War (reenactment), What is it Good For?
Absolutely nothing? Don’t tell this group pictured above. Civil War reenactments are a popular example of weird Southern attractions. My impression of the stigma or confusion people (outside the South or unfamiliar with the activity) have about war reenacting, especially the CW, are these: Why impersonate this event in time and thereby pay homage to a war that was so bitterly lost? Why invest in the historically accurate costumes and materials necessary to recreate a living replay of a time that is marked by unprecedented amounts of human carnage and social injustices, as well as the start of general Southern economic hardship? Is there some kind of shared revere for the Antebellum South’s last moments or is it a projection of the South’s yearning for the possibility of alternative outcomes?
Sweet Home Alabama (2002), a favorite embodiment of the many screwed Hollywood imaginings about the South in all its absurd glory. Not complete without a reference to a CW reenactment.
Whether CW reenactments are all of these things or none, examples of the South’s infatuation with the four years following 1860 are what the US sees when it looks south. This infatuation with the past is seen as being at the heart of CW reenactments, and it is no coincidence that both also characterize the South.
As someone whose family dressed her up in a hand sewn Antebellum dress, complete with wired-hoop skirt, I should be able to offer some sort of explanation for the phenomena, or why it is even considered a Southern phenomena. Unfortunately, I am not. One thing I did learn from the experience is that if you don’t sit down just right, that hoop skirt will lift straight up and out for all the world to see.
To understand reenactments better, I trolled the web for footage that would juxtapose the tired image of CW reenactments, tourists watching programmed battles in a field, to something that documented reenactments from a fresh perspective.
Part 1/2
Part 2/2
While investigating possible reenactment videos to post this week, I came across this two part Vice magazine video from a series called Americana, it documents a lesser publicized type of war reenactment: WWII and Vietnam War reenactments. The footage documents the phenomena of the art or mania associated with Southern CW reenactments, but it also showcases the leap of the reenactment hobby from slightly educational family attraction to Full Metal Jacket -style role play, war simulator.
The family atmosphere and crowd spectacle that surrounds and is associated with CW reenactments seems to be missing from the program. Post WWII reenactments are almost solely centered on the individual. The goal being for the individual is to not only act out a role, but to experience war and attempt to win. Apart from live ammunition, there seems to be no elements too realistic for this strain of war reenactment. This highlights the comedic irony I associate with CW reenactments, where in efforts to be family friendly, have forfeited many historically accurate elements for those of consumerist convenience and consumption. A tourist trap. In contrast, by omitting the audience and thus a public to educate, post WWII reenactments like the one featured in the video, are essentially reduced to a historically accurate round of capture the flag, a telling example as capture the flag is a child’s game based off of war.
This vein of reenactments opens up a discourse about ourselves as Americans, our history and infatuation with war, as well as the Southern Narrative wrapped in it all. The host/narrator Thomas puts it best when listing off the things he’s learned about war reenactments, that first and foremost, “It’s f**cking terrifying having guns shooting at you, even ones loaded with blanks.”(Part 1, 6:29) The realism quality of the reenactments are a surprising mix of the theatrical and the graphically horrifying. However, the men impersonating G.I. soldiers in the second video (at 6:50) as they revel in using 1960's ethnic slurs and acting out what would be horrific war crimes, worries me. Can you excuse it as all being part of the fun of “getting into character” or is there a more sinister theme playing out here?
Also new, you don’t know the ending! The battles are unscripted and allow for performers to enact strategies and plan for the enemy.
Another possibly significant aspect about the post WWII reenactments in relation to characterizing the ‘Southern unusual’ is the absence of the aforementioned negative connotations that are associated with the Civil War, and the South’s perceived characteristic of living in an Antebellum past. The videos prove that Southerners enjoy pretending to fight and kill communists just as zealously as they do Northerners.
As the documentary evidences, though the costumes, motivations and mock-weapons change, the thing that remains so fascinating about war reenactments is simply that they are a spectacle to watch, “they” being the people that participate, and their reasons / motivations.
My plans for the project this weekend are to visit at least one reenactment being performed here in the South and conduct interviews with the visitors and the volunteers involved.
Want to see it for yourself?
There’s one this weekend:
“The Atlanta Campaign,” at Nash Farm, 100 Babbs Mill Road, Hampton. 19–21 September
