approve of slavery, Roman Catholic Republican John F. Kennedy is elected CSA president over Democratic candidate Richard Nixon. However, foreign policy such as the Newfoundland Missile Crisis[3] distracts him, and he is unable to change the nation before being assassinated. The Vietnam War is briefly mentioned as an "expansionist campaign" of the CSA. Slaves rebel throughout the country, including the Watts Riots. Democratic Senator John Ambrose Fauntroy V presents programs returning America to its former Southern Protestant Biblical values — tolerance of adultery and of husbands beating their wives, and intolerance of homosexuals. By the early 1990s, the Confederacy has largely put away such self-doubt.

Modern day

The documentary's finale reveals the documentarians had asked Senator Fauntroy V to arrange their meeting with some slaves. As the slaves were coached for the interview, proceeding was pointless. However, the crew had clandestinely received a note instructing them to go to a rural Virginia road and meet the black man "Big Sam" (earlier identified as a slave who had been a fugitive for two years). Big Sam, in turn, leads them to Horace, a slave of Sen. Fauntroy, who alleges Fauntroy is part black, having a slave ancestor. The racial accusations cost Sen. Fauntroy the presidential election; a month later, the senator commits suicide on December 12, 2002. Narration then states DNA tests were "negative."

Cast and crew

Main cast

Crew

See also

References

  1. ^ The Second Civil War - Village Voice - February 7, 2006
  2. ^ http://www.csathemovie.com/timeline/moreinfo/long_island.html
  3. ^ http://www.csathemovie.com/timeline/moreinfo/newfoundland.html

External links

Categories: American films | English-language films | 2004 films | Abraham Lincoln in fiction | Alternate history films | American Civil War films | Comedy-drama films | Mockumentaries | Political satire films | Race-related films | American Civil War alternate histories

 

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