The Plantation System in Southern Life (1950) Reviewed

I am worried that this is becoming "just some blog" since i started talk9ng about myself and posting stuff from Youtube. But this isn't just some blog, this is a forum for reviewing whatever obscure artifacts I can lay my eyes on, a mission articulated in the first post. So let me fulfill the promise i made that day, to review an educational documentary on the slave system from 1950.


To be honest, with part one of this doc I was a little disappointed to find a neutral portrayal of the slave system intended for post WWII fifth graders. It was described to me as an anachronistic endorsement of that system, a last ditch effort to bring slavery back in the mid twentieth century. Toward the end of part one, however, I did notice that they slave owners were getting off pretty easy.
"The planter and slaves were part of an unusual class system." Says the narrator in his now iconic neutral tone. Why yes, that class system was very unusual now that I think of it. Not oppressive or tragic, just unusual, thanks for pointing out that little nuance.

so anyway, part 2 kicks up the weird. The narrator poses the question "Did this plantation life influence the modern south?" Did the Beatles influence the Monkeys? He then begins to make his case "The land cultivated for generations, remained. The source of labor, great numbers of negros, remained." And here's where he blows your mind. You probably assumed the civil war ended the plantation system, maybe you weren't aware that land and great supplies of negros remained. I cannot even describe the frisson that the announcer gives the word remained. You get the point, the plantation system is still going in 1950. Now go read the synopsis of Lars Von Triers second installment in his (aborted) America is bad trilogy, Manderlay (2005).
Eerie, huh?
Notice how the documentary filmmakers mirror shots from part one and part 2 in which the landowner walks straight back into the house while 2 laborers walk diagonally back toward the field.
"Economic and social patterns have left a lasting influence throughout the South." i thought this this shot should have been followed up with a shot of separate water fountains, but what the narrator says next is even better as they cut to a barbecue of impeccably dressed white folk. "Today if we visit a social gathering in the south we will see some of these influences." I'll bet. southern hospitality, "The gentle manners and courtesy, the separation of society into distinct groups." I shit you not, following that line the only black person at the party walks across the screen carrying a tray of food. "These are some things the plantation system has contributed into southern life."
Were the filmmakers aware that they were making a subversive documentary on race relations and commerce? I think the neutrality had to mask some contempt but I can only imagin the elementary school kids watching this in 1950, learning about how the south had different social groups, glad that they weren't in the group that carried the trays.