Legend of a 'noble South' rises again

Sun Movie Critic ^ | February 16, 2003 | Chris Kaltenbach

[stainlessbanner]

Director says 'Gods' has Southern slant, but 'full humanity'

The North may have won the Civil War, but in Hollywood, the South reigns triumphant.

That was certainly true in 1915, when D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation portrayed the conflict as a war of Northern aggression where order was restored only by the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan. It was true in 1939, when Gone With the Wind looked back on the antebellum South as an unrivalled period of grace and beauty never to be seen again. It was true when Clint Eastwood played The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a Confederate war veteran who has run afoul of Northern "justice."

[safisoft]

I'll be taking my family to the preview here in Charlotte on Tuesday. I know people from all over who will be going to see this fine movie dressed in 1860's garb (blue or grey, although mostly grey) in honor of our ancestors and our heroes.

Deo Vindice!

[cyborg]

I plan to see the movie. There were slaves who were devout christians who put the love of others above their own selves. That sounds sick to some but it's true. Pierre Toussaint, a black slave up for canonization, decided to remain a slave and take care of his master's family after his master died. I guess people don't understand that concept of selfless love of others too much. What's wrong with showing both sides? I think Gods and Generals will be a great movie in terms of showing a more balanced portrayal of these men's lives.

[stainlessbanner]

Another G&G Link: VMI hosts premiere of Civil War film

[jlogajan]

I'm not sure which is more pathetic -- the southerners who want to forget that the south fought to maintain slavery, or the black leftists who think they are owed reparations.

Well guess what, the past is the past. The evils were committed and those that did it and their victims are all long dead and gone.

Get over it.

[arly]

I didn't see anywhere where it said that it was mandatory to read this post... if you don't like history don't visit historical based posts!... some of us enjoy the history of the Northern War of Aggression is that okay with you?

[Treebeard]

Don't limit your poll to just two categories. Idiots like you are quite pathetic, if one can overcome one's urge to vomit in their presence, and show some sympathy.

[TXBubba]

Or the pathetic Northerners who think everyone in the North was against slavery and wanted equal right for blacks also.

[TXBubba]

right=rights

[billbears]

No we're all supposed to bow down and worship the lincoln. Or didn't you get the memo? G&G bump!!

[n.y.muggs]

Just today the History Channel had a story on the draft riot of 1863 in NYC. Turned into anti black riots. Black homes were torched and 12 free blacks were lynched.

Federal troops had to restore order.

[Treebeard]

...or Minnesota libertarian atheists who think people give a $hit what their Romanian surname means.

[TomServo]

Dixie Bump! I can hardly wait for the movie to play here..

[stainlessbanner]

Perhaps you should read the entire article. I think you missed this part:

"Perhaps the real lesson here is that those who depend on popular fiction to teach them history need to re-think their strategy."

The intent of G&G is not to claim who is right and who is wrong. Nor is it intended to be a record of authority for historical means.

Do your own research.

[laotzu]

"..it's been necessary to downplay the issue of slavery"

We used to have slaves?!! Oh...that's right. You just never hear about the slavery that once existed here.

"Historians have been debating for decades whether the South and North came to blows more because of slavery or state's rights"

The South could have peacefully seceeded, without resistance from ther North; if only they had freed their slaves.

Yea...sure.

It was about individual & states rights vs federal government rule. The North prevailed, and we have been sliding into socialism ever since.

Why does the North call it a "Civil War" when the South had no interest in ruling them?

After forcibly dragging the South back into the fold, why does the North refer to this country as "United"?

Such total deceptions of history serve a purpose. What purpose is served? Why do liberal socialists almost never admit to being such. Hmmmm....

[GraniteStateConservative]

Some people can't recognize that it's possible to respect the valor of the confederate soldiers without respecting the cause.

[cyborg]

One can respect confederate soldiers without liking slavery and the social ills that come along with such an institution. Why do people get so upset at movies like Gods and Generals? It's not as if it's a KKK movie.

[j_k_l]

I must admit my ignorance here. I often wonder if the common soldier on either side knew what they were fighting for. Information and education were scarce. I could imagine that the confederates for the most part, were defending their homes and protecting their families.
My heritage is Native American and Irish so both sides of my family knows what it is to fight for your land and be less than successful.

[Richard Kimball]

I must admit my ignorance here. I often wonder if the common soldier on either side knew what they were fighting for.

I think you could say that about most wars. As to whether the Civil War was about slavery or not, Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" sets the record straight. In it, he offered all states who would return to the Union the right to keep slaves. He additionally stated that any states that remained in rebellion would be returned to the Union by force and the slaves freed.

Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: "That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

It's clear from the text of the Proclamation that he was giving Confederate states approximately 90 days to return to the Union, with the promise that the right of the state to keep slavery as a legal institution would be preserved.

[SpringheelJack]

Just today the History Channel had a story on the draft riot of 1863 in NYC. Turned into anti black riots. Black homes were torched and 12 free blacks were lynched. Federal troops had to restore order.

New York City in the 1860s was a Democratic enclave. Nobody ever pretended that the North was solidly Republican.