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Rebel Hell: CSA: The Confederate States of America

Inspired by Ken Burns’ PBS documentary “The Civil War” and Hollywood’s general refusal to tackle the issue of slavery, CSA: The Confederate States of America is an ersatz documentary on American history that begins with the premise that the South won the Civil War.

In the script by writer-director Kevin Willmott, Confederate diplomats persuade European armies to join their side by persuading them that the war is being fought over the right to own and control private property. Like most of the film, this is a “what-if” scenario grounded in reality: The South did try to get Europe into the war and almost succeeded.

Armed with commentary from a pair of talking-head academic historians, Willmott condenses the next 140 years of history into 90 minutes that are alternately hilarious and provocative for the light they shine onto some of the darker aspects of the American soul. After exacting the same revenge on northern cities that General Sherman did on Atlanta, the Confederacy does not secede but instead takes over, changing the United States into the Confederate States. Lincoln is exiled to Canada and dies a bitter old man, though at least before witnessing his caricature in D. W. Griffith’s film The Hunt For Dishonest Abe (presumably what Griffith made instead of Birth of a Nation in this world where, just as in ours, history is written by the victors).

CSA remains as true as possible to the history we know to show how our world might have been warped by the continuance of slavery. The introduction of slave labor to the north is accomplished by tax pressure, causing most of the intellectuals and artists of the day to move to Canada. The CSA expands both westward—where Chinese laborers are also enslaved—and southward, colonizing Latin America, whose citizens are allowed their freedom under an apartheid-like system. A national religion is declared. By the time the 1930s roll around, the CSA is happy to back the Nazis, advising Hitler only that it would be less “wasteful” to enslave Jews rather than exterminating them.

What gives the film a real satirical bite is its frame. CSA is presented in the form of a British documentary being shown —with much self-congratulatory fanfare regarding its controversial nature—on an American television network. The show is periodically interrupted by commercials selling products used by a culture in which slavery is an ongoing practice, and in which racial prejudice has only grown stronger. Some are subtler than others: In the insurance ad that opens CSA, notice how the pitch to preserve your family and property focuses during the latter term on the black gardener. But that doesn’t make the promos for a “Cops”-like TV show called “Runaways,” or the cable TV “Slave Shopping Network” any less pointed.

And the ads that seem the most over-the-top—a restaurant called the “Coon Chicken Inn,” “Niggerhair tobacco,” “Darky toothpaste”—are all in fact for real products that were sold within our lifetimes.

Both a critique of America’s racist history and an exposé of the “market-driven” philosophies that make the exploitation of human beings possible, CSA is a low-budget film—Willmott is an assistant professor of film at the University of Kansas—whose reach sometimes exceeds its grasp: Anything more complicated than the parodic commercials has an air of cheapness to it. A bigger problem may be that it’s too smart for its own good; some of the subtler jokes may be lost on mass audiences, while Willmott’s path through the 20th century is wide-ranging enough to make us wish he had more time to tease his premise out even more.

CSA will be shown Wednesday and Thursday, March 8 and 9, on the Emerging Cinema screen at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center, 639 Main St.