I actually use this film in a course on Slavery in Cinema. Students always have some "interesting" reactions. Wilmott uses some very "dark humour" to tackle issues that in the end, aren't so funny--but you find yourself laughing anyway, if only at the absurdity. What's interesting about the film is that while it's a counterfactual featuring a United States in which the Confederacy won the Civil War, and all it would mean for slavery, women, race relations, imperial power, etc.--it is also a not-so-thinly-veiled criticism of our own society, where revisionism and nostalgia about the Old South and Jim Crow racism remained so active despite the Union victory. I have re-posted the info from Wikipedia on the "mockumentary" below, as it does a fairly good job.

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America is a 2004 mockumentary directed by Kevin Willmott. It is a fictional "tongue-in-cheek" account of an alternate history, in which the Confederates won the American Civil War, establishing the new Confederate States of America (that incorporates the former United States as well). The film primarily details significant political and cultural events of C.S.A. history from its founding until the 2000s.

This viewpoint is used to satirize real-life issues and events, and to shed light on the continuing existence of discrimination in American culture. C.S.A was released on DVD on August 8, 2006.

Willmott, who had earlier written a screenplay about abolitionist John Brown, told interviewers he was inspired to write the story after seeing an episode of Ken Burns's The Civil War.^[1] It was produced through his Hodcarrier Films.

Overview

The movie is presented as if it were a British documentary being broadcast on Confederate network television, even including fictional commercials between segments of the documentary. It opens with a (fictional) disclaimer that suggests that censorship came close to preventing the broadcast, that its point of view might not coincide with that of the TV network, and that it might not be suitable for viewing by children and "servants". It purports to disagree with the orthodox Confederate American interpretation of United States history

It portrays two historians, Sherman Hoyle, a conservative Confederate States of America (CSA) white man, and Patricia Johnson, an African Canadian, as "talking heads," providing commentary. Throughout the documentary, a Confederate politician and Democratic presidential candidate, John Fauntroy V (the great-grandson of one of the men who helped to create the CSA), is interviewed. Narration explains faux historical newsreel footage, which is either acted for the production, or made of genuine footage with fictional, dubbed narration.

Racist ads aimed at white slave-owning families appear throughout the movie, including an electronic shackle for tracking runaway slaves, a Runaway television program (satirizing COPS), Darkie Toothpaste, Niggerhair cigarette, and the Coon Chicken Inn. Additional commercials were produced but deleted from the final cut, including ads for the Confederate States Air Force and the children's show Uncle Tom and Friends. The sitcom Beulah is portrayed as Leave It to Beulah.  At the film's end, titles note that parts of the fictional CSA timeline are based on real-life history, and that some of the advertised products did exist.

Alternate timeline

American Civil War

In the fictional timeline, politician Judah P. Benjamin persuades the United Kingdom and France to aid the Confederacy so that it wins the Battle of Gettysburg. A fictional D.W. Griffith movie shows Harriet Tubman helping Union President Abraham Lincoln (disguised in blackface) try to escape to Canada after the CSA's military defeat of the Union. Confederate soldiers capture them; Tubman is put to death and Lincoln imprisoned. After two years, Lincoln is pardoned and exiled to Canada, where he dies in June 1905. Before dying, Lincoln laments not having made the civil war a battle to end slavery. In the aftermath, the conflict is known by the CSA as the War of Northern Aggression.

Post-war expansionism

After the war, the South tries to induce the North to accept the institution of slavery. John Fauntroy I introduces a tax that is alleviated by the purchase of slaves, and the works of Samuel A. Cartwright dominate American medical science. The CSA becomes the Western hemisphere's superpower — conquering and occupying all of the continental US, Mexico, Central America, and South America, with a blend of segregation and apartheid. Only Canada is not a CSA "client state", becoming home to refugee abolitionists and escaped black slaves. The Confederates construct a wall along the border between the two countries called the "Cotton Curtain" (referencing the Iron Curtain). Hatred of "Red Canada" dates to the late 19th century, when Frederick Douglass convinces the Canadian Parliament not to repatriate escaped slaves. Canada becomes the popular culture capital of the world with the contributions of African Americans and other exiles (Elvis Presley, after being jailed for a time, flees there), whereas the CSA never evolves beyond heavy-handed government propaganda.

In 1895, the Confederate government, which does not separate the Church from the State, outlaws all non-Christian religions. After much debate, the Roman Catholic Church is classified as a Christian religion. Originally, Judaism, too, is outlawed, but, after a dying Jefferson Davis cites the crucial contribution of the Jewish Judah P. Benjamin, the government decides to allow some American Jews to remain on a reservation (similar to a Native American reservation) in Long Island.

World War II

During World War II, the CSA is friendly with Nazi Germany, but disagrees with Hitler's Final Solution — the CSA preferring to exploit non-white races instead of exterminating them. The CSA agrees to remain neutral in any German war. Instead, the CSA preemptively attacks the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941 (the date of the actual attack on Pearl Harbor), as the opening blow in a war against the "Yellow Peril". The CSA military recruits a black regiment by promising the black soldiers their freedom if they would fight (which is later revealed to be a lie). The war is won using the atomic bomb. However, the European war still ends in German defeat, albeit with many more Soviet casualties.

Cold war with Canada

During the 1950s, a series of abolitionist attacks cause some Confederate Americans to question the need for slavery. In 1960, when only 29 percent of voters approve of slavery, Roman Catholic Republican John F. Kennedy is elected CSA president over Democrat Richard Nixon. However, foreign policy such as the Newfoundland Missile Crisis^[2] distracts him, and he is unable to implement his domestic agenda before being assassinated. The Vietnam War is briefly mentioned as an "expansionist campaign" of the CSA. Slaves rebel throughout the country, including the Watts Riots. Democratic Senator John Ambrose Fauntroy V presents programs returning America to its former Southern Protestant Biblical values — tolerance of adultery and of husbands beating their wives, and intolerance of homosexuals. By the early 1990s, the Confederacy has largely put away such self-doubt.

Modern day

The documentarians ask Senator (and presidential candidate) Fauntroy V to arrange an interview with some slaves, but it becomes clear that the slaves have been coached. However, they are clandestinely passed a note instructing them to meet a black man named Big Sam (earlier identified as the fugitive leader of a radical splinter group of the "National Association for the Advancement of Chattel People"). Big Sam, in turn, leads them to Horace, a lifelong slave of Fauntroy's, who alleges Fauntroy is part black, sharing a common slave ancestor. The racial accusations cost Fauntroy the presidential election; a month later, the senator commits suicide on December 12, 2002. Narration then states DNA tests were "negative."