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HBO Talk Confederate Controversy, Defends Slave Drama, Not The Way It Was Announced
- Thread starter lightskintwin
- Start date
Frozenprince
Banned
The south had 0 major industry. They had no natural metals of any abundance, no real ability to mine or refine steel, no major metropolitan areas compared to the north, no real cohesion of government, etc etc.
Alternative history is only interesting if it's at least semi plausible, nothing about the Confederacy being a stable, economic and political entity 150 years and a series of wars later is plausible. So if this has ANY chance of being good, they'd better have fucking nailed that background information.
But I won't see it regardless, I have 0 interest in propagating more slave shit.
Alternative history is only interesting if it's at least semi plausible, nothing about the Confederacy being a stable, economic and political entity 150 years and a series of wars later is plausible. So if this has ANY chance of being good, they'd better have fucking nailed that background information.
But I won't see it regardless, I have 0 interest in propagating more slave shit.
See, this response kind of encapsulates the problem I have with the premise. The Union winning the civil war didn't end sharecropping, or Jim Crow, or prison labor camps...all ways in which many aspects of institutional slavery were able live and thrive well after the 13th amendment. Hell, reconstruction ended up a farce where the Confederates were largely allowed to resume control of the South anyway. I'm concerned that this show will aid in whitewashing real American history for the sake of contrast with the fictional history. Hope I'm wrong, but again I have almost no faith in D&D.
Frozenprince
Banned
Shit you could do a show on the failures of the reconstruction era south and say basically everything you could say with this shit AND give people some actual history to learn
Zap Rowsdower
Banned
You forgot, have a John Brown-like figure that is portrayed as the villain because he's/she's not trying to have a nice and peaceful discourse with all the slave owners.
Frozenprince
Banned
Field hymns but they rap them instead because it's "modern"
ryutaro's mama
Member
And you forgot the villianous Northerner who is secretly aiding Southern slave owners because he has financial investments there.
The second sentence isn't an argument in sake of the one before. But thanks for telling me.
Why would that be a selling point for anyone.
Premise I can see, but the writers staff is the most damming thing about this whole project.
Frozenprince
Banned
You could even make Andrew Johnson basically Trump FFS it writes itself.
It is a period that is largely skipped over. Even in white washed history. You would think nothing really happened in between the civil war, and WW 2. Except for the little dusty up in Europe inbetween.
Exactly. I feel like I wouldn't have as much of an issue with the show if white America's understanding of the real history of this issue wasn't so goddamn whitewashed and insufficient. As it is, I'm worried this show will just be there making other white people feel good about how things turned out compared to "how it could have been," while ignoring that things didn't really turn out too well in many ways.
Yeah, that's a good, succinct summary of my main issue with this. Plus D&D having a shitty record when it comes to original content.
Nothing about this alternate timeline makes any sense when you start slightly digging beneath the surface. Knowing D&D I doubt they've put much thought into it.
Or Jeff Sessions
Well I'm mostly talking about David here. Weiss is good too, but David's book City of thieves is one of my favorite books of all time and they've been adapting someone else's material for a TV show for several years, which probably restricted them a lot. I'm excited to see what original stuff they come up with for this show.
I assume you're gonna have a much harder time to sell a historical Civil War show to international audiences? Mind you, I'm not sure how important this is to HBO, but looking at CBS and Star Trek, I wouldn't be shocked if such considerations played into it.
Frozenprince
Banned
The Confederacy would be North Korea levels of poor because the south would have quite literally 0 useful or valuable industry beyond crude oil. And even then, only Texas would benefit given how defederalized their government was.
Might seem like this is stupid to harp on. But when the core premise of your entire show makes no fucking sense you've already lost.
Might seem like this is stupid to harp on. But when the core premise of your entire show makes no fucking sense you've already lost.
Amazed he isn't getting cut a check tbh
I don't see this having much international appeal either.
Spoiler tags don't work if people don't know what you're spoiling.
Personally I don't see the appeal at all. The idea "What if the South had kinda won/not lost" is not interesting to me.
ryutaro's mama
Member
Show your work.
Tell us all why we shouldn't be extremely skeptical of a show whose premise is modern day slavery of Black Americans.
How so?
dead souls
Member
Benioff and Weiss are hacks. If this makes it to air it will be hideously awful.
your whining seems so misguided. this post is an embarassment
Dude stop with the whining rubbish. It is pretty damn simple why POC aren't all jumping about being happy about this shit.
I have not read that book, so I can't comment on it, but it is pretty universally agreed upon that their original writing on GoT is stinking up the joint.
So that "restriction" was probably for the best.
But different strokes and all that.
Adam Sadler
Member
I think a better premise on alternate history would be if United States was still segregated and a great part of PoC communities were more well off than white people
Frozenprince
Banned
"Great news, I got you a supporting role in a prestige drama on HBO" "My god as a black actor this is everything I wanted and more!" "Now here's your burlap sack and leg shackles" "God damnit, every time"
benicillin
Banned
I still don't see how you can have a nuanced view of modern day slavery, unless they're going to "both sides" it up.
Like you literally can't make an alternate history show about the South still being a major institution today without being pro-South because they had nothing going for them. They aren't going to set up a situation wherein the South is all evil.
Like you literally can't make an alternate history show about the South still being a major institution today without being pro-South because they had nothing going for them. They aren't going to set up a situation wherein the South is all evil.
Whompa02
Member
We saw a stock photo of two producers and a simple write up with absolutely ZERO direction of where the show is going, what the characters are motivated by, or the tone or ANYTHING. Give me a trailer. They're saying the messaging was poorly delivered. It was. If the premise doesn't please us within 140 characters, we get mad. I get it, but I need a little bit more before I flip my chair over with vitriol.
The setup can be viewed negatively, but the underlying messaging might be a little more progressive than we give it credit for. I'd like to think HBO and the writing team wouldn't run a campaign against black people, but I know some think otherwise.
inb4 "okay.jpg"
MistakenMobius
Member
Will America be depicted as backward as fuck?
Like North Korea poor about tombe invaded by Mexico?
Slave economy does not make sense in a modern setting: less incentive to innovate, less competitive industry...
Like North Korea poor about tombe invaded by Mexico?
Slave economy does not make sense in a modern setting: less incentive to innovate, less competitive industry...
Frozenprince
Banned
How is a show about modern day slavery supposed to be progressive?
Slavery is bad? No fugging way.
Slavery is bad? No fugging way.
One episode we done fam
Whompa02
Member
We live in a country full of idiots. Maybe people need a reminder of how bad our history was. Is that an interesting premise? Meh. I'm currently not sold on the show just off that. Get Out was a fantastic movie that used a modern setting to depict messaging that mirrored some themes of black history. Who's to say this wont mirror similar talking points?
If the messaging is bad, it is completely on them. They are in an industry where 55% of their job is messaging. And considering how they handle some of the messages in GoT, it is not shocking they fucked it up and will fuck up the show
A show where modern day black people as cattle as progressive? In what way?
Get Out had decent writers
Who were self aware
Discotheque
Banned
i'd love a sort of distorted and exaggerated sci fi story based on today's gender and race politics as a tv show (encompassing more than one minority too).
hire some minority writers and directors or consult with the communities or some shit.
partly why I enjoyed Get Out so much was that it felt like a 'black twilight zone'
hire some minority writers and directors or consult with the communities or some shit.
partly why I enjoyed Get Out so much was that it felt like a 'black twilight zone'
I don't know much about the show but this seems like it would be a plot in the show. How much did they describe of their concept?
...but that revolt failed.
There's only a single long-term successful slave rebellion in recorded history.
ryutaro's mama
Member
We do know the summary and we do know what the basic tone is from the writer interviews. We know they want to tell a nuanced story around a US with the institution of slavery intact.
A modern day envisioning of the slavery of Black Americans is a flawed message to start, so progressive is a difficult message to wrap around that.
How about this? Would you expect people to be ok with a show with the premise being the Nazis didn't lose WW2 (and before you say, Man In The High Castle) AND the Jews were still subjected to experiments, torture and death camps as a major story point.
Would people be waiting around to see how progressive the underlying message might be before weighing in?
Should we wait and see how 'nuanced' the telling of the story is when the premise is so inflammatory?
Westbahnhof
Banned
I'll just go with the "let's see how it plays out" crowd(as I can't stop them, no use in already considering the worst), but in my mind, I can already see the Irish "modern slaves" and the shitstorm they'll cause.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
This is still a bad idea no matter what they try to say.