We live in a country right now where the president is literally defending Nazis and crowds are being cheered for tearing down monuments dedicated to treasonous racists, but HBO still somehow thinks that Confederate, the series it’s developing about the South winning the Civil War, is a good idea. This is also despite the fact that there was already a big backlash even before Donald Trump started pandering to Nazis, with HBO programming president Casey Bloys having to step forward and suggest that the project will be worth the controversy. Basically, it should be clear to HBO that this is a bad time to discuss a show like this, but the people involved with Confederate have once again decided to stick to their guns instead of surrendering to common sense.
As reported by The New York Times, HBO has released a statement in response to a resurgent Confederate backlash, essentially reitertating the argument that people should wait until there’s something to see before they judge the show. Here’s the statement in full:
We support everybody’s right to express an opinion but the suggestion of irresponsibility on our part is simply undeserved. HBO has a long history of championing intelligent storytelling and we will approach this project with the same level of thoughtfulness that has always defined our programming. We recognize the sensitivity of this project and will treat it with the respect that it deserves. Our creative partners should be given time to develop the series rather than face prejudgment.
One of the reasons HBO has been so quick to defend Confederate is that it’s the next big project from Game Of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. With their dragon show on the way out, HBO probably sees it as a good business decision to keep them happy and let them make the show they want to make. Either way, Confederate is still very early in development—and work on it won’t properly begin until Game Of Thrones is done anyway—so HBO is probably just hoping that the backlash will blow over by then.