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April 12, 2011

The South Will Rise Again. (Chortle, Knee Slap)

By Michael Shaw

(click for full size)

Oh, my friends at TIME.

They have this beautiful new section called Lightbox where they deal with photographs in a big, beautiful and primarily serious and journalistic way. One issue with the section, however (as in current-day editorial photography, itself, I should add) is that there isn’t always a clear separation between “art photography” and “news-” or “editorial photography.”  It’s in that grey area that this TIME photo essay, Why They Fight: Civil War Re-enactors and the Battle over Historic Sites, highlighted by the photo, caption and heading above dealing with these re-enactors on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, is seriously challenged (and working over-time) for context.

To the extent TIME, and this new photo section, concerns itself primarily with news photos and photojournalism, a photographer actually enabling these right-wing, militia-wannabes by recreating battle scenes with them strikes an awkward note, indeed. And then, given that this photographer’s extended project deals not just with fanciers of the confederacy  and their war games, but with urban development and what now physically exists on civil war battlegrounds, this kind of quick look — which TIME says itself is funny at first — can’t really transcend the bizarre juxtapositions in this news space. Unfortunately, the net result (similar to the way TIME has repeatedly made light of the murderous Gaddafi recently – 1, 2) is a form of mockery, serving to bury the mania and the anger driving many sons of the confederacy into the shadows of The Comfort Suites or Target.

Finally, the ambiguity over whether to take these photos seriously or not, or what to make of them at all, doesn’t minimize the fact that these people, with their States Rights/Tea Party and also segregationist tendencies, are being rewarded with major attention at the same time their retrograde instincts are in active in battle today … against the concrete and marble of Washington.

(photo: Gregg Segal)

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  • http://twitter.com/funkalunatic funkalunatic

    You’re 100% wrong. Maybe you’ve been in a place for too long where all you’ve seen is snark and mockery that when somebody hits you with some honest photojournalism, you can’t see it for what it is. I can’t hardly blame you, considering how filtered everything tends fo be, but this is straightforward.

    Civil War reenactment is a purely historical tradition by people with strong historical interests. It is not related to militia movement, and it is not related to the Tea Party. You assumption that it is is a product of your stereotypes of rural America and your ignorance.

    You note that these scenes are awkward, and they are, but you don’t ask why. In each scene, cover up the reenactors. It appears to be a typical suburban scene. Now cover up the suburbia. The actors don’t look silly – they look like they could be right out of a civil war movie. It’s the juxtaposition and only the juxtaposition creating the awkward effect. The feeling of mockery arises therefrom, not from some injected editorializing on behalf of the photographer. The photographs depict the present mocking the past, and as people who are creatures of the present, that’s what we feel at first. But you have to see that the “Look at these buffoons in civil war uniforms in a parking lot” is intended to be a surface reaction, and that any viewer who is not a juvenile is expected to immediately question that reaction, and conclude that its analogous to modern society’s disdain for history, which makes sense because that’s what’s being railed against in the film, and what is represented by the expansion of development into historical battlefields.

    • http://reciprocity-failure.blogspot.com Stan B.

      I don’t know if these guys are Tea Partiers or militia members in their “real life,” I honestly don’t know what they are. But there’s something slightly off about grown men playing soldier. I wonder how many of these guys ever saw real action. I really wish there was a survey on that. I’m kinda betting the percentage would be in the single digits, the very low single digits. Don’t see guys who actually risked life and limb on a daily basis for any period of time looking forward to spending their weekends playing war with a bunch of play actors who’d run in the opposite direction should live ammo come their way.

      One thing however is most emphatically clear- this has nothing whatsoever to do with the term, the practice, or the profession called photojournalism.

    • Anonymous

      You are 100% wrong. Civil War reenactment is roleplay, plain and simple. The effort to recreate historical accuracy is merely part of that role play, I’m sorry to tell you. The purely historical tradition you are talking about is the affliction of wishing things were like they used be, a reaction to our rapidly changing culture, not anything to do with “strong historical interests”.

  • Enoch Root

    This photoessay and accompanying video are sheer awesomesauce. They underline the fundamental irony of civil war re-enactors, and also the irony of having fought and died so that Comfort Suites could have a place by the interstate, or so that Staples could get a tax break on a box store.

    Another perspective is that in an America of increasing homogenization, amateur historians stand out as iconoclasts.

    However, my main criticism would be that there’s better material to bring to light than the American Civil War. Show me, for instance, Nez Perce elders tracing the locations of the Nez Perce War, which happens to generally coincide with the path of Lewis and Clark and its associated tourism. Would Nez Perce elders have better things to do? Probably. That might be part of what makes them very different from Civil War re-enactors.

  • black dog barking

    For a true Civil War experience one should have a limb amputated without anesthesia to stay the spread of gangrene. Re-enactment.

  • amused

    The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Get over it, boys. You lost.

  • nina

    I love them. I wish I had thought of the idea. They’re brilliant on so many levels. They show the huge distance between the present and the past, critiquing both in the process. They show the emptiness of our landscape (fast food, urban sprawl) when compared to life/death battlefield struggles. I do not know much about Civil War reenactment, but this is NOT what these photos are about. The same could be done with Revolutionary War soldiers, or post WW2 development in Dresden, Berlin, etc.
    Very nice, and technically stunning.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=810889128 Molly Whipple Douthett

    Comments are wonky! (Not the content)

    For a good read on Civil War Re-enactors, try Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz. http://www.amazon.com/Confederates-Attic-Dispatches-Unfinished-Civil/dp/067975833X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302725889&sr=8-1

    These pictures – for me – show the incessant sprawl of our urban centers. Many of the battles were in an area in our country that is slowly being overcome by commerce. Northern VA, Southern MD are rife with development. These photos are more an indictment of this tendency, imo.

    • Anonymous

      molly–correct me if i’m wrong, but i believe robert lee hodge (the one and same pictured above?) was the principal re-enactor horowitz profiled; bacon grease, bloat, and all. loved that book, very germane to the topic at hand.

  • http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ Ralfast

    There seems to be a strong connection between longing for the past (specially the pastoral past/ garden of Eden) with the conservative movement and Libertarianism/TPs. While these men may just do it for fun (as it is their right) the connection with Antebellum America and the current political climate is undeniable. The Conservative movement want to roll back America history to a series of Golden Ages (none which were what they claim to be, just like future Utopias will never be):

    Social Conservative: The 1950s, where Men ruled at home and the workplace and women stayed home, cooked and raised the children behind white picket fenced suburban homes.

    Economic Conservatives: The 1880s-1920s, no economic regulations, before the New Deal and the era of the Robber Barons.

    State Rights Conservatives: Antebellum America, where States trumped (or rivaled) the Federal government in political power.

    Land Rights Conservatives: The Conquest of the West (1820s to 1900).

    Libertarians: The Founding Fathers.

    Mind you, in order for these ages to shine you have to ignore: segregation, slavery, massive slums, religious bigotry, child labor, the Indian Wars, the Trail of Tears and so on.

    • Anonymous

      They are cherrypicking history,,,great summation by the way, I never thought to match it up so thoroughly. I had a pretty good idea about how this played out but you just crystallized it for me.

  • Anonymous

    and it is not related to the Tea Party. You assumption that it is is a product of your stereotypes of rural America and your ignorance. evden eve nakliyat

  • mermer

    Many people who are successful in these new paradigms that can be adapted to find the fastest, or the new ones come to realize that.

  • Kartal evden eve nakliyat
  • http://www.yourgoalbook.com Goal Setting

    Agreed. Nostalgia is a tricky thing.

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