Civil War hasn’t been seen yet by the media or audiences (its world premiere is next week at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival), so criticism of its content is arguably premature and — at minimum — lacks considerable context.
One Reddit thread predicted…
😑
A reddit thread in a meme subreddit
Journalism: you get what you pay for.
Every time I see a reddit link I feel there’s like a 10% chance it was a post done with some real in-depth research and 90% chance it’s some inane bullshit. Makes me cringe every time I see it. They might as well of cited Facebook.
It’s never a flaired response from /r/askhistorians, that’s for sure.
I know this film’s going to have a wack premise when they put California and Texas into an alliance. That said I am pretty interested.
The only thing I can think of is either there was a fascist coup from northern California, or they are allied very loosely as mostly independent entities.
I think it’s more that they explicitly made t unlike real life politics to avoid painting either side a particular way.
I’m thinking they probably did that to avoid people talking about the politics and who and why, and focus more on how horrifying Civil War would be. They’ve described it as horror. I believe them.
Northern California is basically Oregon. The fascists are in central California and Orange county.
They did it to avoid any living political movements. It’s hamfisty, but effective.
President Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee control of the Union Army. The Confederate officer corps was pretty high quality; Custer ended up a General on the Union side. The CSA had good relations with the two superpowers of the day [UK and France] and a highly sought after product [cotton]. Most of their troops were hard scrabble country boys who were used to working from sun up to sun set on a plate of beans.
The Anti-Federalist forces of today are lead by Donald Trump and Lauren Bobert.
Really good Robert E. Lee 4 parter on Behind the Bastards a few weeks ago. Highly recommended.
The CSA did not have good relations with any super powers. They had to meet in secret and were never acknowledged. The only part of any super power relationship that actually benefited the CSA was buying cotten smuggled out on the black market and allowing the sale of old warships and they never actually arrived. Also the idea that southern soldiers were better is an idea backed up by the lost cause for decades now, and doesn’t seem to be universally true.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/books/review/lion-and-the-fox-alexander-rose.html
Sounds like you’d like this one.
“The Lion And The Fox” by Alexander Rose. True story of the Union and Confederates in England, trying to control the seas.
Ooh, I probably would, thanks for the recommendation! This was a single chapter in a book I read that covered the whole history of the war.
It wasn’t that the south had better officers, Lee was just the best on the continent.
And he was against the civil war, but back then America was more like the UN. So when Lee’s state seceded, he saw no other option than joining the Souths military.
Dude was one of the loudest people on both sides against the war, before during and after it.
The details matter because it’s a great lesson on how dangerous blind loyalty/patriotism is.
Lee was irreplaceable. If he had just stayed out of the war, it would have been over much faster with less deaths
And he was against the civil war…
True enough in certain statements he made, but while admittedly he was no Alexander Stephens, he sure as shit got stuck in.
but back then America was more like the UN.
Not really. Regional identities were much stronger and enforcement mechanisms weaker, and no income tax meant the funds available to the Federal government were limited so it wasn’t particularly flush with cash to throw its weight around, but the country had already withstood several constitutional crises that placed it as a polity WAY more integrated even than the modern EU, to say nothing of the UN. The degree to which secession was viewed as an inevitability and/or no big deal for the times is way overblown by people with a vested interest in Reconstruction going smoothly for the existing power structures, and then the lost cause types who inherited their narratives. Don’t fall into their traps.
So when Lee’s state seceded, he saw no other option than joining the Souths military.
To be clear, this was also very much because he was a dedicated slaveowner, and not one known for treating enslaved people on his properties well, or for having any empathy with freedmen after. He had that certain old Virginia ambivalence about the institution itself, but he was absolutely convinced that whites owning blacks was “necessary” and by god he was good at doing what was “necessary.”
Militarily, Lee was a skilled tactician (by contemporary US standards… European observers familiar with Crimea were aghast at the life-wasting Napoleonic nonsense they saw from both sides), but he had strategic blind spots that had him ultimately fighting a war the South was poorly suited for. Now, sure, he probably was the best General available at the start of the war, but not by so wide a margin as people like to claim, and personal lionization of Lee is another Lost Cause ratfuck.
“The Guns of the South” by Harry Turtledove. Fun little science fiction where Lee wins the War with a little help…
Sounds like perfect timing.
Opined another: “There are other Timothy McVeighs out there who will be like ‘[this movie is] exactly what this country needs’ … The potential danger is that [right-wing] groups are not known for media literacy or nuance. And a psychotic gang of rednecks committing terrorism [in the film] to ‘own the libs’ might be obvious criticism to us, but might be interpreted as a role model to MAGA groups if not portrayed carefully.'”
There’s people who watch It’s Always Sunny and think the main characters are the “good guys” and we should root for them…
Side note:
Is the guy in the screenshot the Matt Damon look like who played a nazi in Breaking Bad?
Dudes in a lot and he’s a pretty good actor.
Yeah, that’s Jesse Plemons. He’s married to Kirsten Dunst of all things. I just finished watching season 2 of Fargo with him and Dunst - both were amazing in it.
I always think of him as “Walmart Matt Damon”.
EDIT: Fixed his last name
Nice, dudes been in a lot of stuff, and he’s really good.
Not sure if looking like one of the biggest movie stars around helps or hurts his career. But he’s been good in everything I’ve seen him in.
Agreed! He plays the stoic sociopath really well, which is what I always seem to see him playing - Breaking Bad, Fargo Season 2 (less a sociopath here, but made very questionable choices), Black Mirror.
Might be a typecast, but I think he fits perfectly in this role.
Jesse Plemons
I was recently surprised seeing him in Like Mike as a bully. Great actor though
I always think Fat Damon or Downy Damon.
He’s a great actor and better than Matt Damon, in my opinion.
That quote though, how condescending can you get? What’s even worse, the whole article reads like this, a bunch of opinions of kids scared of the boogey man.
Thanks for sharing!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The film from acclaimed writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) imagines a near-future dystopia where the United States has been torn apart under the authoritarian ruled of a three-term president (Nick Offerman).
Civil War hasn’t been seen yet by the media or audiences (its world premiere is next week at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival), so criticism of its content is arguably premature and — at minimum — lacks considerable context.
Greg Abbott’s feud over border security has recently inspired literal “civil war” headlines in respectable publications, one can understand some degree of this concern (though not why the government would collaborate with a Hollywood studio to create a film to give moviegoers a heads up to their sinister plans).
One Reddit thread predicted the online Civil War debate will turn out just like the uproar that surrounded Todd Philips’ 2019 movie Joker — media reports fretted that the film’s Taxi Driver-like portrait of destructive outsider would inspire violent loners and incel-types to commit mass shootings, and then nothing happened.
In 2019, Universal took the dramatic step of preemptively pulling its red state/blue state Hunger Games-like satire The Hunt from release ahead of the 2020 election year after it was accused being politically inflammatory.
“I guarantee you that the MAGA/Qanon people do not need an Alex Garland auteur piece to commit acts of violence,” wrote one defender, while another added: “This movie is a cautionary statement about the danger of political brinksmanship, polarization, and the importance of a free and effective media.
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