Confederate (TV series)

The announcement of Confederate was followed by anger and criticism on social media with some describing it as slavery fan fiction.

Entertainment Weekly reported that Confederate:[5] chronicles the events leading to the Third American Civil War.

The series takes place in an alternate timeline, where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution.

The story follows a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Demilitarized Zone – freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate and the families of people in their thrall.Show developer David Benioff said he was inspired to explore this concept by "the famous story of when Robert E. Lee was invading the North.

A lot of people think if the orders hadn't been lost, things might have been different: the Confederates might've sacked Washington, D.C., it's possible the South could've won the war".

"[5] On July 19, 2017, David Benioff announced that he and D. B. Weiss would begin production on a new HBO series, titled Confederate, after the final season of Game of Thrones aired in 2019.

[8] In July, HBO president Casey Bloys confirmed the series was still in development, and hoped it would resume once Benioff and Weiss finished their ongoing commitments,[9] but stated in May 2019 that it was "not on the front burner".

MSNBC host Joy Reid commented on the show, saying: "It plays to a rather concrete American fantasy: slavery that never ends, becoming a permanent state for black people.

"[2] Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing for The Atlantic, said "African-Americans do not need science-fiction, or really any fiction, to tell them that this 'history is still with us'", and criticized its lack of originality because "'What if the white South had won?'

[12] After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, KJ Whittaker worried that Confederate could intensify hate groups in America.