A Southerner’s Movie Guide, Part VII

 

9. Confederate Hollywood 

From the beginnings to rather recent times portrayals of Confederates have been a mainstay of American cinema.  After all, the Confederacy is a rather large and interesting slice of American history.  Given the virulent malice today against everything Confederate, it might surprise many folks
to see that during Hollywood’s Golden Age an astounding number of major stars of American cinema have had no objection to portraying Confederates, usually as sympathetic characters.  Many of such films showed Confederate flags in favourable contexts and sometimes in glorification.  What has changed in recent times is that there have been evil Confederates appearing more often on the screen and the once popular theme of good Southerners oppressed by Reconstruction has disappeared.

The list below presents Northern and foreign actors who have played more or less attractive Confederates.  The list does not include 1) those who portrayed very villainous Confederates;  2) those who were Southern-born or have Southern background; and 3) portrayals of Southerners not in the Confederate period:

Nick Adams: The Rebel

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