Abraham lincoln zombie hunter4/17/2023 ![]() ![]() It’s a trope that has woven its way into modern media depictions that feature the American Civil War. This condescending sentiment was spoofed perfectly on an episode of Family Guy where Stewie, on behalf of white America, tells a black visitor at Gettysburg–“you’re welcome.” No wonder that the writer of a 1977 TIME article on Roots could say, with quite a straight face, that while white America had perpetuated slavery, African-Americans would do well to remember that it was whites who had also ended it. What has remained consistent however is the depiction of Abraham Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator” and that blacks–both free and slave–were pretty much passive recipients of America’s belated good will. And by the late 70s Alex Haley’s television miniseries Roots brought the brutalities of the peculiar institution directly into American living rooms. The social upheavals of the Civil Rights Era would coincide with a dramatic shift in academia away from the Dunning School, towards a more humanizing study of slavery. Hollywood would tone down the crazed rape-prone brutes of DW Griffith’s depictions with dancing asexual Uncles like Billy “Bojangles” Robinson (consistently paired with child star Shirley Temple), and an endless array of sassy (but doting and loyal) Mammys in films like Gone With the Wind. This is a marked improvement from past depictions of slavery that dominated popular culture and much of academia well into the mid 20th century–where the Dunning School reasoned that slavery wasn’t really so bad, while films like Birth of a Nation bemoaned the freeing of slaves in the first place. ![]() The modern popular history of the Civil War and slavery is roughly this–slavery was bad, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, the end. Why such divergent reactions? Likely because for many black viewers, beyond the addition of vampires, the larger overarching theme of the film wasn’t all that new. On another forum, populated mostly by black sci-fi fans, the trailer was greeted with laughs, but also virtual groans and eye-rolls. The idea was absurd on its face, yet intriguing. When the trailer for ALVH was first posted to a mainstream speculative fiction forum to which I belong, there were cheers, excitement and (of course) laughs. ![]() This is more an observation of a popular media trope that shapes our perceptions of Lincoln, the Civil War and slavery–with or without hordes of the blood-sucking undead. Anyone walking into a flick called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, expecting historical accuracy is barking up the wrong tree. Nor is this a post to quibble over the film’s anachronisms and historical inaccuracies–which reach comical heights. So why is this entire concocted story so fantastically hilarious and at the same time problematic? Because the history of slavery, America and the Great Emancipator is complex–and the reduction of slaves to almost passive players (even in an obviously ridiculous farce) is all too common in our popular national memory. This course of events is somewhat changed for the film adaptation, but we’ll get to that later. Eventually he’ll win the presidency, fight a vampire-infested Confederacy and pen the Emancipation Proclamation, urging slaves to fight back against their blood-sucking owners. With such stakes at hand, Lincoln sets out–stake in hand (axe actually)–to end this nefarious plan. From there, young Lincoln begins to unravel a hideous plot–vampires are behind American slavery, as they don’t have to merely hunt their food, they can buy them what’s more, vampires are intent on starting a civil war which will result in the eventual enslavement of everyone. Then, during an occassion on the Mississippi, Lincoln sees the unthinkable–slaves being sold to none other than a vampire. A young Abraham Lincoln is made aware of this through a series of harrowing events, and begins to train to fight them. The original story around ALVH is this–vampires have infested America. The lines are actually part of a spoof trailer created by Ola Betiku, mocking the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s minorly steampunk but majorly alternate-history monster feature Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter due out in theaters this weekend. ![]() Remember that part in history class? When Frederick Douglass slayed all those zombies? On a train? No? Good. “I’m sick of these zombies on this train!” utters Frederick Douglass, right before he begins slaying hordes of the undead with a shotgun and sword. ![]()
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