Civil War Pop

Forgetting Ole Times at Ole Miss

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

Well, it finally happened. Earlier today, the University of Mississippi Athletics Department got a jump on the college football season by banning “Dixie” from all athletic events. This is a story I’ve been following for years, as it was a major part of my chapter on memory in Battle Hymns. The controversy at Ole Miss is a perfect example of how difficult, even impossible, it is to separate Confederate symbols from their white supremacist legacy (the flag being the other prominent example). The song’s author, Daniel Decatur Emmett, never intended “Dixie” to be the anthem of a pro-slavery southern state, but Confederates imprinted that meaning on the song and white supremacists reinforced it for decades after, giving “Dixie” a permanent subtext odious to most people. The Civil War generation left their mark on numerous songs (the multiple lyrics and associations given to the melody for “John Brown’s Body” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is the northern equivalent) and we can’t help but hear those songs the way they did. “Dixie” is no exception. For years, Ole Miss tried to dilute that context by pairing “Dixie” with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” but these efforts ultimately failed, as audiences made the song’s pro-Confederate associations explicit by chanting “The South shall rise again” over the “Battle’s Hymn’s” “His truth is marching on.” Read More

Entry 36: Murdering through Georgia

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

The Keeping Room. Directed by Daniel Barber. Written by Julia Hart.

Release Date: September 25, 2015.

I decided to watch The Keeping Room because it’s recent and in my Netflix queue. Turns out, it makes an perfect companion (or counterpoint) to Free State of Jones. Films like Jones are chipping away at popular culture’s longstanding love affair with the Lost Cause narrative, but others like The Keeping Room show we still have a long way to go. It’s not that The Keeping Room is a pro-Confederate movie. It’s using the Civil War to tell a story about gender and the horror of war but it incorporates elements of the Lost Cause seemingly as a matter of course. Yankees are murderous rapists, William Tecumseh Sherman is a monster, and slaves are invested in protecting their masters. I kept wanting to like this movie but the script’s outdated depiction of the Civil War proved more grating than I could bear. Read More

Entry 35: Putting History First in Jones County

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

Free State of Jones. Directed by Gary Ross. Written by Gary Ross and Leonard Hartman.

Release Date: June 24, 2016.

I think I’ve gotten pretty good at generating quick opinions about pieces of culture, especially during the 18 months I’ve been writing this blog. But no entry has given me as much trouble as this one. Free State of Jones is a unique film that prizes historical accuracy over dramatic tension or traditional narrative tropes. This is a rare thing and challenged my usual assumptions about both art and historical fiction. Whether that makes it a good film largely depends on your interest in the Civil War Era and southern history.
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Free State of Jones and Historical Accuracy

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

Free State of Jones is only a week away and the New York Times ran a fascinating interview Wednesday with its director, Gary Ross. I was especially struck by Ross’s investment in establishing the film’s historical bona fides. He claims to have researched his subject extensively and consulted with multiple historians, many of whom appear in the article. He even took a pseudo-seminar with John Stauffer. Most remarkable of all is this website that essentially footnotes the film, explaining script choices and providing access to relevant primary documents and secondary citations. As a historian, I find all of this very commendable. As a critic, it makes me a little nervous. Read More

Entry 34 (Part 2): The Blackness of Roots

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

Roots. Episodes 2-4. Directed by Mario Van Peebles, Thomas Carter, and Bruce Beresford. Written by Alison McDonald, Charles Murray, and Lawrence Konner. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Alex Haley.

Release dates: May 31 – June 2, 2016.

The new Roots concluded last Thursday and I thought it was mostly well done. A busy schedule and other commitments prevented me from commenting on the entire series until now. So, instead of offering a straightforward review, I’m going to target an aspect that has largely gone unmentioned: the series’ consistent commitment to the black perspective and how that affects its portrayal of whites. Remarkably, Roots almost never tells its story from the point of view of a white character. Some critics consider this a weakness, but I see it as a welcome narrative choice. One of the central problems with the original series was how it heightened white roles to attract white audiences. This new Roots corrects that error and, in doing so, presents us with a more realistic depiction of the master-slave relationship—portraying whites as distant unknowable interlopers, whose involvement with slaves inevitably results in violence and emotional trauma.
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Entry 34 (Part 1): Hearing Roots

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

Roots. Episode 1. Directed by Phillip Noyce. Written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Alex Haley.

Release Date: May 30, 2016.

“They’ll think I’m playing for them, but I’m really playing for you.”

This is what Fiddler (Forest Whitaker) tells Kunta Kinte (Malachi Kirby) on Christmas day, as a means of distracting their white masters while Kunta tries to escape, but it really could be a thesis statement for much of the music enslaved Africans performed and created. It’s a vital statement for the new version of Roots to make because music plays a central role in portraying Kunta’s forced journey from Gambia to Virginia. There was much to like in last night’s premiere installment but, as a music historian, this aspect resonated with me, so I’m going to explore it a little here. Read More

Entry 33: Do We Need Another Roots?

Posted on May 28, 2016 by gdbrasher

Roots. Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, John Erman, David Greene, and Gilbert Moses. Written by William Blinn, James Lee, M. Charles Cohen, and Ernest Kinoy. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Alex Haley.

Release Date: January 23 to January 30, 1977.

Some of you might have noticed I was originally going to review a little indie movie about Sherman’s March before turning to the History [Channel]’s re-make of Roots. I was delighted, however, when my old friend and previous guest blogger, Glenn David Brasher (who also has a great blog of his own), offered to write a piece exploring the 1977 original and asking if there’s really a need for us to see a new version. Here are his thoughts after revisiting the original Roots as we get set for Monday’s premiere:
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What Does Underground’s Success Mean?

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

14 months ago, I wondered what the failure of Amazon’s Civil War drama series, Point of Honor, meant for the Civil War in popular culture. I worried audiences didn’t reject the show because it was objectively terrible but because they just weren’t interested in the Civil War. I saw promising signs in Hollywood—with Free State of Jones being adapted for the screen (coming this June!)—but it looked like the Civil War Era and my television weren’t going to be friends anytime soon. It wasn’t long before I heard about Mercy Street and things started looking up. Then came news the History [Channel] was remaking Roots. The jury’s still out on Roots, but Mercy Street was a solid, if slightly disappointing, stab at serialized Civil War fiction. Throughout, Underground was completely off my radar. WGN’s bold slave resistance drama seemed to come out of nowhere and turned out to be one of the best (maybe the best) depictions of the Civil War Era on TV. What Underground achieved demonstrates how rethinking what “Civil War popular culture” means can draw new audiences and make for riveting, smart, and original entertainment. Read More

Entry 32: The Best Civil War Era Show on TV

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

Underground. Season 1. Directed by Anthony Hemingway, Romeo Tirone, and Kate Woods. Written by Misha Green, Joe Pokaski, Jason Wilborn, and Jennifer Yale.

Release Date: March 9 to May 11, 2016.

Underground opens with its protagonist, Noah, fleeing his Georgia plantation to the sound of Kanye West’s excellent “Black Skinhead.” It’s an announcement up front that the African Americans who inhabit this show are not passive victims. They are active participants in the fight against slavery and their struggle has echoes in their time and our own. The show may be called Underground, but it should be called Resistance. This opening scene also reveals the show’s style will be as bold as its themes. The seemingly anachronistic use of modern music to score the action is a choice that’s made again and again, and it usually works. With “Black Skinhead,” the show doubles down by isolating West’s rhythmic breathing to substitute for Noah’s, before reintroducing the song’s hellish baseline to create a sense of foreboding as the slavecatchers and their hounds close in. Even before the credits rolled, I was hooked. Read More

Talkin’ Robert E. Lee Blues

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Christian McWhirter

As many of you know, my office is located in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Those of you who know me well also know I was once a great admirer of Robert E. Lee. One of the best aspects of working at ALPLM is its vast cohort of enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers. Last year, I was invited to do an educational program for them on Jefferson Davis. I jumped at the chance and the program had a large and engaged audience. I got invited back this year and was able to pick whatever Lincoln-related topic I wanted, so I went with Robert E. Lee. This is a very personal choice given how my perspective on Lee has changed over the years but, unbeknownst to me until a few days ago, it has also proven to be a controversial choice among the volunteers themselves and not in the way you might think. Apparently, many people around here are concerned about how Lee iconography is currently under assault in places like New Orleans and Charlottesville. Having written the talk two weeks ago, I’m now wondering how much I should tailor it to this new context and what that says about my own feelings about the man and his image. Read More