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SPOILER WARNING A THREAD ON ON ANTEBELLUM :
For everyone saying , we don't need another slave movie . You missed the MESSAGE of the movie . The plot is very basic , and corny overall. I can see the plight to combine the past and present. However, The interpretation and underlying detail is what makes this movie good .
Side note , there will be another Get Out or Us . Stop viewing every movie as that . This movie strictly focuses on a female leader who is in the midst of a revolution of past and present as she fights against the system of silence .
The idea of past and present is blurred . It plays on the fact that slavery doesn't look like what it did but it's still happening right in front of our face...What better way then to use a slave narrative and contrast that to the circumstances today (life or death)
Antebellum isn't entailing what took place but what war is to come .
The phone in Antebellum. Represents the leadership of women and direction moving forward . Think about black women like (Harriet Tubman) in the front leading the union because they knew the geography of the land. Just because it's not dense does not mean it's inferior as art .
The scene where she checks into the hotel . On the surface , it seems this attitude from the white woman is unconventional. Dig a little deeper , in the background there is a picture of a plantation behind the hotel clerk. Veronica (Lead Character) checks in to the "hotel" .
Checking in to the hotel is actually a play on visiting into the past and reviewing history.The lady gives attitude because from the connotative sense.This woman going back in the past is the key to freeing her mind in the present."They"want you to forget and ignore the past.
We often view slave masters as these intelligent and intricate individuals with divisive plans . The ONLY plan on a social level to oppress was to evoke fear in black slaves . In Antebellum , the "confederate slave masters" are drunken bastards . Which is the TRUE representation.
If the only way you can suppress a people is through fear in order to carry out your agenda . Ask yourself , are you truly intelligent ? The business side is brilliant but the process of enslaving someone is given way too much CREDIT today .These are glorified ordinary bullies .
The little girl on the elevator says "shush they will hear you" . Encompassing the WHOLE agenda to silence the views of change and the voices of black women. Targets out in born will to survive and our unconscious assimilation .
The scene where the accompanying woman slave Shoshanna is in the bedroom .The confederate soldier calls her beautiful. She starts to speak in the bedroom and he tells her to shut up and beats her. The Premise is the objectification of black women , only seeing them as sex beings.
In addition to that , Shoshanna loses her baby . As a result , she kills herself and there is a lapse in time . It displays her having a butterfly tattoo in the slave realm. Which is not realistic.
Butterflies as we know are imagery of transcendence and growth . She realized being oppressed is worse than death itself . A common theme in slave ideology. The butterfly is an example of a mental awakening and a rally for freedom/peace.
The scene where she lowers the flag was a nod to Bree Newsome lowering the confederate flag in South Carolina. Then Vanessa rolls the body of the confederate man with it.This poses the question, what side of history do you want to be on ? You will be buried alongside the evils
The final scene where it is a battle to the death between these two women . White women in slave movies are represented to be shallow and unknowing of the evils against blacks .They are always painted in a good light. I love the movies TARGET on them.They are apart of the system.
We separate them but they are pivotal to the advancement . There are many white women in America satisfied with their current situation and they watch from the sidelines. They have internalized this patriarchal set of ideals that doesn't allow them to freely think .
Vanessa pulls Elizabeth by the neck with the rope and drags her into a Robert E Lee memorial in the end . She dies protecting a man who didn't even value her right to vote a man who saw women as inferior as a whole . She defends her oppressor even as a white woman.Looks familiar
I will say the character development could be A LOT BETTER . It leads us to feel holes . The editing was not good in comparison to that of a Get Out or Us but the message was VERY PRESENT. 7/10
