LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Monday, May 9, 2011

Revising History of the Civil War and Slavery Yet Again

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer, the movie coming out next year from that admitted by author, "cynically commercially conceived" mashup novel, professes the Southern slave trade was created by vampires. This is why citizens of this country don't know our own history, because we get it from movies like RR's travesty, The Conspirator.

Tim Burton, part of the production team for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer, says:


Mr. Burton said he was instantly captivated by the book’s premise, though he had never been a serious student of the country’s heritage. “I didn’t really learn much, but I like that idea of history being told this way,” he said, speaking last week from London, where he is getting ready to start shooting another vampire movie, the entirely fictional “Dark Shadows.”


The “Vampire Hunter” film, like the book, follows Lincoln from his boyhood on the frontier through his assassination by John Wilkes Booth and — because this is a vampire story — beyond. Young Lincoln, having learned that his grandfather and mother were killed by vampires, vows to kill every last blood-sucker in a country that is crawling with them.


On realizing that vampires are tangled in the slave trade, Lincoln’s resolve grows and takes on a moral dimension. To complicate matters he also learns that the creatures come in two varieties, good and bad.

No comments: