Southern Belle was a bit of a sensation, and brought with it a fair share of controversy when it premiered at the Nashville Film Festival in 2010, and subsequently, when it aired on NPT and other PBS stations. The documentary film, by MakeWright Film partners Kathy Conkwright and Mary Makley, is an insider’s look at the 1861 Athenaeum Girls’ School in Columbia, Tennessee. The film’s press materials do a good job explaining where that controversy lies.
Every summer, young women from around the world eagerly sign up to become that iconic and romantic image of southern identity: the southern belle, replete with hoop skirt, hat and gloves, singing the region’s anthem, “Dixie.” The camp is held in the historic headmaster’s home of what was originally a four-year college for young women from 1850 to 1920. Never before have cameras been allowed to closely shadow the students and teachers during this intensive week of historical reenactment.
The teachers, all of whom work for no compensation, hope to instill genteel manners and build pride in Southern heritage. Instructor and camp founder Mark Orman explains, “I just don’t want the things that our families did to be discounted … You have to judge things that were going on in the past by the past.” They have also carefully selected the time period so they can share the “truth” with the next generation about why the South seceded from the Union. For them, the Civil War had little to do with slavery and everything to do with states’ rights and unfair taxation.
Critics, however, say that by promulgating a Southern identity that erases emancipation as a cause of the Civil War and glorifies a disempowered female image, the camp experience whitewashes history and misinforms the next generation. Orman, who teaches high school history, says, “I’m not sure that everything has to be balanced … The kids … who come to high school already know all the bad about slavery. It’s been taught to them and taught to them and it needs to be because slavery’s wrong. But there is a good side too, you know, there was a part of life that was happy.”
Is the camp a self-esteem building, living history experience, or does it ultimately reinforce separations between race, gender, and geography in the present? As we begin the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Southern Belle captures the divisive historical memory of an American subculture and challenges us to consider how a romantic portrayal of the past can affect current attitudes that continue to define and divide America today.
If you haven’t seen it yet, and even if you have, we have a great new opportunity for you to see it and chat with Makley. Thursday night (8/1) at 8:00 p.m., we’re hosting a special online OVEE screening of the doc that will enable us to all watch together, from wherever we are, and chat with each other and Makley as it happens. Simply go to this link: https://ovee.itvs.org/screenings/dkmat that night, and login with your Facebook account. It’s quick and painless. If you don’t have a Facebook account, show up early and create a user and pass, or sign in anonymously. While we’re watching and chatting, you can also use provided emoticons and lend your support to others’ comments. We’ll see you then!
Join the Screening on Thursday, August 1 at 8pm!
https://ovee.itvs.org/screenings/dkmat
About OVEE:
OVEE is an exciting new public media platform created by ITVS that creates interactive and engaging screening opportunities. Now in beta, participants get to be on the front end of public media innovation and new technology, all meant to bring you the best content and encourage discussion across multiple platforms. Or, basically, wherever you are and however you like! Learn more at http://ovee.itvs.org.
More on Southern Belle: http://www.itvs.org/films/southern-belle
4 Comments
I have actually seen this mess. I was drinking late one night and channel surfing when I found it, thought I was drunk, thought I was delusional, thought it was Retribution from On HIgh for my sorry ways, for being a rank failure in the Belle stakes, for a lifetime of standing up for women’s rights, for reproductive rights, for social justice but nooooooo, these pitiful excuses for White Supremacy and Our Racist Way of Life are real human beings. You know that saying from the Bible about not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing? Well, these folks are so awful, it’s left hemisphere and right hemisphere and they are not even conscious of the blasphemy they commit when parade this racist nonsense in the church. I am working hard to forgive; I am working hard not to contribute to the aggression of the world but I am going to speak truth to nonsense. These people are reprehensible and everyone needs to see this film that strips away the veneer of the South and reveals it for what it really is.
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