Headscratchers / Antebellum

• Why would modern slave owners put their slaves to work in the fields picking cotton and the like?
  A modern plantation wouldn't look like this even if race-based slave labor was legal. 200 years ago, slaves were forced to do that so their owners could make a profit, which financed their plantation lifestyle. These people must already be rich to be able to create this plantation-style community. They obviously can't sell to the outside world or, indeed, let the existence of this place be known to anyone on the outside, so they can't interact with any businesses or customers in the context of this place; therefore, there's no way they can make a profit on the slaves' labor (even if there are people out there racist enough to buy cotton made with slave labor, with all the modern established sources of crops harvested with modern technology, there's no way such a plantation could compete with them or stand a chance of making a profit). There's zero financial gain to be made from the slave labor here. If they fantasized about owning slaves, they would put them to work doing unpleasant labor that actually needs to be done or that they would find useful. Okay, maybe they fantasize about living in the past — what do they do with the harvested crops, burn them? They're pouring their money (which must be being made through modern means in the outside world), labor, and resources into financing crops that will make them no profits in return, the exact opposite of the system they're trying to recreate. They're going to all the trouble of keeping slaves in line without making them do any useful labor that made owning, controlling, and maintaining living slaves worth it to their owners. Since they're rich enough to do all this, they're rich enough to live on a plantation without exploiting slave labor to finance it — if real plantations could have done that, they wouldn't have bothered owning slaves. They exploited slaves for free labor; having fun bullying your slaves was a side-effect, not the primary goal and intent of the plantation system. Nobody started a plantation thinking, "Great! Now I have black people to rape and bully!" They started them thinking, "Great! I'm gonna have so much money and live in such comfort and luxury! If I need plenty of worthless, lesser beings to do the work that makes it possible, so be it." If you can have a plantation lifestyle without needing slave labor to finance it, why risk legal repercussions and spend more money and resources kidnapping and maintaining slaves? There's a reason nostalgic portraits of the Old South gloss over the horrors of slavery — because it's not the act of enslaving that such people long for, it's the lifestyle. If these people are so racist that it is the act of abusing people of color they fantasize about, they don't need this costly, elaborate setup to do it.
  • The answer is simple: It's because they can. Even when slave labor was more costly than the alternatives, America still went to war with itself to maintain it. For these people, it is not about the money. It's the power. They can force others to work for them, rape them, and live out their racist fantasies because they have the resources to make it happen. What they do with the crops is irrelevant, you can easily sell such things online or transport them to those who would take them. They are doing this because they want to. There are many real-life white supremacists who actually want to enslave other races once more if they could.
  • Also, let’s not gloss over the fact that a lot of slave owners were plenty malicious and explicitly had slaves to have power over people. The movie didn’t have to go very far to find information that would support this claim; for many slave owners, the power over human lives was part of the enjoyment and luxury. There are even stories that are arguably too gruesome to share (and for the movie to cite), like Madame Lalaurie's escapades among countless others. Male slave owners were prone to sexually abusing black female slaves despite many being married. The idea that slave owners were only in it for monetary profit and that harm towards slaves was only a "side effect" rather than being one of the contributing reasons owners wanted to keep them badly enough to start a war is probably what nostalgic racists would prefer to think, but slave owners were nowhere near naive about slavery's horrors, and some even relished in them. The movie reflects that: you've got to be a certain type of person already to find slavery acceptable by any means.
  • But nobody made slaves pick cotton for the fun of watching them do it. Nobody started a cotton or rice plantation for the sadistic pleasure of watching people die slow, torturous deaths while harvesting; they didn't burn the crops afterwards, they sold them. What are these people doing with the crops? If you're going to force the people you enjoy torturing to work rather than just beat, rape, and torture them, why not make them do work you actually need done?
    • They don't need any work done. The point is to live out a sick fantasy based on what plantations were like.
    • If we're talking symbolically, the park specifically caters to white supremacists who are nostalgic for the Antebellum Era. The park isn't meant to function like a historically accurate plantation because it's not the point; they don't want free labor, they are bitter racists who want to put black people into their "rightful place". It's why they kidnapped a black female activist and a college professor rather than someone who would be physically fit for a specific role, as in Get Out (2017).
• The eventual reveal that the movie is taking place on a Civil War reenactment park doubling as an illegal plantation makes sense for all of five seconds. So like uh, you kidnapped a bunch of black people and forced them to become literal 1800s style slaves on a Civil War reenactment park that you're illegally using as a plantation, a park that people pay to watch reenactments on, but somehow you managed to keep the slaves well enough out of sight so that the people paying to see the reenactments won't notice them? Uh...
  • 1. How big is this park?
  • 2. Assuming adults don't make up a big part of the slave population (black child slaves are shown all over the park too), how do you keep the park protected enough so that the slaves don't attempt to escape and steal a cell phone from a nearby office? There's only ever like maybe 5 guards on duty and they're all spread out sporadically thorough the park, so much that a slave escaping through the tall grass would be unnoticeable.
  • 3. How do the adult slaves explain to their children what airplanes passing in the sky are? The movie only seems to acknowledge this when its final shot shows an airplane passing over the park, but it doesn't seem to actually address the issue.
    • Sadly, human trafficking and slavery remains a global problem today. Isolation doesn't require lots of land. It's a matter of breaking and isolating a person to the point that they feel there's no point in escaping; that they'd never make it and/or there's nowhere to go. There was a case in Ohio involving a guy named Ariel Castro who held three females in his house for years right under his neighbors' noses.
  • There's no reason to assume they're making the children believe they live in the past. You say "stay quiet or the mean people will hurt you, don't look at the sky, keep working". It's not a game to people watching other people die and knowing they could be next. You keep quiet and keep the kids quiet.
  • There's no indication that any such brainwashing or isolation takes place, since from what we see, there's no real initiation for the slaves, and the slaves sleep together in their own quarters where they could plot an escape every night. There also definitely is someplace to go, and security isn't that tight on the plantation. Maybe if they made it clear the punishment for trying to escape was death, it'd make a little more sense, but that doesn't appear to be the case either, so trying to escape is pretty obviously low-risk, high reward. However, Rule of Scary and Rule of Drama are definitely at play here; a twist can still be effective if it doesn't make logical sense, and the idea of a modern-day slave plantation of kidnapped black people is scary, so a movie was going to be made about it regardless of the logical holes.
• Since they have the field slaves doing pointless stuff, how do they maintain this place? Do they pay people to do repairs, landscaping, cleaning, and building stuff?
  • Presumably, since they are wealthy, they have paid (and unpaid) staff who perform those functions.
• If Elizabeth picked all the captives, why was she appraising the victim her daughter names Julia as if it was the first time she saw her? Part of the game?
  • Yes, definitely. It's just like actual slaves were appraised by buyers.
• Depending on whether Elizabeth's daughter lives in the park or the real world for the majority of the time: what were her parents thinking bringing her to visit the park/taking her to visit the real world? Little kids can't keep secrets — she says the wrong thing to the wrong person, and they're doomed. Her interaction with Veronica shows she hasn't been coached on how to act around people on the outside to protect their secret.
  • Veronica thought that Elizabeth's daughter was odd, but she didn't dwell on their interaction. People who interact with Elizabeth's daughter are likely to think that her parents are just eccentric or old-fashioned, or that the child has a vivid imagination. By the time she was old enough for her words not to be dismissed as those of an odd little kid, she'd be taught to keep the secret.
• Since Elizabeth effortlessly gained access, why didn't they jump and abduct Veronica from her hotel room? Would have been easier for them and actually been possible, unlike the method they use.
• Since it wasn't for a practical purpose like kidnapping her there, why did Elizabeth break into Veronica's hotel room in the first place? Just because she found it fun? Enough fun that it was worth risking getting caught and blowing their plan?
  • Perhaps resentment over Veronica's lifestyle led to Elizabeth messing with the hotel room out of spite.
• What was the point of the vodka cran scene? Was it just for comedy, or were they implying the guy spiked the drink, and that kidnap attempt failed because Veronica's friend didn't like it?
• Isn't the point of the "my service has been impeccable" scene defeated by the fact that the audience saw that the reason Veronica's room wasn't cleaned was because of sabotage by Elizabeth, not because the hotel gave her different housekeeping service than her white friend?
  • It might not have been the scene's purpose, just something that Veronica would suspect.
• Assuming this took place before Uber instituted the PIN verification, why would an educated woman like Veronica not check that her car, license plate, and driver matched the picture she received when she (or her friend, hard to tell from the dialogue) booked the ride? Getting into the wrong Uber should be impossible for anyone with enough common sense to use a smart phone.
• Elizabeth's chasing someone who's galloping away from her at a frantic pace and... randomly stops and starts monologuing... why? How was that supposed to help her catch Veronica?
• For that matter, why did Veronica stop when Elizabeth stopped? That's when you keep going without looking back!
• Was Elizabeth just a little too into her role when she called Veronica a "cotton picker"? She doesn't actually need her slave to pick cotton for her (nobody does), and the cotton picking isn't real. What's the logic behind telling someone she looks down on that their place is doing something that doesn't need done? If she thinks certain people are lower than others and only made for menial tasks, wouldn't modern racists pick a menial task that they actually need people to perform today? Racists on Not Always Right always say the people they look down on are only good for delivering packages, mopping floors, serving fast food, or scanning at a check out, but not picking cotton. Unless she was so into the role that she forgot it wasn't real, she was using an insult she knew wasn't real.
  • "Cotton picker" is a real, if somewhat outdated, insult stemming from slavery, and even a modern black person might take offense to it, even if they themselves don't pick cotton. Though, considering how intensely her husband got into his role as soldier, and how much Elizabeth hated Veronica, it's entirely possible she was getting lost in character. However, even if she wasn't it's not out of the question that she would call Veronica that because it's an insult against black people anyway.
• How can this place have a sign, invite tourists, and advertise its existence to the public at large while conducting 100% illegal activity on the same grounds? Nowhere in the movie is it implied this is a dystopian future where the park's true activities are legal and accepted. Wouldn't it make more sense for the place itself to be a secret that only a select few know about? How long do they expect to keep the park's true purpose a secret if they allow just any Civil War buff in, like those who are glad the North won the war?
  • It's possible they tell most of the customers that the slaves are actually paid actors, and only let those who pay for the privilege of being a guard know what's really going on.
• According to the sign, the park officially advertises itself as a "Civil War reenactment park." Is the movie saying anything remembering the Civil War is as evil as Confederate monuments? The outcome of the Civil War (directly or indirectly, debates about its true purpose or motive blah blah blah) was the end of slavery; it makes sense to condemn the Confederacy but not the war that defeated the Confederacy. For that matter, why would these racists use Civil War in their name as if it's something for them to celebrate? They lost that war. Okay, maybe using Civil War in the name is a front for their true purpose. But the Civil War is blamed for the end of the idyllic Old South Antebellum era. What sense does it make to call something that allegedly celebrates the Civil War "Antebellum"? People who love the Antebellum era should hate the Civil War as much as Scarlett O'Hara did. What (public and legal) demographic are they trying to reach by advertising themselves as Antebellum and Civil War reenactment?
  • I don't have a definitive answer, but this troper has seen plenty of Confederate idealists obsess over the Civil War because they see themselves as being "true Americans" fighting for the right cause. It's why so many statues of Confederate generals are still up in a lot of places (the movie even points out General Lee's statue). Regardless of how you feel about them, the statues clearly must resonate with somebody, despite being soldiers on the losing side. I don't think the movie is saying that remembering everything about the war is bad (after all, Veronica's speech implies otherwise, since she's talking about systemic oppression that began in the Antebellum Era), just that idealizing it is bad.
• In real life, wasn't overseer a job, a paid position? Do these racists really hate African-Americans so much that they find bullying them so much fun that they're willing to pay for the privilege of working in the hot Southern sun for no practical reason?
  • Yes, because their fantasy is to order African-American people around and abuse them at leisure. The power trip that satisfies their rich egos, the hatred, the resentment over it no longer being the "good old days" when black people "knew their place", etc. There are really white people like that in the South.
• The night of the escape, why didn't Veronica go for the phone as soon as she got out of the cabin instead of waiting until her companion showed up?
• If the villains in charge keep their cell phones, why don't they have motor vehicles and modern weapons stored somewhere for use in an emergency like a well-planned escape attempt or a revolt? They may want to enjoy their 19th century fantasy, but if someone actually has a chance of escaping or harming them, it would make sense to keep modern tools on hand to stop them in a worst case scenario. If their guards had been given weapons like the ones used by military snipers or prison guards, or just Jeeps, only to be pulled out in case of an emergency, Veronica wouldn't have had a chance.
  • They weren't supposed to have cell phones. The young, drunken ones broke the rules in bringing their cell phones in and it was implied they would have been in trouble and were going to be. We can guess there's a purist faction in the Confederate group that don't believe they should use modern technology. But I agree that having a backup would have made the most sense.
• Why is this "set" during the American Civil War? Even the dumbest, most cowed slave knows the it lasted 1861-1865, and if they keep their head down they'll be fine in a few years. Not to mention, if a new slave talks to an older one, it's pretty clear that they've been here longer than 4 years. They've set a specific very short time period, and are thus setting themselves up for failure. Let alone kidnapping anyone with a deeper understanding of the actual period.
  • You seem to be missing the point of the plantation. The slavers romanticize the time period, and want to live in it. The entire Antebellum amusement park, including the public part and the plantation, is an attempt to recreate it (or at least a romanticized vision), and both could theoretically stay open and operating as they are indefinitely. They have no intention of ever changing the setting and letting the slaves go; if a slave gets too old to work or running the plantation becomes infeasible for some reason, they'll most likely just kill them and the kidnapped black people most likely know that (though that provides them extra impetus to attempt escape.)

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