News HBO draws ire after 'Confederate' announcement

I hope you’re not talking about Watchmen here. Because that show proved without question that HBO hasn’t lost it’s edge nor it’s willingness to produce artistically daring shows with politically charged points of view. They took a HUGE risk allowing a beloved comic book property with a notoriously devoted following, to be turned on it’s ear in order to tell a completely new story. It worked brilliantly, BTW.

As for Confederate, I think ultimately, HBO could not come up with an adequate answer to the question of “why?” I don’t think anyone would have much trouble imagining what the country would look like if the south won the civil war. In fact MANY of the things that actually happened after the war might make one wonder if the south had actually lost. I mean, it’s predictable and not all that far from reality, so where’s the drama?

I had zero interest in Confederate and I could never figure out what it was a show like this would hope to accomplish in terms of a message other than”good thing the south didn’t win.”

 

I suspect the idea for the show was to put up a mirror and show how our society has gone down such a bad path that our world is starting to resemble one that is just as bad as if the Confederates had one. The world would look very much like ours, one were slavery was still outlawed at some point but at a later year. You would see a mixture of old ideas still around like Jim Crow laws mixed with new stuff like police shootings only the publics reaction to the police shootings might be different and instead of outrage people would see this as violating the officers privacy. Nazi Germany might still exist and be a alley in fighting Muslim terrorism. Lots of angles like that.

Jason

 

By following that logic MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE shouldn’t have been made. While I do totally agree with you about stirring the pot and the negative potentiality does that totally negate what might have been a great alt history show

 

I'm pretty sure the description said that slavery was still around, and had become a modern industry.

 

I don’t see too many Nazi flags in my life, I do see a ton of Confederate ones though. It’s far more entrenched in the US and has had a much larger impact on our history, racial issues and the current political climate than the lingering effects of WWII.

 

This is what I meant when I said “predictable.” Because the nation in which we currently live is still so much like an America in which the south won the civil war, that seeing a mirror image of that on screen doesn’t sound very interesting to me. At the least there is not much of a contrast between the current situation and the one in Confederate. That situation lacks drama.

What Watchmen did was much more profound and controversial. Not only did they touch upon some of those horrifying things that happened to black people despite the fact that the north won the civil war, it went even further by showing an America that actually admitted it’s errors AND tried to make amends in a practical way.

The show you describe sounds predictable and devoid of a worthwhile reason for being other than exploitation of an American atrocity.

Jayson, the reaction to police shootings and brutality in the world in which we currently live, was exactly as you describe, for decades. The only thing that moved the needle at all was the cell phone camera.

Watching police brutality in a show and then telling people that this is what would have happened if the south had won the civil war, would result in most people, the ones with brains, at least, responding with “huh, that’s the way it is in the real world.” Confusing AND boring.

Why would Nazi Germany still exist? As racist and intolerant as America has been, they still found time and reason, to defeat Hitler. Dude, you’re reaching.

And, IMO, this was always going to be the show’s real hook. It seems to me that networks and studios are somewhat fixated on movies and shows that depict black people in bondage, almost like they think that’s the only way productions with lots of black people will sell. But other than the MAGA folks, who wants to see this? I find it hard enough watching movies like 12 Year’s a Slave, so there is no way I’d sit through a show depicting modern day enslavement of black people in America.

 

Presumably, with the USA & CSA being split, neither country would be strong enough to oppose Nazi Germany during WWII. Even if one or both of them entered the war to oppose Germany, they likely wouldn't have had the strength to thoroughly crush the German war machine the way that they did, so a possible outcome would have been some kind of negotiated peace that left some element of the Nazis in power. But then, there probably would have been a much longer, bloodier, more protracted war between the Nazis & the Soviets, so who knows how that would have turned out.

But then, 20th century history is such a domino effect that the Nazis could have very well not existed at all. All you would need is for Germany to not lose WWI as badly as they did. Without the massive punitive measures that the Allies placed on Germany after that war, the German people likely wouldn't have felt as desperate as to have fallen for the horrendous dogma that Hitler was peddling.

Ultimately, the mere presence of the strength of united American power had a profound impact on the last 150 years of history. Exploring what would have happened without it would involve so many what-ifs that I'm not sure they could get anything right.

The one thing that I'm very sure of is that Confederate slavery as we think of it would not have continued into the 20th century. Industrialization made slavery unfeasible for any kind of mass industry. Maybe there still would have been a demand for house slaves as some kind of status symbol but I doubt that the CSA would have been able to withstand all of the international pressure against it. It would have become too expensive.

I'd recommend that Harriet movie that came out recently. It's a great, thrilling, uplifting story about blacks & whites uniting to fight against slavery, with the blacks very much taking the lead.

 

If the allies had not created the western front, all of Europe would have belonged to Stalin. There was no scenario for Hitler winning.

 

What if Germany had developed the atomic bomb first? Weren't they a lot further along with developing it than the Soviets were?

 

They managed to pull of modern slavery in the mockumentary CSA: Confederate States of America, but that was only because it was an exaggerated satire that used it as a way to comment on modern racism. I believe it was also written and directed by a black man, Kevin Wilmott, who also wrote BlacKkKlansman.
It would be a lot harder to pull it off in a dramatic story written by two white guys.
I looked on Wikipedia, and even Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series, which is probably one of the most in depth explorations of a world were the Confederacy won, has them eventually get rid of slavery, although the slaves still don't get full rights.

 

Why would the USA be split if the CSA won the civil war? I assume that if the south had won, the old USA would become the CSA and would then at least have the same ability to defeat the axis powers as the USA did.

Yes, another slave movie. They’re all “thrilling” and “up lifting.” I’v heard good things about it so maybe I’ll see it at some point.

This is interesting. I’v never read anything that made me think that southerners had any intention of ever giving up their slaves voluntarily. Slaves and all of their progeny were considered property of the slave owner. Although this had been going on for centuries in America, I think there was a law that was passed or a court decision that actually codified this concept, though I can’t recall the law or court case right now.

 

I mean it's a tv show so to say they would have to do a super realistic look at what would happen if the South won is not something I think would be the point. The point would still finding away to use it for allegory of the modern world. That's why if you wanted you could say Slavery ended in the late 30's because America needed to become more united in order to fight against Hitler and Communism for the Soviet Union. In reality who knows if Hitler would even be born once you change the past at that point. Maybe JFK advocated with MLK to keep slavery from returning after the war. Nixon wanted it but they won but in turn you still now had a country filled with racism to point where the racism is in 2020 more toxic than it even is in the real 2020.

Jason

 

There's not a chance in hell that would've ever happened. First of all the South was not fighting to change the US, but to leave it. They literally didn't even try to fight on nothern territory until almost halfway through the war, and even that was aimed primarily at bloodying Washington to prove the South was strong enough to be viable, in the hopes that would make European countries more willing to support the south financially.

Secondly, the South punched well above its weight militarily thanks to generals like Lee and Jackson, etc (and as much so because of borderline incompetence in the Union Generals who were in charge before Grant), which is why a theoretical case can be made for the South winning the war. But that case only holds if 'winning' means successfully seceding from the USA and not being forced back in. There is no chance that southern manpower and industry could ever have powered up enough to actually invade and conquer the northern states and force them into the CSA.

Brazil had no intention of it either, but they were forced to in the end, anyway. History (and industrialization and an international moral crusade based in the UK and backed by the economic influence of the British Empire) didn't leave any room for open/public slavery past the end of the 19th century.

 

Well we are dealing with fiction so what if a deadly plague swept through the North killing so many people they no longer could provide necessary support in winning. Not only that but they became reliant on the South for food and supplies and even slaves to make up for all the dead. This allowed the South to not only stay but become completely in control for a very, very long time before the North was able to become it's equal again but by then slavery would have already become a huge part of the culture. All of which would last until the world started to become more of a global community and countries wouldn't deal with a America that had slavery or people sensibilities started to simply change and they started seeing slavery as being morally wrong that needed to end.


Jason

 

A deadly plague that devastates the entire north and doesn't touch the south at all?

 

I always get a chuckle out of this type of naïveté. American slavery was race based, which made it easier to push the white supremacist notion that black people were little more than animals who needed slavery in order to not starve to death. They used bible scripture to convince the easily convinced, that slavery was ordained by god. I have to look up the law that was passed by southerners that ensured slavery in perpetuity. Sound like these fine folks would ever have been shamed into voluntarily giving up one of the most important economic advantages they had? I don’t think so.

All you really need to do is look at what happened when southerners were ordered to end slavery; southerners seceded from the union and went to war against the US. They would rather have died than give up their slaves.

Look at what southerners did after they “lost” the civil war. They used the Compromise of 1877 to strong arm the government into removing troops from southern states and allowing them to do whatever they wanted with black people. That led to establishment of the KKK and Jim Crow laws, disenfranchisement, intimidation, imprisonment, and outright murder of possibly millions of black people.

Much of this continued throughout the end of the 1800’s and well into the 20th century. Forms of it continue in many states even today.

All this and they LOST the civil war.

You think THESE people would have voluntarily given up slavery because foreigners pressured them. Ludicrous.

If you have other reasons to believe southerners would have somehow developed a conscience or that, having won the civil war and taken over the entire US (yes, I also disagree with your contention that the south would not have taken over the entire country), please point them out. This would have ensured that they could not be pressured economically by Europeans or others.

 

I’m sorry but this is a laughable notion. The South utterly lacked the necessary resources to invade and conquer the North—insufficient manpower, industry, natural resources, financial resources...the list goes on and on. Inept military leadership in the North (Grant is never in charge) and a weaker political leadership (no Lincoln) and the North may have chosen to abandon the effort to battle the South and made peace. But the South taking over? Not a chance.

 

It's not about shaming them into doing it. Britain was strong-arming slave nations financially. The southern economy was HEAVILY dependent on trade with Britain. If that trade stopped, the CSA would wither and die.

And you really answered your own question here. The South would give into international pressure and outlaw slavery because they didn't need open slavery to treat african-americans like animals. Jim Crow and all that other shit would still exist in some form (most likely various forms), but they'd be able to tell the more civilized nations of the world that they didn't 'practice slavery' anymore and thereby able to protect their economy.

Also, your notion of the South conquering the North remains entirely absurd and unlike those refuting it you haven't offered even the slightest bit of logical argument or evidence to support it.

 

One good victory on northern soil would have probably given Lincoln the political support to cashier a lot of political generals that hobbled the North's efforts far sooner. Lincoln knew the north had more than enough resources to crush the south. Once aggressive generals were in place that is what happened in short order.

 

I think it wasn't just the mere idea of the Confederate show on HBO that provoked a backlash (although it isn't a good idea for a show, I agree). It was also because it was D&D from Game of Thrones who were supposed to be the ones behind it...the guys famous for a show that was just as much about blood and sex and rape as anything else.

A show run by guys like that wherein black folks would be seen as lessers in a society rules by Overclass White folks...

...You get the picture.