Movies from an Independent Confederacy

A lot of the movies would be like the stuff Nazi Germany made I think.

But the Confederacy likely doesn't end up like Nazi Germany. Some of the kinds of movies they will make will likely consist of.

1. Civil War set movies that glorify the Confederate Victory.
2. Musicals that have Country Music sung.
3. Sports films glorifying Sports popular in the Confederacy.
4. Romance films following a Southern Belles journey from Courtship to Marriage.
5. Confederate Government sanctioned Educational Films.
6. Action films featuring the Hero trying to save the Confederacy from being overthrown and or destroyed.
7. Films featuring the Hero racing to save a kidnapped Southern Belle from a group Blacks (Confederates will depict them as monsters).
 
If it's anything like the Canadian film industry it'll just be a shadow of its American counterpart. People will watch American movies and bemoan the lack of mentions of the Confederacy or Confederate characters. The stuff that is local will be lower budget and generally less well done than their American counterparts. Depending on how oppressive the government is will determine the content that's prohibited or banned. The only thing I can see definitely being more popular than OTL is the religious sword and sandal epics (Ben Hur, etc), everything eles is far too dependent on how the intervening century plays out politically.
 
There could be a niche in the horror genre for Confederate film, especially given New Orleans and the whole Southern Gothic theme. Evil Dead was out of Tennessee, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.
 
I think some posts here are leaning a bit too hard on the slavery angle; it would probably be omnipresent, but as like a background cultural assumption rather than the central point of every movie. There would be movies about romance, war, tragedy, history, crime, comedy, and so on.
This. People is acting like every single film in the Confederacy would be propaganda revolving only around Confederate "values"/history/culture. In reality, most would just be normal romances, action adventures, and the like. Racism would be omnipresent in depictions of African-Americans, and any film that dealt with Confederate or American history would be obnoxiously pro-white Southerners, but other than that, they would play much like movies in other countries.

Though, as others have said, since the Confederates would be unlikely to have a large film industry of their own, it's likely that they would mainly watch foreign (mainly American and British) films.
 
There is much talk about slavery, but few people think about the fact that the southerners themselves are able to realize its unprofitableness. The true rarity of war is the contradiction between the industrial North and the Agrarian South. I suppose that the cinematography is co-mediated in the depiction of rural life.
 
Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind (except it ends "happily" with the Old South "free" from Northern "opression"); basically all your "lost cause" type of films.

Lost cause? You mean the won cause TTL?

Eh, haven't seen it. Not really my speed.

Maybe instead of Westerns, they have Mountain films, transposing the struggle between '''''civilization''''' and savagery to the rough-and-tumble (and generally slaveless) Appalachians instead of the American West.

The "Hillbilly film", people would call it.

But since the CSA has Texas, and could get New Mexico and even Arizona, you could always have the more traditional Western.

This. People is acting like every single film in the Confederacy would be propaganda revolving only around Confederate "values"/history/culture. In reality, most would just be normal romances, action adventures, and the like. Racism would be omnipresent in depictions of African-Americans, and any film that dealt with Confederate or American history would be obnoxiously pro-white Southerners, but other than that, they would play much like movies in other countries.

Though, as others have said, since the Confederates would be unlikely to have a large film industry of their own, it's likely that they would mainly watch foreign (mainly American and British) films.

Seriously, this thread is a collection of Southern stereotypes run through the filter of every non-slave in the Confederacy doing nothing but living, eating, sleeping, and breathing slavery and when they found a break from that, cursing damnyankees.

Even a CSA with slavery would have different concerns come 50 years post-war when cinema starts up.

I would imagine they'd try and ignore potraying blacks in Confederate films that weren't period dramas. And blacks would likely be portrayed as hard-working, ignorant but good natured people living the life God meant for them to--in the service of a good, hard-working plantation owner. Your typical "slavery as a positive good" stuff. I'd imagine other appearances of slaves in films would probably be of the house slave or mammy, who would likewise be of the exact same portrayal.

But as has been noted, foreign films would dominate the Confederate market, edited to remove objectionable content. Which would most of the time be "too much sexuality/profanity" or for religious reasons ("offensive to God") rather than something like "positive portrayal of blacks" or "glorifying the Union".
 
This. People is acting like every single film in the Confederacy would be propaganda revolving only around Confederate "values"/history/culture. In reality, most would just be normal romances, action adventures, and the like. Racism would be omnipresent in depictions of African-Americans, and any film that dealt with Confederate or American history would be obnoxiously pro-white Southerners, but other than that, they would play much like movies in other countries.

Though, as others have said, since the Confederates would be unlikely to have a large film industry of their own, it's likely that they would mainly watch foreign (mainly American and British) films.

What you said about the size of a Confederate film industry is correct since as the years would pass Anti-Confederate sentiment outside the Confederacy would definitely grow as each year passes. And any Confederate Film Studio would run into numerous roadblocks like Boycotts of Confederate films, Confederate films being outright banned in numerous foreign countries, Foreign film studios refusing to distribute Confederate films for example.

And the foreign studios would run into issues selling movies in a surviving Confederacy like Actors and Film Crew members boycotting the Confederacy, Fear of repercussions by potential film-goers (Many foreign film studios would fear bankruptcy if they sold films in the Confederacy), Being prohibited by law from distributing their films in the Confederacy (Will happen in many countries) for example. A potential Confederate film industry will not be huge like the industry in Hollywood but would need to be of sufficient size to produce enough films to satisfy demand for films in the Confederacy.

Confederate films would likely have Film Budgets and Shooting schedules almost similar to many of the films that Roger Corman had made IOTL.
 
Lost cause? You mean the won cause TTL?



The "Hillbilly film", people would call it.

But since the CSA has Texas, and could get New Mexico and even Arizona, you could always have the more traditional Western.



Seriously, this thread is a collection of Southern stereotypes run through the filter of every non-slave in the Confederacy doing nothing but living, eating, sleeping, and breathing slavery and when they found a break from that, cursing damnyankees.

Even a CSA with slavery would have different concerns come 50 years post-war when cinema starts up.

I would imagine they'd try and ignore potraying blacks in Confederate films that weren't period dramas. And blacks would likely be portrayed as hard-working, ignorant but good natured people living the life God meant for them to--in the service of a good, hard-working plantation owner. Your typical "slavery as a positive good" stuff. I'd imagine other appearances of slaves in films would probably be of the house slave or mammy, who would likewise be of the exact same portrayal.

But as has been noted, foreign films would dominate the Confederate market, edited to remove objectionable content. Which would most of the time be "too much sexuality/profanity" or for religious reasons ("offensive to God") rather than something like "positive portrayal of blacks" or "glorifying the Union".

The CSA would have Texas at first but they would run into the issue of what they need to do to keep Texas from breaking away and becoming it's own Independent Nation or decide to rejoin the Union. So called Hillbilly films would likely exist as a genre. The removal of "Objectionable content" from foreign films distributed in the Confederacy would happen by the mandates of the Censorship boards that the laws in the Confederacy would create. The "Objectionable content" would likely be defined as Excess Sexuality, Excess Profanity, Blasphemy, Offensive to God, Positive depictions of Blacks, Demonizes the Confederacy, Depictions of any successful overthrow of the Confederate Government, Advocates or Incites any type of action against the Confederate Government for example.
 
And the foreign studios would run into issues selling movies in a surviving Confederacy like Actors and Film Crew members boycotting the Confederacy, Fear of repercussions by potential film-goers (Many foreign film studios would fear bankruptcy if they sold films in the Confederacy), Being prohibited by law from distributing their films in the Confederacy (Will happen in many countries) for example. A potential Confederate film industry will not be huge like the industry in Hollywood but would need to be of sufficient size to produce enough films to satisfy demand for films in the Confederacy.

If the Confederacy bolishes slavery in the 1880s, I don't see why they would be boycotted.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
ATL culture is always a fascinating thing to explore, but a lot of this thread does tend towards "planet of the hats"-style oversimplification. To immediately qualify my own statement: it does depend a lot on exactly how the CSA gains independence, and what territory it holds. A Deep-South-only CSA that gained its independence after a long and bitter struggle is going to be a different beast than a CSA that has all of the Upper South and won its independence (relatively) easily-- through foreign assistance, for instance. That first nation may well become a rabidly entrenched slavery-will-always-be-sacred pariah state with an explisively plantation-based economy, becoming ever more isolated as the world at large begins to impose embargo measures. But the second secenario is completely different. Abolishing slavery will still be difficult, but to such a nation, international pressure actually means something. We must assume that regardless of frosty relations with the USA, it would be as normal a member of the international community as similarly slave-owning Brazil. Only later on, when the pressure mounts to get rid of slavery, do tensions arise. But for such a nation, I see it ultimately being resolved in the 'put a sunset on slavery' way, rather than the 'hermit kingdom of horrors' way.

Needless to say, the "mess struggling to survive" and "culture like nazi Germany" notions apply only to the first scenario, and not at all to the second scenario. These two scenarios are, of course, what one might call the worst and best case scenarios, respectively. In reality, we might expect some situation in between the two. Yet a lot of people seem to think that the CSA will automatically become the worst case scenario, which is a bit strange, I believe. The idea that the CSA wouldn't last long enough to see film technology develop is equally strange. A nation, having won its independence, is not just going to fall apart again. Even in the 'worst case scenario', the embittered Deep South rump-CSA would understand that only by holding together could it ever hope to preserve its "way of life" (for which it had bled so much in its costly war of independence). The idea that the people of the CSA would be too backwards to comprehend how film technology works is just... patently absurd. The exportation of a hillbilly stereotype (which is hardly a real life portrayal in any case) to an entire nation.

So... given the premise of a CSA that neither suffers its worst case scenario nor enjoys its best case scenario, what might we expect of its eventual cinematic culture? Personally, I would expect the following:

-- Clear 'content codes' (i.e. censorship laws), but on a state level. Something may be permitted in one state, but not in another. This is hardly something I see the CSA instituting on a national level. (This is a country that, at its constitutional convention, seriously debated whether the central government should be allowed to build public infrastructure of any kind, and ultimately settled on restricting such works to the most essential sort only. That kind of mentality is not likely to see the central government get involved in film production...) More likely, large film production firms will institute their own voluntary productation codes, to ensure that major productions can be shown in all the states.

-- A certain obsession with patriotism and the Confederate war of independence. The USA in OTL is rather fond of such heroic historical films about the ARW (and the Civil War, for that matter). Considering the sheer amount of monuments and equestrian statues commemorating the Civil War in the OTL South, I think that such themes will feature prominently.

-- A distinct lack of films showing 'dangerous blacks' and such matters. On the contrary, films will go out of their way to show how eveything is in good order, and how everyone in his right mind - even the slaves - ultimately benefits from the way things are. If rebellious slaves are ever shown, they will be portrayed as inherently evil characters, trying to tempt the 'good' slaves to the 'evil' ways of dissent. Their 'malign' influence will only end up hurting the 'good' slaves, these 'villains' will always be 'exposed', and the loyal slaves will be shown to have been 'right' all along. In other words: expect propaganda, rather than fearmongering.

-- Considering that a good number of Indians fought on the CSA side, there may well be positive feelings regarding that. The 'loyal Indian sidekick' may become a stock character, portrayed essentially positively.

-- Most of all, I expect the CSA's films and television programmes to be essentially... normal. Regardless of certain censorships and cultural biases (both of which were quite present in the USA in OTL, incidentally), seeing Confederate films from the 30s or 40s will be quite a lot like seeing OTL US films from the same period. The difference may be less focus on stories set in big cities, and more of a romantisation of the genteel, upper class rural life.
 
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If it's just the Deep South though, I don't think they'd have much of a film industry. Not because they're too backwards to understand how it works, but because they're too damn poor. It would exist, but be completely dominated by film from outside the Confederacy. CSA with the Upper South would be much more competitive, although still drowned out by Anglo-American film.
 
If the Confederacy bolishes slavery in the 1880s, I don't see why they would be boycotted.

I could not see the Confederates abolishing slavery that quickly and even when slavery is eventually abolished Racial segregation and discrimination (Similar to Apartheid South Africa IOTL) will unfortunately become the law of the land in the Confederacy (If the Blacks in the Confederacy were ever given equal freedom and civil rights the Whites would completely lose control in the end) which would justify such boycotts.
 
Confederate directors and actors might be celebrated globally for pushing against its autocratic tendencies (assuming they have them).

This question is impossible to answer unless you know the history leading up to the film industry. It's like asking what you're doing Friday night on Monday when it's raining.
 
If it's just the Deep South though, I don't think they'd have much of a film industry. Not because they're too backwards to understand how it works, but because they're too damn poor. It would exist, but be completely dominated by film from outside the Confederacy. CSA with the Upper South would be much more competitive, although still drowned out by Anglo-American film.

The economic conditions would be the factor in how big a Confederate film industry is.
 
If it's just the Deep South though, I don't think they'd have much of a film industry. Not because they're too backwards to understand how it works, but because they're too damn poor. It would exist, but be completely dominated by film from outside the Confederacy. CSA with the Upper South would be much more competitive, although still drowned out by Anglo-American film.

Nigeria, South Africa, and New Zealand et al have film industries. One of my favorite movies is Colombian and the Russians did a terrific job on Nightwatch. So I expect the Confederacy will have some sort of movie development if it survives into the 20th century. I also think the notion that Texas goes it's own way is much less likely as they get all the perks of internal markets without having to shoulder the whole of their own army/navy
 

Greenville

Banned
The Villainous Lincoln who secretly plotted to abolish slavery while running for president and even raised an army against his own citizens to enforce it.
 
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