Class War and the Confederacy in Free State of Jones

Thanks for an informative article. It is very similar to the several essays that were written on the film in the World Socialist Website over the summer, including an interview with Victoria Bynum. In the two or so years I have been reading WSWS daily, I can't recall a single film (certainly not an American one) to which they have devoted more attention. Although one could fault the film on aesthetic grounds for being rather slow in parts, the WSWS praised it for a completely different reason: that it demonstrates how whites and blacks can be united against a common oppressor and that it debunks Gone With the Wind-style romanticizing of the Confederacy in which every white Southerner believed they were fighting for a good cause. The film articulates many times that its characters are aware of the class-based reasons for the war itself, that it involved poor non-slaveowning whites being forced to sacrifice themselves to defend the ruling aristocracy's privileges and property. This is a dangerous idea if you think about it: what if our absurdly overpraised troops sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere began to become class conscious and started asking what what they were truly defending in the imperialistic and entirely fabricated "War on Terror"? It is no surprise bourgeois publications like the New York Times--which now has become the greatest cheerleader for any of American imperialism's stupid wars of conquest--gave the film a tepid response based on the latter-day obsession on race and identity politics, decrying the film as a "white savior" movie. FREE STATE OF JONES cannot be so summarily brushed aside in that manner. It is far more important than it may appear on the surface. On a personal level, as a person who has lived in Mississippi all my life, it was a refreshing departure from the usual caricatures in which all white Southerners are stupid and bigoted.