Starting off my text review for Antebellum, it is a horror movie set in slavery times that came out in September of 2020. The meaning of Antebellum means before war. In our case we would think of The Civil War or the War of the South. This movie stars Janelle Monáe as the main character who plays Eden. She is the main slave that tries to help other girls escape. She is also someone to go to for advice. The setting then changes to modern times, when Eden, now Veronica Henley hears a cell phone ringing. Veronica is a known sociologist and writer, she then give a speech to promote her book. In the beginning of the movie there was a quote by William Faulkner stating ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Some themes that make their appearance are the concept of “other” which is mentioned in a short story by Simone de Beauvoir. The “slaves” in this movie are part of the “other”. In relation to the “master/slave”concept this is a big theme throughout the movie and and example of this would be from Hegel’s The Master-Slave Dialectic, and lastly the “subaltern” is another concept throughout the film, and this concept comes from Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak. In this film the slaves are part of that community and aren’t able to speak unless spoken to. Later finding out this story was a civil war reenactment camp set in modern times. This movie was a good representation of showing how if the Antebellum time was now and the mixing of the old with the modern way of life. Ironically some people enjoy civil war reenactments. Lastly identity is a concept that come up within the movie. Eden or Veronica puts the general and his followers in the crematory and sets them on fire. She goes from victim to survivor.
