Confederate vs Black America /Television

[Sirian Eve]

Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff are developing a show called "Confederate".

"The premise of the series is that it takes place in an alternate reality where the South won the Civil War of 1861, and a new Civil War is brewing. In this alternate reality, slavery is legal and has become 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.”

While Aaron McGruder of 'The Boondocks' and producer Will Packer of 'Straight Outta Compton' and 'Girls Trip'are also coming together to create 'Black America'.

In the back story of “Black America,” the Confederacy was defeated. But instead of enduring the painful eras of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, African-Americans received reparations. The former slaves and freedmen claimed Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, a nation known as New Colonia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/arts/television/amazon-black-america-confederate.html
http://collider.com/hbo-confederate-backlash-explained/


Has anyone heard of this news? How do you feel about it?

The contrast is very interesting and for them to go into development around the same time makes me wonder.

[Nostalgia]

Weiss/Benioff had the stroke to do any project they wanted and they picked that?

Confederate will probably be better than people are expecting. Benioff wrote 25th Hour which was a pretty realistic portrayal of race relations (Spike Lee probably helped some too). But I'm just not interested in you know... seeing online discussions about it, white actors talking about how stressful it was to pretend to be some horrible racist, all the nuance of oh this character is a slave but they like it and this guy owns slaves and he feels super bad about it and this strong female character is on both sides of the blah blah blah

They're allowed to make it, I wish them luck finding an audience, but i don't want that in my eyeballs.

Black America, I dunno. I like McGruder but Liberia exists. I will probably watch the first couple episodes which is more than I can say for the rest of Amazon's shows, which are mostly precious indie-twee for vegans who live in Brooklyn.

If it's a one note bombastic show about black excellence I'll probably skip, if it's a more serious/complex version of season 1 and 2 of Boondocks I'm all in.

[Aiden]

People boycotting shows are dumb, and the online frenzy about this, is stupid. It is just people trying to latch their agendas onto anything that might relate in some way.

Both shows sound intresting, when I watch a new show I am not intrested in the current (my world) politics, I want to watch the show and "get lost" in it.

[ReijiTabibito]

My problem is that I could never actually take Confederate seriously, unless we're talking it being set within a 20 year span of the original Civil War...but seeing as how the show plugs that there's a third American Civil War coming, I don't think that to be the case.

Aiden, normally, I'm with you - on the few rare occasions I watch TV, I watch it to get lost in the world and the lore.  See Adi Shankar's Netflix adaptation of Castlevania.  (Can't wait for season 2!)

But the premise of Confederate is so f*cking ridiculous that you could not sell me on it.  About ten years ago, a Mockumentary film called CSA was released, which dealt with much the same manner: the Confederacy won the Civil War, slavery is still legal, etc etc.  Watched it, couldn't stand it after about half an hour.

Now, the reason you couldn't sell me on Confed is simply because the American Civil War is my bag when it comes to history.  You're talking to a guy who's read Shelby Foote's The Civil War - all 3 volumes, a total of ~3000 pages - twice in one year; nearly every Bruce Catton book, and a number of others.  So I'm not your average person when it comes to the matter.


Black America sounds marginally more interesting, but I have a couple of historical issues with that, too.  (The idea that the US would give up 3 states that it had fought so hard to reclaim when there was tons of unincorporated, non-state territory out there chief among them.)

[Aiden]

I see this as another alternate history show and that is how it should be treated. Becuase of the current state of politics and the news, anything that flags of as conferderate or race/racist anything starts to trend.

[Sirian Eve]

Weiss/Benioff had the stroke to do any project they wanted and they picked that?

Exactly…but they were interested in the concept. It was something that I guess was always a passion project for them? Perhaps?

People boycotting shows are dumb, and the online frenzy about this, is stupid. It is just people trying to latch their agendas onto anything that might relate in some way.

Both shows sound intresting, when I watch a new show I am not intrested in the current (my world) politics, I want to watch the show and "get lost" in it.

I agree. I like to watch shows for that same reason.


BTW...Castlevania is a wonderful series.

I am interested to see what Black America would look like, especially since the Boondocks creator is behind it.

[Inkidu]

Why is there always this assumption that slavery will persist if the Confederacy wins? All historical evidence points to the Confederacy not winning the support of the international community (you know, what you need to be legitimized as a sovereign nation and not a rebellion) if they kept slavery.

Plus there's the argument that the industrial revolution would usher out slavery as a cheaper alternative. I'm not saying racism would magically disappear or that the life of the African-American would be fantastic, but there were numerous abolitionist movements in the South, and slavery was just on the out in the Western world. I just don't see any caveat that could see it past 1900.

Controversial TV is one thing, historically ludicrous premises to facilitate shock value is another.

[ReijiTabibito]

Why is there always this assumption that slavery will persist if the Confederacy wins? All historical evidence points to the Confederacy not winning the support of the international community (you know, what you need to be legitimized as a sovereign nation and not a rebellion) if they kept slavery.

Plus there's the argument that the industrial revolution would usher out slavery as a cheaper alternative. I'm not saying racism would magically disappear or that the life of the African-American would be fantastic, but there were numerous abolitionist movements in the South, and slavery was just on the out in the Western world. I just don't see any caveat that could see it past 1900.

Controversial TV is one thing, historically ludicrous premises to facilitate shock value is another.

From the official HBO blurb:

Confederate chronicles events leading to the "Third American Civil War". It 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.

Realistically, Inki, you're right - and that's one of the reasons the North won the Civil War.  When you develop basic automation and adopt the fruit of the Industrial Revolution, slavery becomes practically untenable.  It's a lot easier just to pay workers for their labor than have to go to the trouble of feeding and housing and caring for them.  Ironically, slavery had a chance to die well over half a century before the Civil War broke out...cotton as a cash crop was just proving too difficult until some damn Yankee from Connecticut invented this little device to separate cotton seeds from the fibers.

As for the international community, the CSA man in charge of that - Judah Benjamin - heavily relied on the notion that King Cotton was just too important to the states of Europe - primarily Great Britain - in his calculations if they would come in on the side of the CSA.  It failed, primarily because of a few things.

One was that the British had enormous stockpiles of cotton - they could have held out without the purchase of cotton for...maybe not the whole war, but a good portion of it - as well as the fact that they had a global empire, and cotton production in both Egypt and India were ramping up.

Two was the fact that if the British intervened on the side of the South, they could expect a war with the US - and while the South had cotton, the North was responsible for food shipments to the British home islands, totaling around 25% of all British food.  (That, and with the Royal Navy busy convoying cotton ships, American warships could have had a field day with British shipping.)

Three was that King Cotton was unrealistic - the South was relying on the same strategy that had saved their forefathers in the Revolution: hold out long enough for European powers to intervene and support the rebellion.  Except that was never going to happen, because the American Revolution sparked a war all across the British Empire, and the British had to scramble to protect their empire elsewhere - India, the Caribbean, etc - when the French got involved.  The North was never going to face a scenario like that.

In the end, all King Cotton did was offer the South false hope that if they just held on long enough, they could win.

One of the more well-known pieces of literature set in this era is Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, which was later adapted into the movie Gettysburg.  In both works, James Longstreet (one of Lee's senior commanders) has a discussion with a foreign military observer, where the observer states that they hope his country and the South become allies.  Longstreet's reply is that "Your government would never support a nation that had the practice of slavery, you know it and I know it."  And then the follow-up:  "We should have freed the slaves, then fired on Fort Sumter."

As side note, Longstreet is a character of much historical debate, prone to either Historical Hero/Villain Upgrade depending on the side you talk to.  In the North, Longstreet was seen as the 'good Southerner,' primarily because he joined the Republican Party after the war and worked hand-in-hand with Ulysses Grant, as well as the fact that he was very wary about secession, and had no regard for slavery as an institution.

In the South, Longstreet was probably the most villified man of all time, especially under the ideology of the Lost Cause, and doubly so because he did one of the few unforgivable sins in the postwar South: criticize Robert E. Lee.  The major controversy that surrounds Longstreet, ironically enough, was something that he did not want to see happen, which was Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.  There are conflicting accounts, but historians generally accept the version that Longstreet reported in his memoirs as true - that he made every attempt to call off the attack - for the principal reason that he had been in a similar situation not even a year ago, but on the opposing side, and knew what it would have meant to make that charge.


TL;DR - this is (IMO) one of those cases of ludicrous premises to facilitate shock value.  If the showrunners are so concerned about having a discussion on race and race relations, there's a zillion other ways that they could have handled it.

[Kuroneko]

While Black America sounds like it might be a potentially interesting alt history exploration of the idea of reparation, I have absolutely no interest in watching Confederate for all the reasons posted in the article, and then some.

A good number of colleagues of mine are African American actors, and they have been engaged in a huge discussion about Confederate. Many feel they have to audition for it, because they need the work and the show will provide roles for them in a very limited casting environment, even if these roles will perpetuate types. But at the same time, they really dislike the premise and are hoping that the history of the show's creators can be counted on to not screw them over, and that they will take care of them. I hate seeing my colleagues put in this situation of having to choose roles in a show that appears to ignores the current racial tensions in their country and insists on exploring an idea that is anathema in order to support themselves, because that's all the roles that at are available to them. Granted, it's a much larger problem in the industry than this show alone.   

What I'd really like to see in the vein of an alt history series, is one where Native American Nations were never conquered or received reparation.

[RedRose]

I tend to avoid two types of shows: those politically incorrect just for the heck of it, let's shock the viewer just for fun, and those that are but a thin disguise for preaching even when I agree with their agenda. But I would give those shows a chance.

[Normie]

I agree that using fictional media as a thinly veiled vehicle to push one's real-world political agenda is pretty reprehensible, but I think you have to wait and actually see the show before making that judgment. For instance the fact that the Confederacy "won" the Civil War in this setting does not necessarily mean that their practice of slavery would be portrayed in a noble or sympathetic light; if anything I can imagine that it will do the opposite, reminding people how awful slavery was. This controversy reminds me of the brouhaha over that Netflix original "Dear White People," where people rushed to conclude based on the trailer that it was basically an anti-white propaganda show, but then the actual story of the show ended up being a lot more nuanced than that and arguably ended up sending the opposite message (to people that actually bothered to watch it, that is--after the fiasco of its trailer and marketing I'm sure many didn't).

[Kuroneko]

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/no-confederate/535512/

I think this article does a pretty good job of addressing the 'see it before you make a judgment' argument. It makes several important points, and deserves to be read in its entirety.

[TheGlyphstone]

A neat premise, but personally I'd rather see Harry Turtledove's Guns Of The South adapted into a miniseries/movie first.

[ReijiTabibito]

A neat premise, but personally I'd rather see Harry Turtledove's Guns Of The South adapted into a miniseries/movie first.

HECK YES!  That I would pay money to see.

(For those of you who aren't familiar with the book Glyph is stating, it's basically an Alt-History novel where a bunch of white supremacists travel back in time to give the South...AK-47s.)

[The Dark Raven]

Turtledove and Harry Harrison's books were great.

[Exenklean]

People will find anything to make a scene about.