“中立基础”评论：CJ Hunt将幽默注入了同盟纪念碑的辩论
‘The Neutral Ground’ Review: CJ Hunt Injects Humor Into the Debate Over Confederate Monuments
2017年8月，美国人在弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔发生了冲突，该问题是要删除同盟国将军罗伯特·E·李（Robert E. Lee）的雕像。非正式地说，这是对内战的重演，在150年前将这个国家分裂了，喜剧演员 - 兼犯罪制造者CJ Hunt在那里见证了僵局。我们都知道特朗普对问题双方的人说了什么，但是，亨特（Hunt）交替有趣和激烈的论文电影《中立的立场》超越了表面辩论，以研究为什么有些南方人如此依恋他们的内战英雄。答案尽管可能很复杂，但在有害宣传运动中被绑定在一起，称为“失落原因”，这使后代能够合理化（而不是调和/维修）他们不居住的过去的种族主义。”今天，德国的希特勒雕像不是。这场悲剧发生了三个蒙特在新奥尔良后，HS将自己的雕像击倒了同盟指挥官。李在一个巨大的基座上耸立在城市上，这意味着……什么？ “我们的历史”坚持认为，一些（白人）当地人主张在2015年的市议会会议上留在原地，而他们的黑人邻居则读了这座纪念碑，以及许多其他人喜欢镇上的纪念碑 - 是压迫的象征。信不信由你，“白人至上”一词被自豪地凿成一个方尖碑。“他们希望它们公开可见，并与法院或州议会大厦相邻，让您知道谁在这里负责，”历史教授凯伦·考克斯（Karen L.亨特（Hunt）于2015年发起了该项目，当时新奥尔良市长米奇·兰德里乌（Mitch Landrieu）开始发声关于拆除城市的同盟纪念碑的喧闹声，有些笨拙地抬起了狭窄的街头街头杂物，并从“每日秀”（The The Daily Show）（现在的Hunt Where Hunt hunt there Hunt）作为现场生产er）。提出边缘性问题。他掌握了这样做的权利：新闻业存在一个误解，即即使一方一直在歪曲事实已有数十年之际，公平和平衡的报道意味着给所有方面的时间相等。有很多机会来辩护他们的理由，因为几十个白人重复了以下想法，即内战是关于国家权利而不是奴隶制的（他提供了充分的证据来驳斥这一点），或者说奴隶主是某种程度上的仁慈大师 - 联合国联合女儿（United of the Conderedacy）强制执行的误会，后者塑造了教科书和教学课程，这些课程现在使雕像的删除全部删除E更有争议。亨特将自己置于电影的中间，既适合降解的内战重演和由艺术家Dread Scott组织的授权游行。虽然对这个话题几乎没有明确的看法，但“中立的基础”的演奏就像克林特·史密斯（Clint Smith）广为人知的新书《如何通过》（Word）的更有趣版本。这两个人参观了许多相同的地点，包括惠特尼种植园，亨特发现了1811年的奴隶起义纪念馆，这是一座令人毛骨悚然但有影响力的纪念碑，是代表性不足的起\u200b\u200b义。泰勒（Taylor）所说，如果“所有这些（同盟国）的雕像都是他们的人的墓碑”，那么在战场上放弃了战场，那么南方肯定需要更多的古迹，例如惠特尼（Whitney One），以表彰奴隶制的无名受害者。在整个新奥尔良旨在使用的整个新奥尔良，“中立的基础”整齐地平衡了扭曲的困惑与路易斯安那州和南方更醒目的历史Cals上学。虽然很明显，亨特在拍摄电影时仍在磨练自己的喜剧声音，但他的自嘲风格掩盖了电影的论点是多么复杂。亨特（Hunt）进行了研究，并揭示了南方各州脱离的奴隶制是多么的原因，后来证明了同盟国纪念的推动如何在任何时候都在黑人要求自由的时候飙升，所有这些都强化了他的论点，即纪念碑是“提醒邦联仍然存在的，南方可能已经失去了内战，但是在重建的颤抖项目下，前官方领导人及其亲戚被允许制定规则，从而导致吉姆·克劳（Jim Crow）法律和社区批准的私刑。在一个特别有效的时刻，编辑（和共同作家）简·盖斯勒（Jane Geisler）从白人人群中解散，目睹了公众在弗吉尼亚州里士满的Lee Memorial举行的仪式。同一议程提醒免费黑色P他们在一个仍然廉价的社会中的位置。“中立的地面”（7月2日在剧院开幕，然后才开始PBS的最新季节“ POV”）似乎已经花了永远到达屏幕，考虑到Hunt的长时间一直在努力。毫无疑问，大流行是一个因素，延迟（黑人生活事项运动将纪念碑辩论带入主流）只是放大了电影的相关性。在一个场景中，亨特（Hunt）讲述了新奥尔良的自由之战纪念碑，并尊重一个白人联盟（正是听起来像是这样）拒绝接受1972年州长选举的结果，袭击了这座城市并占领了几座政府大楼。由此产生的整体相当于在去年1月突袭国会大厦的维京人的纪念国家购物中心竖立雕像。有一段时间，看起来兰德里厄（Landrieu “ 跨度足够的时间能够见证胜利的实现。仍然有很多人（也许是大多数人）想知道何时结束这一算法，担心激进主义者会炸毁拉什莫尔山奴隶制前总统的面孔。那些砍伐白人至上主义雕像的人没有意识到的是，进步主义者并没有为消除历史而战。他们正在努力消除障碍，以更完整地代表发生的事情。
In August 2017, Americans clashed in Charlottesville, Va., over the question of whether to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. It was, unofficially speaking, a reenactment of the Civil War that divided this country 150 years earlier, and comedian-cum-filmmaker CJ Hunt was there to witness the standoff.
We all know what Trump said of those on both sides of the issue, but Hunt’s alternately amusing and enraging essay film “The Neutral Ground” goes beyond the surface debates to examine why some Southerners are so attached to their Civil War heroes. The answer, complicated though it may be, is tied up in the pernicious propaganda campaign known as the Lost Cause, which has enabled subsequent generations to rationalize (rather than reconcile/repair) the racism of their not-so-distant past.
“There are no Hitler statues in Germany today,” Rev. Jesse Jackson observed after the confrontation in Charlottesville turned violent. That tragedy followed three months after New Orleans took down its own effigy to the Confederate commander. Lee had towered over the city on a giant pedestal, signifying … what? “Our history,” insist some of the (white) locals advocating for it to remain in place at a 2015 city council meeting, whereas their Black neighbors read the monument — and many others like it around town — as a symbol of oppression. Believe it or not, the words “white supremacy” are proudly chiseled into the base of one obelisk.
“They want these to be publicly visible, and having it adjacent to a courthouse or a state house lets you know who’s in charge here,” history professor Karen L. Cox tells Hunt in one of the film’s informative interviews. Hunt initiated the project in 2015 when New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu started making rumblings about taking down the city’s Confederate monuments, somewhat clumsily lifting the snarky man-on-the-street bits and irreverent interview style from “The Daily Show” (where Hunt now works as a field producer).
Though Hunt is respectful to Landrieu, Cox and American Civil War Museum CEO Christy Coleman, with more questionable subjects — like Louisiana Sons of Confederate Veterans commander Thomas Taylor — he pulls the trick of filming himself attempting to keep a straight face as he asks borderline-silly questions. He’s well within his rights to do so: There’s a misperception in journalism that fair and balanced reporting means giving equal time to all sides, even if one side has been skewing the facts for decades.
If anything, Hunt’s brand of satire gives Lost Causers too much opportunity to make their case, as what feels like dozens of white people repeat the idea that the Civil War was about states’ rights rather than slavery (he provides ample evidence to refute that), or the howler that slave owners were somehow benevolent masters — mistruths enforced by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who shaped the textbooks and teaching curricula that now make the statues’ removal all the more contentious.
Hunt puts himself right in the middle of the movie, suiting up for both a degrading Civil War reenactment and an empowering parade organized by artist Dread Scott. While hardly a definitive take on the topic, “The Neutral Ground” plays like a more entertaining version of Clint Smith’s much-publicized new book, “How the Word Is Passed.” The two men visited many of the same sites, including the Whitney Plantation, where Hunt discovers the 1811 Slave Revolt Memorial, a grisly yet impactful monument to an underrepresented uprising. If “all of these [Confederate] statues are headstones to their men” abandoned on the battlefield, as Taylor argues, then surely the South needs more monuments like the Whitney one, honoring the unsung victims of slavery as well.
Named for the grassy medians throughout New Orleans intended for everyone’s use, “The Neutral Ground” neatly balances wry bemusement with a more sobering history of Louisiana and the South than many locals get in school. While it’s clear that Hunt was still honing his comedic voice as he shot the film, his self-deprecating style masks just how sophisticated the film’s argument is. Hunt does the research and reveals how slavery was the reason that Southern states seceded, later demonstrating how the push for Confederate memorialization spiked anytime Black people demanded freedom, all of which reinforces his thesis that the monuments served as a “reminder that the Confederacy still lives.”
The South may have lost the Civil War, but under the wobbly project of Reconstruction, ex-Confederacy leaders and their kin were allowed to make the rules, leading to Jim Crow laws and community-sanctioned lynching. In one especially effective moment, editor (and co-writer) Jane Geisler dissolves from a white crowd gathered to witness a public hanging to a ceremony at the Lee memorial in Richmond, Va. — not the same location but in many ways, manifestations of the same agenda to remind free Black people of their place in a still-lopsided society.
“The Neutral Ground” — which opens in theaters July 2, before kicking off PBS’ latest season of “POV” — seems to have taken forever to reach the screen, considering how long Hunt’s been working on it. The pandemic was no doubt a factor, and the delay (in which the Black Lives Matter movement brought the monument debate into the mainstream) simply amplifies the film’s relevance.
In one scene, Hunt addresses New Orleans’ Battle of Liberty Place Monument, honoring an insurrection wherein the White League (exactly what it sounds like) refused to accept the results of the 1972 gubernatorial election, stormed the city and occupied several government buildings. The resulting monolith is the equivalent of erecting a statue on the National Mall commemorating that Viking dude who raided the Capitol last January.
For a while, it looked as if Landrieu would not succeed in removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments, though “The Neutral Ground” spans enough time to be able to witness that victory come to pass. There remain plenty (perhaps even the majority) of people who wonder when this reckoning will end, fearing that activists will dynamite the faces of slaveholding ex-presidents off Mount Rushmore. What those who stonewall the removal of white supremacist statues don’t realize is that progressives aren’t fighting to erase history; they’re fighting to remove the obstacles to a more complete representation of what happened.
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发表于 2022-7-5 07:45:59
发表于 2022-12-10 22:10:59