Confederate States of America

I expected this movie to be purely a documentary, and not expecting them to use humor in any way…but I was completely incorrect. This movie was genius. We discussed how when a movie makes you laugh then question what you were laughing at, it’s pretty effective. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think, this movie seemed so real that it was frightening. The frightening part was that this is what could have happened because the historical facts seemed on point for the most part. It’s crazy to think how different events could have changed the whole path of history.

At first I thought the commercials were very offensive, yet had a comical element that almost gives you a bad feeling. Some things were completely over the top and not comical to me whatsoever, but there were some things that were humorous (because it makes you think). It was humorous because it was horrible (and you couldn’t believe it), but also because of that element of truth that runs throughout the movie. You don’t know whether to laugh or not and if you cannot help but laugh, you then feel bad. But then at the end they tell us that a lot of these products were actually sold, and in some cases up until the 1980’s, which is mind blowing! The 1980’s were not that long ago and some of these products were very offensive. Throughout the movie I never would have thought that these products were actually on the market, but this movie does twist real things and events and gives us a wakeup call when we’re thinking “oo that would never happen.”

The satire used is important because it really makes us think, what if?? The humor is necessary because otherwise this would look like a historical documentary and not get the audience’s attention. The commercials were necessary in getting our attention, if it was just a documentary the audience would not be forced to think about “the big picture” and would probably miss a lot of the information. They did an excellent way of mixing the documentary style with the commercials to ensure keeping the attention of the audience.

One part of the movie that sticks out in my head was the comment about wasting “human livestock.” As we discussed in class this attitude is extremely American and is scary, but true. Hitler’s character was glorified, as he had the right idea. Then the Americans thinking that since you have all this man power, you should use it!

I thought the ending was perfect. Pretty much just telling us, throughout the movie you may have thought that these commercials were outlandish and sometimes comical, but these things actually existed and even though you may not realize it, things like these still exist today. The perfect ending because, like throughout the movie, it asks the viewer to think about society as we know it today and question beliefs of ours.