Following a social media campaign urging HBO to cancel its upcoming slave drama Confederate, the network has responded with a statement.
“We have great respect for the dialogue and concern being expressed around Confederate,” the network said in a statement. “We have faith that Nichelle, Dan, David, and Malcolm will approach the subject with care and sensitivity. The project is currently in its infancy so we hope that people will reserve judgment until there is something to see.”
Confederate, an “alternate history” drama, would chronicle the events leading up to the Third American Civil War. In this alternate timeline, the southern states of the U.S. successfully left the Union, meaning that slavery remains legal and is a modern institution. Characters planned for the show include (of course) slaves and their families, slave hunters and owners, abolitionists, journalists, freedom fighters and politicians.
After HBO announced the show, a social media campaign was created to derail HBO’s planned modern-day Southern slavery drama.
When the hit series Game of Thrones aired on Sunday night, the hashtag #NoConfederate trended globally on Twitter.
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By the end of Game of Thrones‘ East Coast broadcast, #NoConfederate had reached No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 2 worldwide among Twitter’s trending topics.
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“We believe the time to speak up is now before the show has been written or cast. Before @hbo invests too much money into #Confederate,” April Reign, one of a group of women who started the campaign, wrote on Twitter last week. “This Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, during @GameOfThrones, we ask you to stand with us. We want to send a message to @hbo using hashtag #NoConfederate.”
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“We know we have the power to make change,” she added in another tweet. “Let’s show @hbo how many people are against #Confederate. Please join us Sunday w/ #NoConfederate.”
In an email to CNN, Reign, who is also the creator of #OscarsSoWhite, added, “We would like HBO to cancel #Confederate and instead uplift more marginalized voices with a different series.”
Earlier this month, HBO issued a press release announcing their plans for a new TV series, Confederate, helmed by Game of Thrones show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
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“As the brilliant Game of Thrones winds down to its final season, we are thrilled to be able to continue our relationship with Dan and David, knowing that any subject they take on will result in a unique and ambitious series,” said HBO president of original programming, Casey Bloys. “Their intelligent, wry and visually stunning approach to storytelling has a way of engaging an audience and taking them on an unforgettable journey. Confederate promises to be no exception, and we are honored to be adding the talented team of Nichelle and Malcolm Spellman to the mix.”
On Thursday at the Television Critics Association’s summer tour, Casey Bloys, HBO’s programming chief, addressed the backlash against Confederate.
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“Our mistake was the idea that we would be able to announce an idea that is so sensitive and requires so much thought on the part of the producers in a press release,” he said. “I completely understand that somebody reading the press release would not have that at all.”
He then said that he or the show’s creative body should have held a press conference with journalists so that all questions could be asked and assuaged, instead of just announcing point-blank.
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Nichelle and Malcolm Spellman, the show’s intended writers, are African-American, but the protest aims to be more about Confederate’s subject matter rather than who’s at the wheel.
Nichelle, spoke with Vulture about the social media protest.
“I do understand their concern,” she said. “I wish their concern had been reserved to the night of the premiere, on HBO, on a Sunday night, when they watched and then they made a decision after they watched an hour of television as to whether or not we succeeded in what we set out to do. The concern is real. But I think that the four of us are very thoughtful, very serious, and not flip about what we are getting into in any way. What I’ve done in the past, what Malcolm has done in the past, what the D.B.s have done in the past, proves that. So I would have loved an opportunity for the conversation to start once the show was on the air.”
Malcolm added, “What people have to understand is, and what we are obligated to repeat in every interview is: We’ve got black aunties. We’ve got black nephews, uncles. Black parents and black grandparents. We deal with them every single day. We deal with the struggle every single day. And people don’t have to get on board with what we’re doing based on a press release. But when they’re writing about us, and commenting about us, they should be mindful of the fact that there are no sellouts involved in this show. Me and Nichelle are not props being used to protect someone else. We are people who feel a need to address issues the same way they do, and they should at least humanize the other end of those tweets and articles.”
Despite HBO’s confidence, some people are even calling for an outright boycott of HBO, using the hashtag “#boycottHBO.”
— With files from Chris Jancelewicz
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