What is wrong with this picture? Fans come for ‘Game of Thrones’ creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss, skirting racism, as duo announce new HBO show ‘Confederate’ which focuses on an alternate reality where slavery is still legal
What does the public think of the upcoming HBO series ‘Confederate – ‘This is a horrible idea. Please don’t do this’
David Benioff and Dan Weiss, creators of runaway successful cable series ‘Game of Thrones’ set to write and direct new series ‘Confederate’ for HBO
The show is set in fantasy plot – an alternative reality in a nation where slavery is still legal
HBO explains the attempt to light a tinder box, saying it ‘chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War’
Fans took to Twitter on Wednesday to criticize both concept and context of tone deaf the new show
Tone deaf: David Benioff [left] and Dan Weiss [right], who adapted the hit medieval fantasy Game of Thrones will write and direct new HBO original series, Confederate.
Outrage broke out on social media on Wednesday after it was announced that the creators of HBO’s Game of Thrones will push the envelope again with a new show about an alternate reality where slavery is still legal.
David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who adapted the hit medieval fantasy Game of Thrones from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire’books, HBO announced Wednesday, will write and direct original series Confederate.
The plot for the new show panders to a context cherished by a minor segment, recently on the ascendancy in America.
This group of extremists would love the plot which is set in an alternative reality in a nation where slavery is still legal and southern US states have seceded.
Game of Thrones: Meeting between the characters Daenerys Targaryen [Emilia Clarke], Tyrion Lannister [Peter Dinklage], Elaria Sand [Indira Varma] and Yara Greyjoy [Gemma Whelan]
Game of Thrones: Jon Snow mounted on horseback along with Davos Seaworth and some other northmen, as they prepare to ride out of a snowy Winterfell, in the block buster HBO Original series
HBO said the series ‘chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War’.
It will explore perspectives including freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, journalists and abolitionists on both sides of the divide, HBO said in a statement.
Given the backdrop of several states previously bastions of confederate nostalgia moving recently to put icons of the civil war behind them, it was not surprising that people took to Twitter on Wednesday to criticize the new show’s plot, calling it’s tone deaf.
One person wrote: ‘Confederate is akin to making a movie about never defeating Nazi Germany and allowing the holocaust to continue.’
Another Twitter user wrote: ‘Like even if Confederate is critical of current day racism, do we need another series about the suffering of POC, written by white men?’ said another.
The optics simply did not pass the smell test opined others who questioned the sensitivity in the racially tinged context, a ‘horrible idea’ especially when two white men are creating a show that chronicles the history of African Americans.
‘Are Confederate writers too rich to actually know the racial climate that they actually live in? Because this is so not a good idea,’ one Twitter user wrote.
The question arose of whether HBO could not think of some other roles that feature black actors on screen than in a show about slavery.
This has magnified the broader question of why HBO did the polar opposite of choosing the ‘Confederate’ over the WGN show ‘Underground’, which chronicles the Underground Railroad. HBO canceled that show earlier this year.
Benioff and Weiss said they had initially conceived Confederate as a feature film but their success with Game of Thrones had ‘convinced us that no one provides a bigger, better storytelling canvas than HBO’.
No further details were given on the new show, casting or when it is scheduled to air.
The announcement comes as Benioff and Weiss head into the final season of ‘Game of Thrones,’ scheduled to conclude next year.
HBO just announced that In its seventh season, Game of Thrones premiered with record ratings on Sunday, drawing around 16.1 million viewers in the US alone.
Who bets that the cable network is not listening to any thing other than the rustle of cash at the box office, generated by this pair of proven winners.
Moral, social and political correctness be damned
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