Alternate History Examines Racism
Kansas City Filmmaker Satirizes History
In July 2003, I had the opportunity to attend a special screening of CSA: The Confederate States of America. The viewing was part of the Campbell Conference on science fiction and the film, a documentary of an alternate history of our nation, was the grand finale. But to refer to CSA as a science fiction film or to call it a "mockumentary" (as it has often been called in the press) is a slight. It's more than a speculation on history or a comedic mock-up of it. It's an engaging, telling story of racism that hits very close to home.
Directed by: Kevin Willmott
Written by: Kevin Willmott
Starring: Evamarii Johnson, Rupert Pate, Larry J. Peterson, and Charles Frank
Rated 
Running time: 89 min.
FilmGuru's Rating : 8 out of 10.
If the title seems a bit textbookish there's a reason. CSA is portrayed as a History Channel-esque documentary about the birth of the Confederate States and the aftermath of the War of Northern Aggression. For the science fiction impaired, let me explain. It's a movie about what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War. Moreover, it's told as a television documentary, looking back on the effects of the war after 150 years.
The film begins with an explanation that this "controversial" documentary was produced overseas and was now being aired in the Confederate States for the first time. So, from the very beginning, the audience is told three things: the film is about the Confederate States, it is told from an outsider's perspective, and the CSA was not the intended audience. In a series of montages, we glimpse how very different the world would be if the North had lost the war. Perhaps the most reverberating is the image of American soldiers raising a Confederate flag at Iwo Jima.
My first reaction to the film was envy. Writer and director Kevin Willmott had managed to tell a compelling story that looked and felt like a real History Channel documentary. Many times I was lulled into a false sense of time and place, forgetting that this was not a true documentary. The production values are often so slick that the mocked up history looks genuine.
Of course, there's a good deal to laugh about in CSA as well. As a satire, it is biting. The outrageousness of the things being said often sound like something that a show like Saturday Night Live might have done in its earlier edgy years. But the humor begins to fade away when the words being used and the things being said start to sound like echoes of reality.
As the presentation unfolds, the history itself is almost secondary to the constant reminders of slavery and racism in the present day CSA. As the "television" special plays, it is frequently interrupted by commercials for everything from drugs that help keep slaves passive (see your veterinarian for a prescription!) to public service announcements asking people to report blacks who may be trying to pass for whites.
Perhaps most sobering is the fact that many of the products advertised in CSA are not the result of Willmott's imagination. He used real restaurant chains, cigarettes, and other items that openly used stereotypes and racism in their product name, logo, or radio and television advertisements.
This is what good science fiction does, and why CSA was featured at the Campbell Conference. By exploring our past and present from an alternate point of view, things that we don't often notice or may take for granted are made clearer. Things that may not seem racist to our eyes become magnified when viewed through the eyes of another.
An obvious labor of love, CSA is slick but clearly not made by Hollywood. While the historical footage looks amazingly realistic, some of the footage seems of a lower production value. The acting is good, but not great, and the camerawork seems like the work of film school devotees rather than big budget crews. I can't knock CSA for not being a multi-million dollar production, though. The advantage of an independent film like this is that it dares to say things that a studio film never would.
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