Southern Belle | Video Extra | ITVS

http://www.itvs.org/films/southern-belle

The Civil War may be long over, but the spirit of rebellion is hard to extinguish even in something as innocent as a girls' summer camp.Southern Belle is an insider's look at the 1861 Athenaeum Girls' School in Columbia, Tennessee, where the antebellum South rises again. Every summer, young women from around the world eagerly sign up to become that iconic and romantic image of southern identity: the southern belle, replete with hoop skirt, hat and gloves, singing the region's anthem, "Dixie."
However, the camp can only achieve this version of Southern femininity by whitewashing the past. The teachers, all of whom work for no compensation, hope to instill genteel manners and build pride in southern heritage. To accomplish this, they have carefully selected the time period so they can share the "truth" with the next generation about why the South seceded from the Union. For them, the Civil War had little to do with slavery and everything to do with states' rights and unfair taxation.

The film reveals why the stakes in teaching this romantic, segregated history are high. By promulgating a southern identity that erases emancipation as a cause of the Civil War and glorifies a disempowered female image detached from the brutality of the lifestyle that supported her, the camp ultimately reinforces divisions between race, gender, and geography in the present.

To understand the Athenaeum Girls' School's icon of the Old South is to better understand the issues that continue to define and divide America today.

Find out more about Southern Belle:
http://www.itvs.org/films/southern-belle

Visit the filmmaker's website:
http://southernbellefilm.com/

Learn more about ITVS:
http://www.itvs.org/

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Athenaeum Girls' School
• antebellum South
• Civil War
• the South
• Dixie
• Kathy Conkwright
• Mary Makley
• ITVS
• PBS
• public television

[CapnConfederacy]

Now THESE are some good girls. God bless them. The future of the southland!

[kallistiX1]

@SOUTHERNANDPROUD1861 While I don't doubt some Blacks chose to fight of their own free will, I question whether that is true for most. I truly doubt it. Most being unable to read or write, would have had to rely on others for the information required to make a decision and that is just for those who had a choice in the matter. This war involved slavery from the very start. The economic and cultural differences in the South were built on human bondage, it borders on revisionist to deny this.

[JoyceJeffersonTV]

@SOUTHERNANDPROUD1861 - and slavery was a dying institute anyway. The rebel flag - people should read up more on it...

[MsLaboomer]

The truth is that these dresses were prisons for women. Corsets. Petticoats. Bonnets, Hats. Ribbons. Gloves. Lace.  Hair. Everything meant to constrict her movement, and to constrict her physical presence. To promote this school as a type of historic preservation is a travesty.

[RedheadUninterrupted]

I attended this school.I learned etiquette,appropriate dress and skills a Southern woman would have used.Before you pass judgement on an experience you know nothing about or a culture that's different from your own, you should do your research.Yes, the South succeeded because of slavery, but also because the states did not have as much rights as the government.I participated in this camp not because I agree with the beliefs of the time,but because I want to preserve history.

[82abhilash]

@conniechastain The end of the Confederacy and the Birth of a New Freedom went hand in hand. It could not have happened any other way. The youths here are being misled willingly or otherwise.

[82abhilash]

These kids are being lied to. They are being misled. The wrong of the slavery is being concealed. The side of wrong is being whitewashed. A curse upon those that misused the trust placed upon them and misled the youth at an impressionable age. May they lead long unhappy lives. May the good lord torment their souls for all of eternity.

[SOUTHERNANDPROUD1861]

@JohnsonJohnson1 If the war was over slavery why did over 100.000 fight alongside the whites on there freewill and on the north side the blacks couldnt fight alongside the whites.Allso Abe told his armys to shoot on site any black thay found fighting for the south-DEO VINDICE

[Fluidiklife]

Good video despite the statist/feminist PC description. It's nice to see our young girls learning the truth about their Southern heritage and what it means to be a Southern woman.

[conniechastain]

JohnsonJohnson1, slavery was legal in the Confederacy from 1861 to 1864 -- four years. Slavery was legal in the United States of America from 1788 to 1868 -- eighty years, and didn't end until three years AFTER the Confederacy ceased to exist. Moreover, these people don't almost sound like they wish slavery was still around. Stop confusing your perception with their intent.