Confederate HBOs new show

That was one of the suggestions.

I know. Point still stands that it'd be way more interesting than "Confederacy (somehow) survived".

edited 11th Aug '17 4:11:05 AM by DrunkenNordmann

Ok, so everyone is not only saying this is insensitive, a criticism that can be brushed off, but that it's boring, which is far more difficult to brush off.

And yet it's still getting made, huh?

Well... I'm not saying it's boring. It's just something I'll probably not get to watch unless I hoist the Jolly Roger, seeing as since it's made by HBO, and will only be legitimately available on the Sky digital service ran and owned by /spit Rupert Murdoch. And I will not pay money to that company because I hate their boss.

I think its less 'this is boring' and more... How shall I put it?

'The content that the show will present is a bit... uncomfortable currently (Look at Virgina's headlines right now) and would rely on a lot of darkness and "grit" such as violent depictions of slavery, murder, and rape. The creators behind the show are also known for a show with 6 seasons of sex, murder, rape, and other graphic images and has had plenty of criticism that they've gone way too far. Considering that the likes of these shows often have 'Sympathy/Cry for the Devil' moments (a very large portion of Man in the High Castle, a similar 'alternate history' show, is following characters who are apart, have profited, thrive, and been indoctrinated into the Nazi Reich) which would suggest that we would probably have plotlines with the slave owners and other related 'antagonist' characters. People that maybe are not the characters audiences SHOULD have sympathy for considering what's going on. Comparativly Man in the High Castle uses this as character development, shows more nuanced characters, and reserves violence and carnage for once in a great while, the showrunners of Confederate are known for doing it far more than Once an Episode. Thus a very large portion of the potential audience find the concept to be more than a little uncomfortable with little shown to make that uncomfortablness worth it'.

Does that explain it?

After what happened in Charlottesville Friday and Saturday, HBO needs to realize this show needs to be cancelled.

I honestly kind of hold the same view on this show as I do with the Handmaid's Tale, which I've only seen clips of - but even a few clips was enough to make my stomach turn with how gritty and horrible the premise is; apparently the book is taught in some schools but I'd never heard of it or read it and I dread to do so. And that's just nasty dystopian fiction - dystopian alternate history is even worse, even with as unrealistic a scenario it all is. I hate torture porn and grimdark shit for the sake of making a political point or giving social commentary, it doesn't make me want to take action it just makes me depressed and give up on humanity.

I'd wager the best way to describe what can be expected is that it will be to Gone with the Wind what Game of Thrones is to Lord of the Rings. That is, it will be just as unrealistic with regard to the actual social frameworks and struggles of slavery as both LOTR and GOT are regarding medieval society, only instead of melodramatic and sugarcoated, it will be gritty for the sake of being gritty. Consequently, I can't help but notice the irony of the pronounced lack of outcry regarding how GOT presents societies where the vast majority of the people have no rights whatsoever, only for it to erupt now when the subject matter hits too close to home to ignore.

Still, it does shed light on the mindset of the average real life Confederate supporter honestly believing that the Civil War was fought over states rights. After all, would you accuse every tweenage girl wanting to be a princess of secretly desiring a return of serfdom?

Pretty sure people have been ripping on Go T for that as well as all the other stuff it screws up regularly.

Funny, I always considered A So Ia F to be rather less "gritty" than actual middle ages literature.

People have criticized GOT for that sort of thing, if anything it's been getting more such criticism as time goes on. Heck the lowest-rated episode of the show overall is the one where one of the main characters is raped (which hasn't happened in the books BTW).

But at least GOT takes place in a fictional setting and is overtly fantasy. This takes place in a real place, delves into a very real and touchy subject from American history, and was a much more recent past event.

Also it was only a few decades ago where segregation was being undone.

I'm pretty sure GOT is criticized over things like misogyny and its overuse of violence, including sexual violence. But I've also noticed people being more interested in discussing which of their preferred blue blood characters will bite the dust next, with little to no attention paid to the "smallfolk". It's this sort of attitude - that "The common people [...] don't care what games the high lords play" and so are to be relegated to hapless extras, that prevents GOT from being an actual thoughtful take on the underpinnings of the setting, be it a fantasy world. Instead, it's every bit as self-indulgent in sex and violence as LOTR is bombastic in its pathos.

To contrast, I could point out to HBO's Rome, which I reckon started the trend on gritty takes on historical periods on television. Difference is, it focused on the lives of commoners every bit as much if not more so than on the schemes of the patricians. Even its nudity and violence could be considered period-appropriate. Every other such show since, however, like The Tudors and The Borgias, has aped the style of Rome while aggressively ignoring its substance. Namely, that there really is more to a world than the games the high lords play.

Consequently, I'm somewhat skeptical that the planned show will actually present its subject matter as something important in itself for how it affects thousands of lives, rather than just as a backdrop for the now repetitive slew of upper floor backstabbing. Insensitive is one thing, but in this particular context, such a development would be missing the point of the subject matter entirely.

Well, I can't say I would fault a work of fiction for not indulging my personal wish to focus on commoners, especially when it's a fictional universe with no particular parallel to a real society and therefore nobody to go "unrepresented". The desire for an egalitarian take on history is a recent construct, and would have actually been entirely ridiculous in Lot R, which is an attempt to construct a modern epic.

I'm personally very much the opposite. I find that very often works that make a point of focusing on commoners or peasants come across as forced, even unrealistic, attempts to pander to a modern mass audience by giving them someone to identify with, however improbable they are to the setting.

I also find A So Ia F's treatment of peasantry to be entirely appropriate to the setting, and makes a perfectly reasonable point in context of the real middle ages: peasants were regarded about as highly as livestock, to be used, fed, expended, and brokered as needed. The fact that we now find that abominable doesn't, to me, suggest that we should revise history to reflect a different narrative. I don't really see it as necessarily an attempt to be edgy, either, because actual middle ages literature includes far more graphic scenes of violence, far more childishly violent humor, and far less realistic reasoning for why people act as they do and events unfold in a certain way, as fate alone was considered adequate reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Nibelungen

Filmed in 1924, and about a dozen times darker and "grittier" than anything HBO airs, now or in the past. Modern audiences would probably find it less disturbing because it's black and white, silent, and uses stage-era costumes, and obviously doesn't splash floppy wiener across the screen, but the actual narrative includes dragons, magic artifacts, courtly knights who are overtly violent thugs, forced and violent rape, murder and betrayal, kinslaying, kingslaying, and a third of the movie is essentially the Red Wedding and Battle of the Bastards turned into one long scene of melodramatic death and destruction involving the massacre of tens of thousands of nameless mooks by the villain protagonist knights. Oh yeah, and Atilla the Hun makes an appearance - and it turns out he's the most reasonable, least murderous member of the cast, if that gives you any indication of what kind of piece this is.

Incidentally, that scene of tens of thousands of peasants being slaughtered was considered so awe inspiring in literary form that the villains were considered heroic by audiences for centuries thanks to their prowess at killing so damn many people. Also, the movie cut a scene from the book in which those same knights drink the blood of the slain to hydrate themselves, turns out killing everyone is hard work, and even harder when the building is on fire.

In neither book nor movie is there any moral to the story. Grey and Grey Morality, Crapsack World, the works.

edited 13th Aug '17 2:56:24 PM by lvthn13

Well, the earlier seasons DID focus on some more commonfolk characters. Gendry and Arya are not living particuarly high and lavish for Seasons 2 and 3, for example. And there were plenty of episodes that did feature common folk and the consequences of the actions of the larger characters; such as the Brotherhood without Banners, the Hound mugging the farmer and his daughter, and the Septon and his small folk community that get murdered. Not to mention the High Sparrow claims to be championing the small folk.

A number of Queen Margeary's fans also adore her because she seems to genuinely care about the small folk by visiting them in the streets of King's Landing as well as donating the remaining food from her VERY lavish wedding to the poor and hungry who are her new subjects.

For what its worth, Game of Thrones is also an adaptation so thats also something that needs to be taken into account. And, as the showrunners had to make more new material, they focused almost entirely on already established characters and no show-only plotlines. The one that they DID rewrite from the books was also decried as the worst in the series.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:11:10 PM by InkDagger

There's also the noticeable character of Varys, who is one of the small-folk who built his own career as a master spy whose central goal is "making sure the common people lead a better life".

I absolutely love Rome, moreso than Game of Thrones, but it's not the same story and, it bears to be reminded, it took place in what was, flawed as it was, a Republic. Two of the main characters at least have plebeian origins - Cicero and Mark Antony (btw, still the greatest burn of all time) - and they are historical figures. GOT takes place in a medieval setting, where commoners had no chance to rise through the ranks of society. Rome was a meritocracy, but the Western European Middle Ages that inspired GOT weren't, at all.

If Vikings is better in that regard, it's because Scandinavian society in their era was also a tad more egalitarian than its southern counterparts.

Game of Thrones also has dragons and ice zombies. I think the writers could have gotten away with some leeway regarding commoners.

It's not that the show should focus on commoners for its own sake - I'm generally just as annoyed when disaster films focus too much on "relatable" characters rather than the experts who actually have something to contribute to the events in question. But rather, it's unbecoming of a story that paints itself as mature to still never acknowledge the consequences of its characters' actions in the greater world. If I'm not supposed to care about the kingdom, why should I care about who becomes king?

Consequently, I suspect the new show may turn out as vapid and ultimately naive and self-absorbed as all those "inspirational" films in the vein of Dangerous Minds, with the atrocities of slavery only regarded as bad for how they make the brave, noble and overwhelmingly white cast of abolitionists feel. That'll clearly sell the message that all people should be regarded equally.

In short, all other controversies notwithstanding, I don't think the attitudes expressed in the creators' work so far would be conductive to the subject matter they're aspiring to handle. To contrast, I've read the creators of The Boondocks are making a similar show, titled Black America, which might be the one to look out for in the end.

Has HBO said anything about this show since what happened this weekend?

They still think it's a good idea

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/business/media/game-of-thrones-success-cant-ease-headaches-for-hbo.html

http://www.avclub.com/article/hbo-somehow-still-thinks-confederate-good-idea-259512

I don't disagree inherently that a work shouldn't be judged before its actually written and before the writers have developed out the idea.

But I do think that political and social climates are really important to when/how/what media is created. Especially depending on whom is creating the media in question. A childrens/family film directed by Stephen Spielburg sounds normal, but an R-rated nudity and gore horror film? That seems a bit outside of their forte. It doesn't mean that the work will be bad, but the skepticism isn't unfounded.

And even some of the best of writers out there would fumble EASILY on such a premise. I wouldn't in any way know how to make it work without it getting really uncomfortable or, in the opposite direction, not being true to the actual 'what if' that has to be considered by the, for lack of a better term, 'source material' being portrayed.

This is a show that is some how going to have to nail it EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. This is a premise that will fall apart the second something goes wrong. There won't be a Jamie-Cersei rape scene or the blunder of Sansa's Season 5 rape storyline that they can just face backlash over and then try to keep going. They thought they got a lot of flack for those mistakes? They'll get worse if they make the same mistake on Condeferate.

Unless HBO can somehow maintain such a degree of quality per episode (I might ad, no show could ever maintain that so they shouldn't feel ashamed or something), they shouldn't move forward on this concept.

Historians are alarmed by Confederate.

Speaking of GOT, I think the show hits good points on medieval society but more often than not fumbles the ball as it's transitioned more and more every season into a Hollywood-esque show.

Link redirects me to a random page, please quote the article.

Don't quote the entire thing as thats stealing content

Instead you should try summarise as much of the article as possible,quoting relevant parts but NOT the whole thing

edited 18th Aug '17 11:23:14 AM by Ultimatum