Sorry, but I got the impression from your post that you were unaware that some of the producers were African-American.
…I don’t know how you got that impression. Its been mentioned several times in this thread. But even if I didn’t know that doesn’t change anything I’ve said. None of the producers have very extensive track records. You’ve literally cited almost the Spellman’s entire TV writing experience in a couple of words.
It seems racist to assume that a white writer can’t sensitively and intelligently deal with this subject matter.
I’m looking forward to seeing the show - I do love good Alt-history - but frankly I cannot see how “The Confederacy won/drew the Civil War” is any more objectionable than “Germany & Japan won WWII and occupied Europe/the US” (The Man In The High Castle, SS-GB, Fatherland, Wolfenstein: The New Order) or “Religious right-wing fanatics take over large parts of the US and turn every fertile woman into a sex slave” (The Handmaid’s Tale), or “The entire world is destroyed by nuclear war/viruses/zombies”.
…and that has literally nothing to do with anything that I’ve said. You bought race into the conversation, not me. I talked about the clueless producers who let a rape scene get written and filmed without realizing it was a rape scene. That had nothing to do with race. I’m not judging these producers on race. I’m judging them on their track record. For the Game of Thrones producers, they’ve made a series which plenty of people seem to enjoy but I find unwatchable. Judging them on that is not racist. I’ve never claimed that white writers can’t sensitively and intelligently deal with the subject of race, and as I’ve read and watched plenty of TV show and books written by white writers that have dealt sensitively and intelligently deal with the subject of race I can only say that your assumptions about me are completely wrong.
But since you are so insistent about making this about race: I will indulge you. The latest series of Project Greenlight shows exactly how difficult it is for black producers to stamp their mark on a production. Matt Damon is the personification of the “Hollywood liberal.” But we saw his true colours on this production. He threw Effie under the bus. Effie did everything you would expect a line producer to do on a movie set. But the director kept going behind her back. And Damon and co kept taking the directors side. The final movie was a disaster.
Lets not pretend that hollywood changes overnight because a couple of white producers offered a couple of seats to people of colour on this production. The Spellmans may well find that they do not get marginalized as producers on this show. But history is not in their favour.
Right you are. I had forgotten that. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that Farnham’s Freehold is far from my favorite Heinlein work. I haven’t read it in many years.
Apartheid was the Jim Crow South, though, not the Slavery South. And only lasted 45 years. And ended after widespread civil unrest, so yes, a successful revolt.
What does that have to do with anything???
These are producers who are known for a lack of subtlety, and using Plot Magic to align characters and situations over multi-season arcs. I really enjoy GoT, but bringing those qualities to a topic like this is what I was commenting on in the OP.
I, too, assumed that your problem was with anyone using the idea, not just these guys.
No, no that far. Only that a multi-year series would be extremely problematic for this type of topic, in the hands of these big-gesture, don’t-sweat-plot-details-that-you-don’t-think-matter showrunners. Folks involved with The Wire, The Sopranos, Treme and other series like that feel like they would bring more nuance.
I think concern is fine. It’s obviously a project that could go wrong, and perhaps this interview indicates that the producer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or maybe he just had a momentary lapse of memory in the face of an interview and we’re reading too much into it.
I’ve seen comments along the line that if he’s mentioning Foote, then he’s obviously unsuited. Which seems crazy to me. It’s not that he’s ignorant because he hasn’t read a 3000 page history of the civil war, it’s that he’s read the wrong one.
There’s a vast space between “I don’t think this guy is particularly well-read on the history of the civil war” and “he’s going to make something that glorifies slavery”.
Reading between the lines here: this implies that you think that the producers of this show are so tone-deaf that they’re going to accidentally write something that glorifies slavery and racism, unless they have the guiding hand of an accomplished literary author?
That seems unreasonable to me.
It also seems… culturally elitist? Novelists get the freedom to explore controversial themes, which can then be adapted to television, but only if they prove to do so deftly.
The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t a classic of feminist literature before Atwood wrote it, and if in some alternate universe (where television had won the high-brow culture war), she had been a television producer instead of an author, then she ought to get the benefit of the doubt to tell her story in that medium.
I have no idea who Shelby Foote is, I can’t name most battles of the Civil War, and while any alternate history fiction I might write that involves the Confederacy and the institution of slavery surviving would be deficient for those and other reasons, I’m fairly sure that I’d manage to navigate the process with the needle of my moral compass pointing resolutely toward “slavery = bad”.
I’m sorry, but this is just absurd. You can’t meaningfully critique art until you see it.
“best”? [read as: incredulous]
Can you point me to an artistic critique of a work that
- Was written by someone who hadn’t seen the work (ideally, based on a brief description of the work prior to its being completed)
and - Is worth reading?
Alternate History Civil War Outcome has been done many times, and I’m not aware of previous outrage. So the idea has generally not been an outrageous one, and I think it ought to go without saying (but apparently does not) that we should wait to see what they produce before we criticize them.
Yeah,
that’s where I’ve seen the upset. I’m not convinced twitter is a great medium for communicating complicated ideas, though. I grasp the zeitgeist, which is that people are upset. Or concerned. And concern is understandable. But I think it is unreasonable to be upset. By all means, if they produce something that is hateful and racist, raise the pitchforks and cancel your HBO subscriptions. But until then, it still seems like so much virtue signaling.
At this time, in this place, by these people, in this manner. It doesn’t matter a tinker’s dam what has gone before. “The past is a foreign country - they do things differently there.”
While the TV series of The Handmaid’s Tale is excellent and very close to the book, it does differ in a few key areas - IIRC, the protaganist in the book (unnamed, as it happens) wonders on a couple of occasions if the Republic of Gilead folks might - might - have a point.
But, mah virtue signalling!
This is an excellent point. It’s fairly well established Twitter is not representative of the general population - in Australia it’s mostly journalists, vocal left-wing types, and a few of the outspoken racist types. The average punter isn’t on Twitter so most of what you get are lefties high-fiving each other for being “woke af” and looking for things to be outraged over.
You are aware this show won’t actually change history and make it so the CSA won/drew the Civil War in real life, right? It’s not real. If it bothers you that much, don’t watch it.
Again (and again and again), me watching it is meaningless. I already think the CSA and everything associated with it is dung. The problem is going to be that these producers, who have evidence zero evidence of subtlety or nuance, are going to make a show that will reach millions of people and which will in all likelihood inflame, embolden and arouse just those elements of American society that need to be extinguished, cowed and disgraced forevermore. 10 years ago/from now this wouldn’t make a ripple. Right now, I think this is a very bad idea.
As has repeatedly been said in this thread, everyone agrees slavery is appalling. There’s no “subtlety” or “nuance” about that. I’m fairly sure even my parent’s cat could make a show about an alternate history where the CSA still exists and not miss the “Slavery is really, really bad” aspects of it.
And why is this show so bad but The Handmaid’s Tale is OK? You don’t think there are people in America who not very secretly would love a world where men are in charge and women have to STFU, do as they’re told, and get used as concubines?
And also: America is not the only country in the world. Who are you to decide that I, in Australia, or someone in Canada, or the UK, or Turkey, or Singapore shouldn’t get to watch this new show, just because it bothers you and might give rednecks in the US something to nod at each other about?
Should we be equally aggrieved at anyone who publishes existing CSA-wins-the-war fiction on the grounds that some assholes will agree with it, or does this only apply to newly written work?
So, you’re dismissing a show that doesn’t exist, on the basis of a different show you don’t watch?
If that’s not a solid platform for informed criticism, I don’t know what is.
…nope. I was talking about Game of Thrones, a programme that most certainly does exist, that plenty of people like, but I personally find unwatchable. And yes: I have watched enough of Game of Thrones to determine that yes, the programme isn’t for me. I do happen to watch some of the recaps on youtube, where an episode is condensed down to maybe five minute chunks of action, and I can stand that and sometimes even enjoy it. Its just all the stuff in between that I don’t like.
I think “plenty of people seem to enjoy but I find unwatchable” is a fair critique of Game of Thrones. I’m not disparaging anyone for liking it. We all have different tastes.
But hey, thanks for the critique!
The idea that slavery has evolved seems to be upsetting people. How could slavery “evolve”?
Well, let’s say that the enslaved population was less black, more Hispanic. And let’s say instead of plantations they worked in “the agricultural industry” or any of the other back-breaking labors that white Americans flat out refuse to do. Let’s say that since slavery became a dirty word we started referring to them as “illegal immigrants”. Let’s say these people were beaten and raped at the will of their employers because said employer will suffer no consequences for turning their indentured servants over to racist police officers who also love beating and raping people who cannot fight back. Let’s say a politician got elected by promising to keep these people out knowing full well there was no actual way to do that and the only reason to say such things was to keep the hatred going lest we start to feel any compassion for our fellow human beings. So when twenty of them die of heatstroke in the back of a truck white Americans can feel superior to them and blame them for trying to steal jobs that white people wouldn’t take if even if they actually paid a real wage.
That’s how slavery could evolve. The United States of America will never consign slavery to the dustbin of history so long as you still have an indentured servant class that can be beaten, raped and murdered at will even as they are putting food on your table and clothes on your back.
The point was that he said “we’re both history nerds. I remember reading a history of the Civil War, I think it might have been the Shelby Foote one.” The article I read pointed out how could you forget if you had read a 3000 page book on the Civil War? Either he hasn’t read it and just dropped Foote’s name so it sounds more like he knows what he’s talking about, or he’s read some other Civil War books, but doesn’t remember the author names, but does remember Foote as someone associated with the Civil War.
He also doesn’t remember the Battle of Antietam. Which I don’t expect everyone to know off the top of their head, but it’s like if he was making a show about the civil rights movement, and had a story about “the one guy, not Martin Luther King, but the one who’s a congressman now”. It’s just not a good start to make me give you the benefit of the doubt that you know what you’re doing on this topic.
I don’t think that they’ll make a show that glorifies racism. But they have been somewhat tone deaf with the non-white characters on Game of Thrones. It’s not a great starting point. I’m not familiar with the other two producer’s work, but I’m assuming they will definitely be able to contribute to it being more nuanced.
But audiences can definitely receive things in ways creators didn’t mean. Almost any satire will have people who take things straight and praise the position that the creator is mocking. It was also part of the reason that Dave Chapelle quit his show:
That’s not to say that certain subjects shouldn’t be covered, because certain segments of the population will take them the wrong way, but it is something that should be kept in mind while making a new show.
It’s not culturally elitist, it’s just a basic fact that a new show on HBO by the creators of one of the biggest shows on today will have much more of a cultural impact than a novel, and so will get more discussion going. If they had announced that their next project was a book about the same topic, I’m guessing there would be less uproar.
Also there’s just the fact that TV and movies in general have a lot of room for improvement for telling stories about non-white people. So some of the anger is directed specifically at Benioff and Weiss, but also about Hollywood in general.
Obviously yes. But how bad are you going to show it to be? Are you going to show it as endlessly miserable day in and day out for the slaves? Because then you’ll have a real misery porn show that will be hard for HBO to advertise. How much levity will you have? If it’s too much then it might seem that you are showing that slavery was bad, but not really that bad for all slaves.
Will you have white characters? Are they going to be saintly characters who save the black people who couldn’t save themselves? Having Khaleesi be the white savior character on Game of Thrones is one thing that’s gotten them criticism. Will you have a white character that falls in love with one of their slaves and learns from them how bad slavery really is? Will you just have all the white characters be shown to be villains, and hope that the Fox News crowd doesn’t protest too much?
And how will you show the Northern States to be? Will it be just like the United States is now, just smaller? Because then you’d be ignoring all the contributions that black Southerners have made in the real world.
I haven’t read any alternate histories about the Confederacy winning, maybe there’s a way to do all of this well. But it’s not just you say slavery=bad and I know you know what you’re doing.
Maybe saying critique was the wrong word, but I can say that an artistic project concerns me or sounds bad without me seeing it. If Michael Bay announced that his next project was a movie about the suffragist movement I think everyone could agree that it sounded like a bad idea.
I can’t say anything about the quality of Confederate before it’s made and before I see it, but I can say that it sounds like they don’t know their history terribly well, they haven’t got much of an idea past “wouldn’t this be interesting”, based on Game of Thrones I’d say that there are many things they can do with skill but I’m not sure that a show about slavery is the best use of their skills.
They are saying to give it a chance before critiquing the show, which is fair. But I think they are also saying give it a chance and watch it, which we don’t have to do. Maybe it will surprise me, and all the reviews about it once it’s made will be really great, in which case I might give it a shot. I’m not saying that we need to burn down HBO, I’m just saying I’m concerned, and also baffled why out of anything they could do after Game of Thrones, this is what they are choosing to do.
And there are a lot of issues with Twitter and fandoms yelling at TV channels and show creators, but I think it can also give creators and showrunners things to think about. I do think Game of Thrones has gotten a bit better about the female roles as the seasons have gone on, and maybe it was all planned out from the beginning, but maybe the critiques gave them something to think about and improve in the show. Maybe the uproar now will give them some things to think about as they make Confederate, if it does get made.