‘Slavery, Like Nothing Else, Is What Defines Us as a People, as a Nation’
Everyone knows the South lost the Civil War. What this film presupposes is… maybe it didn’t?
CSA: Confederate States of America is framed as a television documentary from a universe in which the South won the Civil War and slavery never ended, complete with archival footage and commercials from the other world. More contemporary satire than rigorous alternate history—especially as it replaces communism and the Cold War with Canadian “abbies” and a “Cotton Curtain”—the film is at its best when their CSA is indistinguishable from our USA. The brief Cops parody, Runaways, is one such standout moment, as is the punchline for the “history lesson” about the film’s seemingly made-up brands before the credits:
Today, the use of slave imagery in the promotion of products often goes unnoticed.
Just ask Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.
You can watch CSA on Netflix or rent it at Amazon. Here’s the trailer:
Thanks to Derrais for turning me onto this.
Gerry Canavan 
*like*
Alex
September 5, 2010 at 2:16 pm
I saw that when it first came out, in some tiny indy theater in Austin– great film, definitely worth everyone’s time.
Sam
September 5, 2010 at 4:30 pm
second the ‘like,’ but i think i would’ve liked it more if they extended the premise (maybe they do in the full version?) by having the CSAmericans try to justify it in terms of contemporary liberalism. what would be the PC term for slave?
also wouldn’t the union still exist if the confederates won the civil war? unless hitler helped them kill ‘us.’
Vu
September 5, 2010 at 5:24 pm
They try to do that with the way the Confederates win the war, which credits a Southern rhetoric of liberty and self-determination with bringing the English and French into the war early enough to switch the outcome. With English and French assistance the war is a rout and the Union falls entirely. The industrial and population centers of the North are laid waste and Northern elites are coerced into adopting slavery by a federal tax policy that encourages it. Basically by the time the CSA is spreading its empire southward the Union only exists as a romanticized “lost cause.”
It’s justified mostly in terms of racism, though there is a little bit of a critique of liberalism at the margins.
They use the word “servants” a few times seemingly as a substitute for the word slave, but “slave” seems pretty PC in the world of the film.
gerrycanavan
September 5, 2010 at 5:32 pm