CSA: The Confederate States of America

I love "What if?" stories. I think they're fascinating. They're questions you can't really get wrong because the truth is, those situations didn't happen.

But let me be clear, these stories are fun to hypothesize with... if they're done correctly.

CSA: The Confederate States of America is a mockumentary theorizing what would happen if the Confederacy had won the Civil War. The movie plays it up as if the documentary is British made looking at the Confederate States of America in present day.

The movie starts at the Civil War and explains that through diplomacy, the Confederacy is able to persuade Europeans to fight on the side of the Confederacy. They beat the Union in the war, take DC, and annex the rest of the United States.

The movie then proceeds to go time period by time period of American history with a twist as if the Confederacy has won the war and slavery had remained a vital part of the American economy and system.

Now the movie takes a lot of liberties. A lot of the reason slavery stays in place is due to a fictional family that throughout the generations continues to advocate for slavery.

Unfortunately this brings up a little bit of a contrivance of the movie because its so hell bent on making the South have slavery all the way to the present day. The fortunate truth is, slavery wasn't really economically smart for the South even before the Civil War. I understand that after the war slavery would still be in place for a little bit but it would eventually have faded out.

Unfortunately for this movie, this makes the whole "slavery sticks around" really hard to convince me of.

I think some people today, definitely people in the Northern parts of the United States, see The South as this backward, fundamentalist, KKK loving land who if give the chance would own a slave too quickly.

The problem with that mentality is that is over antagonizes the people of the South. The majority of the people in the South didn't own slaves, just like the majority of Northerners weren't really concerned about freeing the slaves. So if it didn't really make economic sense to keep slaves after the war and people start advocating for emancipation, people like the War Hero Robert E. Lee, which he does in the film, public opinion would mostly be towards Emancipation.

 This wouldn't bother me so much if this movie wasn't convinced that if the Confederacy won the war, we'd be a redneck, fundamentalist, Arian supremacy nation that is friends with Hitler.

I'm from the Northern part of the United States and I like to give the South a little bit more credit than that. I also want to give a little bit more credit.

Of course, I'm not naive. I understand that racism still exists, it took a long time for the United States to get to where it is and for a long time non-whites have been disenfranchised. How much longer would it take if slavery was ended, not over a moral reason but just because it phased out?

And I think that brings me to the strengths of the movie. While the slavery elements are exaggerated, the documentary is caked in with commercials that show racially insensitive products, and a culture surrounded by slavery.

The twist is that a lot of the products shown are actually products that appeared in the United States. Its also an interesting take on what commercials would be like if slavery still existed. Its really dark politically incorrect humor that goes along with it.

For example, there are infomercials actually selling slaves. Its over exaggerated but its so ridiculous its got its own humor.

The second part that was pretty clever was the take on history. While I had a couple reservations because it was basically normal history with slaves and the Confederacy.

For example, John F. Kennedy is still elected and intends to emancipate the slaves around the same time he promised to pass the Civil right act. The problem with it is it gets really difficult to believe he'd get elected. Even more unlikely to believe he would still be assassinated. Even more unlikely that his vice president, Johnson, who did more for blacks and civil rights then Kennedy did, wouldn't emancipate.

But apart from the far-fetched levels, the movie was pretty clever with its take on history. For example, instead of Russia becoming America's biggest enemy after World War 2, Canada beomces it because all the liberals and runaway slaves went there. Therefore the United States builds "the Cotton wall" instead of Russia building the Berlin wall. And instead of communism being America's #1 threat, its Abolitionism.

The writing was alright for a low budget film like this and while I would have liked to see a little bit more realistic representation of Southern influence as opposed to just racism, it was a clever movie to watch.

Is it a little bit overly contrived? Yes. Is it exaggerated? Yes. Is it accurate... not really. But is it an interesting and funny watch? Yes.

You can find this documentary on Netflix or Youtube. Its not a long movie while it could have been and its interesting.

Have you seen CSA: The Confederate States of America? Do you like alternate histories? Discuss and comment below.

I'll leave you with this. Its an example of the far fetched and down right silly commercials they put out in this movie. I hope you enjoy it, don't take it too seriously, its all satire.