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PEOPLE & ARTS Saturday 22 July 2017
Creators of new HBO series address fears it glorifies racism

and lingering issue. history doesn’t disappear.
Malcolm Spellman’s take ... It’s an ugly and a painful
on it: “You’re dealing with history, but we all think this
weapons-grade material is a reason to talk about it,
here.” not a reason to run from it.
But he said he and his wife And this feels like a poten-
“are not props being used tially valuable way to talk
to protect someone else. about it.”
We are people who feel a Benioff added, “I’d say
need to address issues the anyone who thinks that
same way they do..” Malcolm and Nichelle are
Weiss called slavery “our props have never met Mal-
original sin as a nation. And colm and Nichelle.”q

In this Sept. 20, 2015 file photo, creator-showrunners David Benioff, left, and D.B. Weiss accept
the award for outstanding writing for a drama series for “Game Of Thrones” at the 67th Primetime
Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.
Associated Press

By FRAZIER MOORE “a broad swath of char- Tramble Spellman (“Justi-
AP Television Writer acters on both sides of the fied,” ‘’The Good Wife”),
NEW YORK (AP) — No Mason-Dixon Demilitarized husband-and-wife TV vet-
scripts have been written, Zone,” HBO said — “free- erans who both are black
not even an outline. dom fighters, slave hunt- and who will be fellow ex-
But HBO’s announcement ers, politicians, abolitionists, ecutive producers and
on Wednesday that the journalists, the executives writers on the new series.
creator-showrunners of of a slave-holding con- “This is not going to be,
“Game of Thrones” will fol- glomerate and the families you know, the big ‘Gone
low up that massive hit of people in their thrall.” With the Wind’ mansion,”
with an HBO series in which It is not expected to start Nichelle Tramble Spellman
slavery remains legal in the production for at least a told Vulture in an interview
modern-day South drew year. with the entire creative
fire on social media from “Confederate” will be team that was posted
those who fear that telling created and written by Thursday night to address
that story will glorify racism. “Game of Thrones” mas- the backlash.
The series, “Confederate,” terminds David Benioff and “This is present day, or
will take place in an alter- D.B. Weiss, who will also close to present day, and
nate timeline where the serve as showrunners on how the world would have
southern states have suc- the series. Both are white. evolved if the South had
cessfully seceded from the HBO’s announcement also been successful seceding
Union and formed a nation said they would join forces from the Union.”
in which legalized slavery with Malcolm Spellman She said what excited her
has evolved into a modern (“Empire,” the forthcoming about the project is “the
institution. The story follows “Foxy Brown”) and Nichelle idea that in order to build
this, we would have to re-
build world history: ‘OK, if
this had happened here,
how did the rest of the
world change?’”
Other series have imagined
uncomfortable alternate
versions of history, notably
Amazon’s “The Man in the
High Castle,” which depicts
life in the United States had
the Nazis won World War II.
But slavery in the United
States is a far more sensitive