This morning, HBO announced that D.B. Weiss and David Benioff‘s post-‘Game of Thrones‘ career includes producing an epic drama that asks, ‘What if slavery and institutionalised racism still existed in America‘?
It’s called ‘Confederate‘, and it’s an alt-history where the southern states successfully seceded during the American Civil War, creating a nation where slavery is legal and became a modern institution.
As shocking as it seems that an innocent, big-budget TV drama about slavery and racism helmed by two white dudes would cause a bit of blow-back, shockingly, that appears to be what has happened.
Nobody needs a series about a world in which the confederacy wins. Reality today is enough.
— deray mckesson (@deray) July 19, 2017
It is exhausting to think of how many people at @HBO said yes to letting two white men envision modern day slavery. And offensive. https://t.co/xsxWJ6FHUv
— roxane gay (@rgay) July 19, 2017
Oh! you mean like the mass incarceration of black people in the United States…? Where people are still….. enslaved?? https://t.co/7Nd30rLJbC
— La Bronze James (@jackieaina) July 19, 2017
It just occurred to me… there are going to be…
so…
many…
rape scenes… https://t.co/f5NFoaRXMJ
— Saeed Jones (@theferocity) July 19, 2017
hmmm smells like capitalizing off black suffering again by broadcasting trauma porn at the expense of millions of black americans https://t.co/QA0Q2VvG3V
— no (@miskeencore) July 19, 2017
Oh-No-Baby-What-Is-You-Doing.gif https://t.co/2COQ4ip5nr
— X (@XLNB) July 19, 2017
give me the confidence of white showrunners telling hbo they wanna write slavery fanfic
— pilot (@pilotbacon) July 19, 2017
remind me to stay off the internet the day when Ed Sheeran cameos as a slave trader in CONFEDERATE.
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) July 19, 2017
We know very little about the show at the moment, and even less on how much time Weiss and Benioff have spent pondering the absolute myriad of issues they’re about to blunder into. (The press release from HBO said they’d discussed the show “for years”, but uh, these two don’t have the best track record of dealing positively with racial issues.)
TBD if the widespread criticism forces two of the most powerful men in television to stop and think.
Photo: Mark Davis / Getty.
