Prior to the mid 1960s Confederates were hardly ever shown in a negative light in movies or TV shows. Look at the "Littlest Rebel", the "General", "The Searchers", "Rio Grande", "Fort Apache", "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon", "The Last Outpost", "Shane" etc. In the sixties you had movies like "Journey to Shilo", the "Unforgiven", that were favoriable, but it was about this time things began to change. When made in 1976 "The Outlaw Josey Wales " was the first Confederate hero in many years and was called a revisionist film. Movies like "Ride With the Devil" (1999), "Cold Mountain" brought back the telling the Civil War story from the Southern view but with a heavy taint of guilt placed on the South still within the story. Since the sixties Confederates have been used in westerns and western sci-fi movies as the bad guys, villians and demented characters when using Indians became taboo.
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David Upton