Before you watch the video and answer the question, here’s a little background:
The video is for the song “Shame” by English pop star Robbie Williams. He’s accompanied his former (and current, again) boy bandmate from Take That, Gary Barlow. The song describes the regret over their relationship since Williams acrimoniously left the supergroup in 1995. Williams went on to have a huge solo career in the UK and the rest of Europe, while the rest of Take That broke up in 1996. But, fast-forward to 2006, and Williams’ star began to fade, but the other four members of Take That reunited, had a very successful tour and two hit albums. Currently, Robbie is back in the group and everyone has reconciled to the point where Williams and Barlow seem to have a full-on bro-mance. A new Take That album with all five original members will be released in November.
Two states just wrapped up a month that they dedicated to Confederate history or “heritage.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Confederacy is celebrated in some states when the it and the Confederate flag get away with little or no criticism in popular culture. It’s because those other representations of the antebellum South are romanticized as if straight out of Gone With The Wind. That film begins with the following on the screen:
There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind…
What’s incredible is that the quote includes slavery as part of the pretty world of the film’s “Old South.”
Flash forward to today. For some, the Old South is still that pretty world. For them, it’s either country and folksy or, just the opposite, elegant and aristocratic. There are films like Sweet Home Alabama where the parents of Reese Witherspoon’s character have sofa pillows with the Conferderate Flag on them. And I like watching fast cars jumping over things as much as the next guy. When The Dukes of Hazzard movie came out, though, with the General Lee and the Confederate flag on top of it, I couldn’t go see the film. Then there is the country-pop act Lady Antebellum. The story behind their name is that the band thought they looked good in pre-Civil War style photo shoot. Ok, but is that the only name they could think of? Didn’t anyone think it might be a problem for a country band from the South to be called a name that references and glamorizes (that would be the “Lady” part) the pre-Civil War era? Continue reading 'The Old South Isn’t Folksy or Elegant'»
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