Game of Thrones is nearing its end, and HBO has been looking for a way to keep showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff under their umbrella. While they could always take on a role in upcoming spinoffs, the duo have found something original to tackle, and it's already courting controversy.
The duo will take on the HBO series Confederate, which posits an alternate universe in which the South seceded after a third Civil War, keeping slavery in practice. Here's the synopsis from the HBO press release: 'Confederate’ chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War. The series takes place in an alternate timeline, where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution. The story follows a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone — freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.”
So yeah, people are Internet-angry over this, meaning they are raging without having seen a damn thing. I think people need to calm down and see how the show plays out. The automatic assumption detractors make is that they are somehow glorifying slavery, which is like saying The Handmaid's Tale glorifies stripping women of their rights and humanity. It's absurd. If the show turns out to be bad, that's another thing altogether, but we won't know until we see it.
It's also worth noting that they'll be joined by exec-producers Nichelle Tramble Spellman(Justified), Malcolm Spellman (Empire), plus Carolyn Strauss and Bernadette Caulfield from Game of Thrones, a diverse group that includes two African-Americans. So this show won't be without the black perspective.
I just don't want to see people harass HBO into dropping it before we ever see it realized.
