‘Confederate’ poses test over race
Critics say slavery should not be trivialized for sake of fantasy TV
It was supposed to be HBO’s next big thing: a high-concept drama from the creators of “Game of Thrones,” set in an alternate America, where the Southern states had seceded from the Union and slavery continued into the present day.
Instead, the new series, called “Confederate,” has provoked a passionate outcry from potential viewers, who are questioning how HBO and the creators will handle this volatile mixture of race, politics and history. Several historians and cultural critics are also skeptical about whether the creators of “Game of Thrones,” David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, are the right people to address the subject and if it should be attempted at all.
“Confederate” arrives at a time when many minority groups feel their civil rights are under siege, and when issues surrounding the Civil War and its legacy — the propriety of displaying Confederate flags; the relocations and razings of Confederate monuments — continue to confront Americans almost daily.
To the show’s critics, its promise to depict slavery as it might be practiced in modern times is perhaps the most worrisome element of “Confederate.” They say that slavery, a grave and long-standing scar on the national psyche, especially for black Americans, should not be trivialized for the sake of a fantasy TV series.
“Racial history in this country is a very open, sensitive wound,” said Dodai Stewart, editor-inchief of Fusion, a social-justice culture and news site.
“Nothing’s settled, nothing’s healed,” Stewart said. “I want to believe that this will be handled sensitively. But it’s an emotional subject, and for too many people, it’s uncomfortably close to the reality they already experience.”
No scripts have been written, and not a single frame has been shot for “Confederate,” which will not make its debut any sooner than next year. But the show’s pedigree is already established: With “Thrones,” Benioff and Weiss are responsible for HBO’s most-watched series ever and the winner of the Emmy Award for drama series for the past two years.
The show joins a television landscape in which alternatehistory narratives are becoming increasingly popular, as seen in dystopian programs like Amazon’s “The Man in the High Castle” (adapted from the Philip K. Dick novel) and Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” (from the novel by Margaret Atwood).
In a news release announcing its acquisition of “Confederate,” HBO said the series would depict hypothetical events leading up to a “Third American Civil War,” and follow characters “on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone,” including “freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slaveholding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.”
While this subject matter is delicate in its own right, there is particular concern about how it will be handled by Benioff and Weiss.
In their time on “Game of Thrones,” they have been criticized for what some viewers regard as the routine and insensitive depiction of rape, and an overreliance on sexual violence as a plot device.
“Thrones” features few black actors in prominent roles, other than characters who are, or once were, slaves, and includes a plotline in which a population of darker-skinned slaves was liberated by a white savior.
Eric Foner, the Columbia University history professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery,” expressed dismay when he heard that Weiss and Benioff were the creators of “Confederate.”
“‘Game of Thrones,’ to me, is just an exercise in violence and sexual abuse, and many other things that draw a crowd but don’t have much redeeming social significance,” Foner said in a telephone interview.
He added: “I hope they know more about the American Civil War than they do about the medieval world.”
Weiss and Benioff have become two of the most important talents at HBO, which prides itself on creative freedom. Under their guidance, “Game of Thrones” has become a ratings blockbuster, delivering 16.1 million viewers across multiple platforms for its Season 7 premiere.
As the show approaches its grand finale (no sooner than next year), a vital priority for HBO has been securing a new project from its creators.
The network declined to make Benioff and Weiss available for interviews. In the announcement for “Confederate,” they said they had been discussing the idea for several years and had considered pursuing it as a feature film before taking it to HBO.
Weiss and Benioff said in the announcement that they would be working on “Confederate” with married writer-producers Malcolm Spellman (“Empire”) and Nichelle Tramble Spellman (“The Good Wife”), who are black. Spellman, reached by phone, declined to comment for this article.
Still, some performers have already suggested that they want no part of a series like “Confederate.”
Actor David Harewood, a star of shows like “Supergirl,” “Homeland” and “The Night Manager,” wrote in a Twitter post, “Good luck finding black actors for this project.”