C. S. A. The Confederate
States of America
Directed by Kevin Willmott
Bamboozled
Directed by Spike Lee
Our final conversation will concern two movies that seek to criticize and appropriate the patriotic and racist Hollywood narratives concerning slavery. C.S.A. is a "mockumentary" directed by Kevin Willmott, a professor of history. It imagines what the U.S. would be like if the Confederacy had won the Civil War and slavery had not been abolished. Bamboozled is Spike Lee's direct attack on the visual languages of slavery that we still see employed today in the media. Both movies seek to transform how we imagine and talk about race today, and both try to separate narratives of slavery from the minstrel stereotypes that originated in the nineteenth century (during slavery) and have been employed in almost every film we have considered. The recent success of The Help makes clear that the changes Lee and Willmott seek are far from complete. We will ask: How do Willmott and Lee attempt to retell the story of slavery in America? How do they differ from and react to images of blackness seen in previous movies? Are they successful in subverting minstrel stereotypes? Can stereotypes ever be erased? What is the future of the slavery movie? How will Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming Django Unchained (2012) treat the subject?
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