‘Civil War’ looms, but is it a movie or the real thing?
• The trailers are stirring up fears that the film’s release will magnify conflicts and rifts already present in US life
Imagine if you can a future America in which a threeterm totalitarian president is presiding over a country in the midst of a second civil war. That’s the premise of English writer and director Alex Garland’s new film, simply and pointedly titled Civil War produced by A24 and due for release next month.
It’s a premise that, even though the film has yet to be seen, has sparked furious debate between the bitterly divided American political left and right because, especially for those on the left, the idea of a real second civil war seems closer to becoming a nightmarish reality than at any other time since the end of the first one in the 19th century.
With Donald Trump and his conspiracy-addled Maga supporters now standing unopposed as the Republican candidate in this year’s US election, the shadow of the January 6 2021 insurrection still looming large in the nation’s memory and divisions between the two sides of the political spectrum becoming tectonic Garland’s film seems like a not very far-fetched projection of current fears into future reality.
Coming as it does in an uncertain and high-stakes election year, the film’s imminent release has sparked debate as to whether releasing such a close-to-the-bone dystopian sci-fi is such a good idea.
While the film’s trailers, the first of which was released in December, have sparked online debate about its plausibility and
predictable accusations from Maga supporters that it is yet another example of woke, leftist fearmongering and mind control, the majority of those questioning whether it should be released seem to come from the left of US politics.
Their argument is that even if Garland’s film is meant to leave viewers with a pro-unity message that hopes to placate divisions and remind Americans of the things that join
them rather than those that divide them, the timeliness of the idea may be used as fuel for turning Maga fantasies into bloody reality.
As one user on a subreddit, quoted in an article for The Hollywood Reporter, wrote: “Right-wing groups are not known for media literacy or nuance. And a psychotic gang of rednecks committing terrorism (in the film) to ‘own the libs’ might be obvious criticism to us,
but might be interpreted as a role model to Maga groups if not portrayed carefully.”
Though this may appear to be extreme Cassandra-ing, polls have shown that in the US the idea of a second civil war is one that keeps an alarming number of its citizens awake at night. A 2022 Economist poll found that 40% of Americans believe “a new civil war is somewhat likely in the next 10 years”.
That’s a sentiment echoed by the country’s favourite drag impresario, Ru Paul, whose comment in a New Yorker profile, that the country is “moments away from f***ing civil war ... all the signs are there”, was widely reported on and sparked much angry online debate.
Even though Garland’s film has thus far been judged solely on the impression that its two trailers have offered, it’s indication that in its fictional civil war universe, the seemingly politically and philosophically opposed states of Texas and California have made an alliance to defend the country’s borders has been seized upon by rightwing warriors, the more conspiracy loving of whom believe that the film is “predictive programming”, intended to prepare the American public for what will happen if Joe Biden wins a second term and wages a real war with the southern states over border security.
Hard to imagine for rational observers but all too probable in the minds of a worrying group of Trump worshipping nutters. As one online Trump supporter quoted by The Hollywood Reporter wrote: “The Civil War movie being released in April is not a coincidence ... they’re literally projecting exactly where we’re headed. Texas protecting our southern border will be the catalyst that sets it off. We’re entering a dark phase in our history and the current traitor-in-chief is absolutely at fault.”
As some have pointed out though, it’s hard to see why, if Biden was planning to go to war with Texas, he’d collaborate with Hollywood to make a film that gave away his nefarious plans before he’d had a chance to execute them.
This isn’t the first time that a politically tinged dystopian movie has ruffled feathers in an election year. In 2020, The Hunt, a supposedly satirical action drama about a group of American elites who kidnap poor people and hunt them for sport, was deemed a little too on the nose for an America wracked by political division and gun violence and saw its initial pre-election release date postponed by Universal to six months later. The film bombed both at the box office and with critics and did not live up to the controversy or hype.
In Garland’s case, though, all of this outrage and concern may be good for a film that studio A24 is betting big on. It’s reportedly the most expensive film the winning-streak studio has made and it will need whatever additional buzz and help it can to make it work.
Whatever the outcome, it seems certain that given the debate that’s raging, there will be plenty of pro-Civil War ,a sizeable amount of furiously anti-Civil War and more than a few just Civil War-curious moviegoers who will be lining up to see it in April.
What they’ll probably find is that, like the thousands of dystopian sci-fi films that have come before it, the film offers a cautionary tale that uses current fears to project an imagined but not wholly implausible future that should have all sanethinking people worried for a while and relieved by its end that it’s still only a movie.