Confederate HBOs new show

@wisewillow: Yes, and we could make a long list of historical grievances for Jews, Roma, gays, and many others, but what's that got to do with whether a TV show should be given a chance? Your arguments are, to me, a complete non-sequitur and frankly of no relevance to what I'm saying, it's just emotional ranting.

My point is this: you are being hypocritical, as well as many others making this argument. There is no consistency to making a special case for this vs T Mit HC or any other alt history that shows bad guys winning. Yes, bad things happened in history. I personally would think a show like Confederate could even drive that home by showing "hey, this isn't just a story asshole, what if your own black friends and neighbors were the ones enslaved?" as an opportunity to learn, but I tend not to judge things before seeing them.

If you want to say that all alt-history is "bad" because it could offend living people, then fair enough, though I profoundly disagree and think that free speech is more important than not offending anyone, but I can at least respect the consistency. But saying it's actually worse to depict slavery than Nazis is a joke, and I think deep down, you know it to be true.

Without first indoctrinating and re-engineering the South to hate the Confederacy and its memory, crafting a fictional scenario that plays to their basest cultural desires by depicting slavery and white supremacy as the norm is inappropriate. Unless de-Confederation happens to a greater or similar extent as de-Nazification, any media that tries to present a Confederate Present-day really shouldn't be, unless it hammers the point that the Confederacy was wrong to the point of it being inescapable.

My problem with this is simple. The Confederacy's goal was never to conquer the entire country. It was essentially to force the Union to recognize its independence and keep it's slave system intact. And there's no way that they'd have been able to conquer the entire country anyway (and if by some miracle they did, they wouldn't have been able to hold onto it for very long).

Maybe it's the lifetime Civil War buff in me talking, but this premise falls apart even before it begins.

Speaking as Black American Male for North Carolina I know I will give this show a shot it will most likely show that Confederacy struggling to barely survive let alone thrive. Also, It has the potential of dropping the much needed anvil "That Systemic Racism Is Very Very Horrible." Even though shows like The Wire and others have dealt with said anvil it still needs to be dropped again and again.

My biggest problem is that in the show their will be a Third American Civil War which I don't see how that could be possible because I'm assuming that both sides would have nukes at this point.

edited 1st Aug '17 11:17:41 AM by warrior93

I do not appreciate substantial citation to sources and historical context being labeled "emotional ranting."

It is not a non sequitur. Context matters.

I don't really like alt-history where Nazis/bad guys win in general; I think it's lazy and tends to presume ours is the best possible result, rather than a deeply flawed reality.

Free speech means I get to say this show is a terrible idea. I'm not saying the government should ban it; I'm saying HBO should consider that this is a stupid, callous premise for a show.

I never said it's worse to depict slavery than nazis. Although I don't see anyone proposing a tv show whose premise is "what if there were no Jews except in death camps." Nazi alt-history usually focuses on the United States and fall out from a different ending to WWII; it dodges the holocaust or just presumes all Jews are dead. It doesn't go into their extended suffering at length. With Confederate, modern chattel slavery of black Americans is the entire premise.

edited 1st Aug '17 11:19:57 AM by wisewillow

That is one problem I had with Man In The High Castle is that it didn't go into details about people groups who have suffered by the Nazi's and Japanese. Also we generally assume that we live in one of the better of all possible worlds versus the worse otherwise it would be very depressing. One thing I like about bad alt-histories is that it shows that in many ways We Are Not So Different from the dark alternate timelines. Finally did you have a problem with the C.S.A mockumentary way or way not?

edited 1st Aug '17 11:23:32 AM by warrior93

High Castle does have a Jewish man as one of the two central characters, and his struggle to inhabit in this world is very central to the plot. Season 2 had a major subplot about the Nazi views on euthanizing the disabled. Though the show does lack on Slavs (because it seems they were completely wiped out going by a few throaway lines) and Romani characters.

@Man in the high castle: one of the main characters finds out he's Jewish at the beginning of season 1, and his family is killed by the occupying Japanese. The fallout from this is a big part of his character arc so I don't think you can say thag the show doesn't focus on groups victimized by the Nazis and Japanese.

edited 1st Aug '17 11:32:24 AM by Xopher001

I was more talking about Romani, Korean, and Chinese people.

https://ladyshinga.tumblr.com/post/163682756562/gogomrbrown-double-standards

Another reminder of how things currently are in America. Which is to say, we have a police state which basically criminalizes black children and young adults on purpose substantially more than their white counterparts. Black people are more likely to be killed by the police. Black women are more likely to be single mothers living in poverty. Black men are more likely to spend a substantial amount of their life in prison. Even though ethnicities tend to use drugs at similar rates, black people and Latinos are incarcerated far more often.

Making a TV show where slavery still exists isn't going to suddenly make somebody decide that black lives matter. It's just going to give them examples of how black people should be grateful things aren't worse for them.

And even if confederate was a good idea, which it is not, there is no way in hell I trust these two show runners to handle it with any sort of delicacy or intellect. They handle constructive criticism poorly, they are blind to many of the issues here because they are white guys, and they've already proven that they are very bad at handling sexual assault.

edited 1st Aug '17 11:56:35 AM by wisewillow

This is more or less my view as well. (With the exception of not being black or from North Carolina.)

Do I have confidence in Weiss and Benioff? Hell no. But I'll give them the chance to not screw things up before I protest the show. And I say that as someone incredibly thrilled by the fact that the very first bits of de-Confederatization is going on in the south, with statutes and flags coming down.

I grew up in the South and at 37, I still encountered Lost Cause apologia all the time and people who romanticized it as a Gray-and-Gray Morality war with heroes on both sides. Also, that slavery just wasn't that important. It took investigating the subject myself to find everyone was aware it was about white supremacy and enshrined it in the constitution. So, yes, there's plenty of people who will be askance about another depiction of the Confederacy that many would very much like to see forgotten and vilified. Just like there's others who consider it "heritage, not bigotry" which gets me into fights this day.

BE THAT IT MAY - I find the biggest problem with this is it seems like a stupid premise.

"That is one problem I had with Man In The High Castle is that it didn't go into details about people groups who have suffered by the Nazi's and Japanese. Also we generally assume that we live in one of the better of all possible worlds versus the worse otherwise it would be very depressing. One thing I like about bad alt-histories is that it shows that in many ways We Are Not So Different from the dark alternate timelines. Finally did you have a problem with the C.S.A mockumentary way or way not?"

My take on the Man with the High Castle is they've murdered almost all of the people in the world but for Asians and whites. One of the few things I felt the show and book did right (I'm not a fan of Dick's work here) was it was a Crapsacharrine World even for the whites.

@highwillow: Citation or not, I call a spade a spade. You're just piling on historical grievances as though sheer weight will make your point, but it does not. Countless media depictions offend countless people to various degrees, and the answer has always been the same: don't watch it, don't read it, don't buy it.

As I said, I definitely disagree with you, very possibly on the most fundamental aspect of this question, but my real objection here is the obvious hypocrisy in defending one alt-history while condemning another. If you truly feel this way, then be honest about it: request that not only HBO not make this show, but amazon cancel and withdraw Man in the High Castle, all Harry Turtledove books be pulled from the shelves, etc. ONLY objecting to Confederate is no more than jumping on the bandwagon, doubly so since the show hasn't even been made yet and there's really nothing to say about how or what it depicts.

edited 1st Aug '17 12:06:07 PM by lvthn13

@Punisher: Except the show's premise isn't that the Confederates conquered the entire country; rather that they only succeeded in, well, succeeding from the Union and forming their own little nation where the Southern half of the US used to be. Presumably, the actual US is still slavery free, whereas the Confederacy is pro-Slavery all the way. And the show's going to focus on both the Confederacy and the US.

Methinks some people didn't bother to read the full synopsis...

edited 1st Aug '17 12:08:02 PM by kkhohoho

@ Charles Phipps

One thing I liked about the "Man In The High Castle" Book is that it showed how American racism helped facilitate on some level accepting of the Axis Occupation of North America.

I didn't defend anything else. I said that in general, I don't like alt history where the bad guys win, because of all the reasons I said above. I never defended any particular alt history works. There is a difference between pulling an existing work from the shelf, versus rejecting a proposed work.

And for the record, when man in the high castle was announced, I thought it sounded like a gross and unnecessary premise.

edited 1st Aug '17 12:18:10 PM by wisewillow

Then don't watch it, don't read it, don't buy it.

Yeah, that's why I stopped watching Game of Thrones; I only read spoilers to find out how the stupid thing will end.

So you're telling me that when I see something I disagree with, I should just sit down and shut up? Not question why these works are being funded? Not argue for better works that I actually would support? Not tell creator is that what they are doing is foolish and harmful? It is fundamentally wrong to claim only positive reactions to media acceptable. We are perfectly free to have both.

I would watch the hell out of an Octavia Butler miniseries or TV show. But I can't make that happen on my own. But I can try to fight against crappy shows like this.

edited 1st Aug '17 12:25:02 PM by wisewillow

So did you have a problem with C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America why or why not?

edited 1st Aug '17 12:23:33 PM by warrior93

I don't know what that is.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/CSATheConfederateStatesOfAmerica?from=Main.CSAConfederateStatesOfAmerica

Ugh. That looks ham-handed and poorly thought out.

I think it is still a stupid premise. The major difference here is that the format is incredibly different. I suspect CSA doesn't have extended graphic scenes of slavery, torture, and rape? With an HBO prestige drama, all of those sort of scenes will be practically mandatory. Thus, there is a difference in the level of exploitation.

Well, I don't see this really going anywhere so I'm about to bow out while it's still polite, but my final thoughts:

Wisewillow, you say you aren't "defending" other alt-histories, but unless my memory deceives me, you edited out a comment about the Holocaust "only" being 5 years vs a century of slavery, so yeah, I think it's fair to say you're at least slightly guilty of emotional short-sightedness in this debate.

In the end, you're griping about shows you don't like (and in this case don't even exist yet, though you've spoken at length about what kind of disgustingly prurient things you expect to see depicted), and not all that subtly implying that there could be something wrong with people who like alt-history, because this garbage shouldn't even be made. What useful answer is there to that except to bid you good day?

edited 1st Aug '17 12:40:25 PM by lvthn13

I did not say only, I said the comparing the two of them was not a helpful practice.

Based on the stated premise of the show and based on the history of the two show runners, it would be naive to suggest they will not have any brutalization of black people or any sexual assault.

I have been trying to point out for three pages that black Americans are already victimized substantially by the existing power structure, and therefore filming a show that depicts modern slavery is insensitive at best, and exploitative at worst. I don't understand what is so hard to grasp about that.

edited 1st Aug '17 12:46:28 PM by wisewillow