That Controversial HBO Series May Not Happen

The news cycle happens pretty quickly these days, so I won't fault you if you'd completely forgotten about the outrage surrounding the controversial HBO series, Confederate, from the guys behind Game of Thrones. To quickly refresh you, the series — created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, two white men, mind you — wanted to explore what the country would be like had slavery never been abolished.

Yes, "yikes" is correct.

The good news, according to Birth.Movies.Death., is that the project may actually never come to fruition. The site referenced a recent article from The Washington Post which stated simply, "though the show is still in development, the creators are not actively working on it."

As Birth.Movies.Death. notes, this could be because they're preoccupied with GoT. It's also possible that they realized viewership and ratings would be low and decided that losing money was more important than putting an irresponsible series on the air.

Now, I get that sometimes art explores uncomfortable topics or imagines how atrocities could have been even more inhumane and devastating, but artists still have to ask themselves "why" they want to tell that story (which, Weiss tried to explain this with no success). Who is it going to impact? What are the viewers going to get out of this? And, most importantly, am I the correct person to tell this story?

In this instance, I — and everyone else who vocalized their disdain earlier this summer by tweeting #NoConfederate — felt strongly that Benioff and Weiss shouldn't bring their version of this world to screens everywhere.

This isn't to say they're not talented writers and visionaries: Benioff's City of Thieves was incredibly moving and made me wail like a baby, but when white nationalists and Confederate apologists are marching through cities across the world, the last thing we need is to give them a new favorite TV show.