What began as a short internet video satirizing the furor that erupted over the removal of Confederate statues in New Orleans in 2015 became a bigger, and darker, story. “I’m interested in the absurd lengths people go to avoid acknowledging the impact race has had — and still has — in this country,” says comedian-turned-filmmaker C.J. Hunt, the director of The Neutral Ground. “The monuments debate felt like a concrete way to explore a question at the heart of our divisions: can we be honest about our nation’s past?”
“I was living in New Orleans when the New Orleans City Council made their historic decision to remove four Confederate monuments,” Hunt recalls of the origins of the film. As a biracial comedian and satirist, he thought the public discourse on the issue would be ripe with comic potential and asked a friend to bring a camera to a council meeting “so we could make a short funny video about old white people attempting to argue the city’s highest places of honor should remain dedicated to slave owners and traitors.”
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“However, after witnessing the level of racist vitriol at that meeting and the outright intimidation that halted the removal process, it became clear that we had a longer, darker story to tell,” he explains.
Hunt soon saw just how large and dark the tale would be. “When you’re making a film about the growth of white supremacy in America, it’s hard to know when to stop,” he says. “We thought we were done in the summer of 2017. Then the Unite the Right Rally happened in Charlottesville. We thought we were done in the spring of 2020. Then George Floyd was murdered in public. I am grateful that all of these events made it into the film because I think it expands and complicates the story we tell about white supremacy.”
In revealing the century-plus-long campaign to legitimize the statues, says Hunt, “I hope our film helps people realize: monuments are not history. Anyone with a couple hundred thousand dollars can buy a monument to commemorate whatever story they choose. And when future generations decide that a monument no longer represents them, they have the right to move that object to a museum or into someone’s musty garage.”
“I want folks to understand that white supremacy isn’t just the prejudices of a dying generation; it’s also a spirit alive and well in the youth of America,” the filmmaker explains. “I want people to know that white supremacy isn’t just screaming men carrying torches in the dark; it’s also the impunity that allows police-involved killings and monuments to slavers to stand as an everyday part of our world.”
