9/11 - Where Were You?

[billl]

I can't say I know for sure, but there isn't much opposition (if any) to my knowledge. There are some African-American re-enactors who obviously are fine with it--there might be some others who are uncomfortable with it, but I can't ever recall hearing anyone getting upset about it. Odds are there would be someone, I guess, but...

In the media, the re-enactors are pretty much always presented as a brotherhood, a bunch of guys getting away to go camping for the weekend, possibly have some bourbon around the campfire, I imagine, and maybe getting a little weepy together at some point (again, my imagination). Actors on each side will talk about how they respect each other and the soldiers that fought, and how there's no partisanship, etc. to the point where it probably doesn't need to get mentioned anymore if the TV coverage is just a brief little snippet.

I could be wrong, but if anyone is upset about it, they are for some reason not protesting or getting news coverage. Using my imagination again, I sort of wonder if an African-American watching re-enactors on TV, or stumbling on them on a weekend country drive, might see a bunch of guys in Gray running around, a bunch of others in Blue running too or whatever, then some shooting, some guys from each side fall down, and, what the hell, I guess that's what happened.

[JuniperWoolf]

True, I guess the majority people doing the actual fighting were just young boys. Most of them probably didn't even know the details of why they were fighting, so why get angry at the reenactment? My boyfriend is a big civil war buff, he tells me that it was a horrible, gangrenous, bloody thing.

[billl]

Yeah. I had a friend in high school whose father was a Civil War buff. He wasn't a re-enactor, but that was the first time I encountered Civil War "geekdom". In 1990, when Ken Burns put out his hugely popular Civil War documentary (10 hours long, on PBS), the infatuation became well-known nation-wide, and probably got a lot of new converts. I think that's the spirit people do the thing in, on the whole. Who knows, there might be some people with ugly fantasies going on while they run around, but it looks like they would be keeping them well-hidden from the larger community of re-enactors.

As my initial response to Mark's post probably hints at, I am actually a little surprised that, in other countries, this sort of "innocent" or "non-partisan" aspect of the phenomenon isn't so well known. Makes sense, though, of course, because there certainly is controversy in closely-related areas.

[stlukesguild]

I have a couple of friends who are into the re-enactment thing. One focuses upon the Revolutionary War and the other on the US Civil War. As has been already noted, I have never heard of the least bit of protest. The whole thing is not far removed from the popular Renaissance Fairs where reenactors get together acting out roles of peasants, dukes, lords, knights, traveling minstrels, etc... Many of the actors have both civilian and military costumes. The women play along as camp followers, bar wenches, nurses, wives, etc... The Revolutionary War reenactment would include a dress ball in which high-ranking officers and aristocrats would be dressed in their 18th century powdered wigs at a formal dance and there would be pubs with traditional (nasty) drinks). The whole thing is just an excuse for a sort of elaborate role-play... like Halloween spread out over a week with a historical aspect. I don't see it as far removed from those who are into the costume parties at Halloween... or even those into certain fashion subgroups such as Goths or Steampunk.

[Hurricane]

I didn't know that. I would have thought that the slave descendants would take issue.

Not really, because it's not really "about" slavery or the causes of the war. My Dad went through a reinacting phase and it's more about telling the story of the Civil War (and the soldiers in it) as authentically as possible. Usually when there's a reinacting event, there's a section set up where women and other men are also in costume and sort of tell the "homefront" side of the war or talk about medicine, etc.

Also, a lot of Union Reinacting units have a separate set of uniforms to "play" confederate and vice versa. Some of the guys who do this stuff are a little crazy, but most of them are just very interested in history and educating people.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The most re-enactors are ever accused of being is dorky, honestly.

I have a friend who does a yearly WW2 re-enactment with paintball. It basically sounds like a huge paintball match with little organization and a ton of drinking. I'm surprised no one's died, honestly.

[Paulclem]

We have a least a couple of battle re-enactment societies. They tend to concentrate on the English Civil War. It's not that controversial because it's difficult to map the sides on to modern factions - so it wasn't, for instance, really a North vs South thing.

One of my teachers was in the Tied Knot. He was a big noise as apparently, being a short-house, he got to play Charles 1. It suited him, pompous as he was.

The most re-enactors are ever accused of being is dorky, honestly.

I have a friend who does a yearly WW2 re-enactment with paintball. It basically sounds like a huge paintball match with little organization and a ton of drinking. I'm surprised no one's died, honestly.

Sounds great. I'd love to go paintballing. I've done the laserquest thing in the past with the laser sensors and light pulse rifle type things. etc.