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‘Confederate’ Producer: Trump Brought Racism Back

No TV project is generating more headlines than HBO’s “Confederate.”

And the show hasn’t written a single character yet, let alone shot a scene.

Now, four of the minds behind “Confederate” are throwing kerosene on the debate. The current headlines may soon look quaint if the show lives up to its powder keg potential.

The story offers an alternate universe where the South split from the United States while retaining slavery. Flash forward to the present, and the North and South remain at odds. And slavery continues to exist.

The premise is absurd. Not all alternate realities are created equal, though.

The Man in the High Castle” credibly wonders what might have happened if the Axis powers won World War II. The Amazon series begins with a scenario based on fact. Germany could have toppled the Allies, in theory.

The Man in the High Castle Season 1 - Official Comic-Con Trailer | Prime Video

By comparison, western culture’s evolution made slavery unthinkable. Still, it’s an arresting concept for a TV show. It’s also one many people would prefer never get made.

Why?

RELATED: Why Chris Pratt Must Stand Up to PC Scolds

The HBO series comes with an impeccable pedigree. “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will be calling the shots. But Benioff and Weiss are white. Therefore, they shouldn’t be allowed to extrapolate what slavery might look like in 2017 America, or so say many on the cultural Left.

Author Roxanne Gay called the situation “offensive.” The Daily Beast dubbed it “white nonsense” AND played the Race Card. Hard.

But this harebrained idea serves as yet another reminder that the imaginations of white men can be incredibly myopic.

That’s how insidious political correctness is these days. Storytellers can no longer tell stories that don’t directly flow from their life experiences.

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

To counter that narrative, HBO quickly announced two black producers will play a key role in the show’s production. All four “Confederate” players spoke with Vulture.com to assuage fears of “whitesplaining” slavery.

They did much more than that, though. And, in a way, they may have inoculated themselves against future criticism from the Left. Seems “Confederate” could have a decidedly anti-Trump perspective.

Here’s executive producer Malcolm Spellman, who is black, weighing in on a loaded Vulture question about the show’s possible appeal to the “Alt-Right.”

What people need to recognize is, and it makes me really want to get into the show: The sh** is alive and real today. I think people have got to stop pretending that slavery was something that happened and went away. The sh** is affecting people in the present day. And it’s easy for folks to hide from it, because sometimes you’re not able to map it out, especially with how insidious racism has become. But everyone knows that with Trump coming into power, a bunch of sh** that had always been there got resurfaced. So the idea that this would be pornography goes back to people imagining whips and plantations. What they need to be imagining is how f***ed up things are today, and a story that allows us to now dramatize it in a more tangible matter.

It’s all about President Trump, apparently.

It’s Not MSNBC. It’s HBO

HBO’s programming already leans to the left. Think “Last Week Tonight,” “Real Time with Bill Maher” and a gaggle of made for HBO movies with a serious progressive agenda. Like “Confirmation,” the mash note to Anita Hill.

The channel may have another liberal program on its schedule, one targeting the GOP president on a weekly basis. Or, the show’s power structure will realize that angle could be too divisive and serve up a more coherent, thoughtful narrative.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Both Malcolm Spellman and Nichelle Tramble Spellman, the black couple who are co-producing ‘Confederate’ with the “Game of Thrones” showrunners, just deleted their official Twitter accounts.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

21 Comments

  1. “But everyone knows that with Trump coming into power, a bunch of sh** that had always been there got resurfaced.”

    Why, this must be true. After all the South Carolina church shooting happened under President Trump…oh wait, that was President Obama.

    Well, the shooting in Ferguson and the subsequent riots, that happened under President Trump…oh wait, that was President Obama too.

    How about the Philandro Castile shooting? Surely that happened under President Trump! Obvious racism!! Oh wait, that was under President Obama too.

    Wow, this producer sounds like a real historian…in the mold of a typical totalitarian.

    1. Since it’s HBO, it will surely have a lot of full frontal nudity and gratuitous sex, like Rome and Deadwood. It’ll be gritty, with a lot of racial slurs and sicko white slave masters forcing sex on black slaves. It will probably make the Ferguson riots look like a Sunday picnic in the park. All because they can’t accept that their lousy candidate lost to Trump. Pathetic.

  2. All you have to do to restore slavery is elect Bernie Sanders and go full commie. The state takes everything you earn, owns everything and then tries to feed you and care for you just enough to keep you working. But of course it fails, like all commie states do and you starve and freeze .

    Why are all these idiots writing drivel while Solzhenitsyn’s works are not dramatized, while “the gulag archipelago” is no longer in print , while the “master and the margarita” (great music) hasn’t been properly dubbed in english and made available?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t6W9hkXV6g&list=PL5F53D266E7688852

  3. “Dog Bites Man” – the “creative” folks in H’wood are STILL stuck on stupid in the ’50’s.

    They have no imagination, they have no idea of current events – what, exactly, do they have to offer anyone NOT already inside their little bubble?

  4. Quote “HBO’s programming already leans to the left.”

    Really? Understatement of the year much?

    HBO would double their revenue if they didn’t alienate so many non-lefties. But sadly, some businesses are all about the agenda and not the customer or shareholder. Think HBO, Target, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, United, Delta. The list goes on and on.

  5. So it’s still okay to stereotype and insult southerners. Got it.

    We’re in a topsy turvy world where somebody saying something nasty to a business owner with a rainbow flag outside her business in the Bay Area is a big story but a MAGA hat wearer getting punched by a mob isn’t reported at all. It’s fascism on training wheels. For now.

  6. So to be historically accurate all the South’s politicians and supporters of slavery will be Democrats right?

  7. I wonder if they’ll show black businessmen keeping slaves, much like they did in reality.*

    * A small number, mind, far fewer than white slaveholders, but it did happen.

  8. Slavery would have died because it was becoming too expensive as mechanization was being developed. Also people would have turned against it. Remember only a relatively few Southerners had slaves.

    But, if the South had won, secession would be on the table and our Federal government would have been much different and less powerful with that threat. Remember, too, Lincoln said the reason he fought the civil war was not over slavery. It was over secession.

  9. Nice try.
    Democrats founded, formed the KKK 1865, in which the hung blacks and whites if you did not support them

  10. Former President Obama had the opportunity to do something great with race relations and he failed. Racism made a comeback and race relations in America went backwards under his watch. That is a fact. Liberal meltdown in 3…2…

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