History YMMV / Antebellum

** Others also criticized the [[CaptainObviousReveal predictable]] rehashing of the twist from [[spoiler:''Film/TheVillage'']].

* UnfortunateImplications:
** Accusations have been levelled that the film is an example of [[https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/antebellum-movie-review-i-am-tired-of-films-like-this.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab black]] [[https://www.nme.com/en_au/reviews/film-reviews/antebellum-review-janelle-monae-2912891 misery porn]], as much focused on exploiting the horrors of slavery as condemning them, without really saying much about the mindset of the white characters whose obsession with imaginary past glories and hollow racial ideology create the situation.
** [[https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/antebellum-review/616403/ Other]] [[https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/antebellum-political-films.html reviewers]] have commented on the seeming PlotHole of [[spoiler: all the other plantation slaves actually being modern-day kidnapping victims but acting like they've been broken over the course of generations, and only the well-educated and wealthy Veronica being able to ultimately resist, even using her high-class hobbies to aid in the escape, suggesting an ugly classist reading that was probably unintentional.]]
** The fact that the filmmakers refrained from having the slavers use the n-word (instead having them use other epithets, such as "cotton-picker") raises the question as to why that word can't be shown but, say, [[spoiler:beating a pregnant black woman until she miscarries]] can be.

* CatharsisFactor: Given how vile they've been acting the whole movie, [[spoiler: "Him", Daniel and his friend, and Elizabeth getting killed is definitely this. "Him" is burned along with the other two soldiers, and Elizabeth, [[LazerGuidedKarma who was the one who kidnapped Veronica in the first place,]] is lynched and dragged by a horse that Veronica was riding, until her head hits the foot of a statue.]]

* CompleteMonster: ''Film/{{Antebellum}}'' has these three [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racists]]:

** Accusations have been levelled that the film is an example of [[https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/antebellum-movie-review-i-am-tired-of-films-like-this.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab black misery porn]], as much focused on exploiting the horrors of slavery as condemning them, without really saying much about the mindset of the white characters whose obsession with imaginary past glories and hollow racial ideology create the situation.

* IronWoobie: Poor Eden/[[spoiler: Veronica. She is taken from her wonderful life as a public speaker, forced to be a slave for a bunch of racist Confederate idolists, is branded, beaten up, and raped, and witnesses her friends' deaths. At least at the end, she overcomes the park and survives in a victorious ride on a horse with an axe.]]

** Elizabeth, Denton's [[DaddysLittleVillain daughter]], is one of the chief figures of the "Plantation". Elizabeth is the one who selects the kidnapping victims, having them abducted to become slaves where they are tortured and stripped of all humanity, even implying at one point that she wishes to [[WouldHurtAChild enslave Veronica's young daughter]]. After her father's death, Elizabeth tries to hunt Veronica down and murder her, gloating in how she was the one who built the operation.

** [[BigBad Blake Denton]], aka "the General" or "Him", is a Southern [[CorruptPolitician senator]] seeking to reestablish the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Confederate way]] of life. Having black people kidnapped and [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil made into slaves]] where they are beaten, molested and killed, Denton has the heroine Veronica Henley abducted and regularly rapes her as his personal slave, fueled by nothing more than racism and cruelty.

* CompleteMonster: These three [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racists]]:
** [[BigBad Blake Denton]], aka "the General" or "Him", is a racist Southern [[CorruptPolitician senator]] seeking to reestablish the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Confederate way]] of life. Having black people kidnapped and [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil made into slaves]] where they are beaten, molested and killed, Denton has the heroine Veronica Henley abducted and regularly rapes her as his personal slave, fueled by nothing more than racism and cruelty.

* CompleteMonster:
** [[BigBad Blake Denton]], aka "the General" or "Him", is a [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist]] Southern [[CorruptPolitician senator]] seeking to reestablish the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Confederate way]] of life. Having black people kidnapped and [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil made into slaves]] where they are beaten, molested and killed, Denton has the heroine Veronica Henley abducted and regularly rapes her as his personal slave, fueled by nothing more than racism and cruelty.

** There are two schools of thought regarding the contribution of slavery to the American economy: one says it was necessary to fuel the country's highly profitable cotton industry, which made the United States the richest country in the world, which is why descendants of slaves are owed reparations for the unjust abuse suffered by their ancestors, who were never allowed to reap the huge benefits of their unrequited labor like their abusers were; the other says slavery was an outdated system long before the Civil War, inefficient and inferior to industrialized alternatives, not only unnecessary to maintaining the economy but a drain on resources, and would have naturally been abandoned if people didn't cling to it solely out of nostalgia and racist sadism. The movie (unintentionally or not) supports the second view, portraying the plantation lifestyle as being perfectly easy to achieve and maintain without slave labor [[spoiler:since the cotton picking is done for show, the crops aren't being sold to fund anything, and the victims are enslaved only for fun]]. The movie portrays slavery solely as a sadistic hobby practiced by evil racists for fun, not a source of wealth that exploited anybody's labor for the financial benefit of others. If such a setup is accepted as possible, the plantation system (and economy it supported) owes nothing to the hard labor, toil, and suffering of its slaves.

* IronWoobie: Poor Eden/[[spoiler: Veronica. She is taken from her wonderful life as a public speaker, forced to be a slave for a bunch of racist confederate idolists, is branded, beaten up, and raped, and witnesses her friends' deaths. At least at the end, she overcomes the park and survives in a victorious ride on a horse with an axe.]]

** [[https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/antebellum-review/616403/ Other]] [[https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/antebellum-political-films.html reviewers]] have commented on the seeming PlotHole of [[spoiler: all the other plantation slaves actually being modern day kidnapping victims but acting like they've been broken over the course of generations, and only the well-educated and wealthy Veronica being able to ultimately resist, even using her high-class hobbies to aid in the escape, suggesting an ugly classist reading that was probably unintentional.]]

** A modern-day Black female writer gets sucked back in time to an antebellum Southern plantation? That plot description could easily describe Creator/OctaviaButler's ''Literature/{{Kindred}}'', only this version is [[PlayedForHorror done as a horror movie]].