Nancy Chuang
Jul 21, 2017 · 1 min read

I admittedly haven’t watched/read Man in the High Castle but I was thinking about it too. The hypothetical there feels OK to me, because as far as I know Phillip K. Dick (and I assume, most of the TV writers) can’t be construed to having connection/benefit to the Axis powers winning WWII, particularly being sympathetic to Nazism or because Hollywood, being of Japanese descent. And I guess because it seems MOST people worldwide agree it would be a very bad thing if they had won. Someone like me who hasn’t seen/read it would still assume the creators are exploring the topic as a horror story. But it’s very hard to be a white person in the US who doesn’t benefit from the basic concept of the Civil War ending differently, the fictional secession part doesn’t really matter. There are MANY people who wish the war turned out differently and actively say so, in 2017. It’s easier to imagine these particular showrunners would glorify this.

I could maybe stomach the concept (but not necessarily watch it) if it came wholly from descendants of slaves, who were leading up to an amazing revolution story. Although it would be painfully depressing that the slaves couldn’t get enough support/power to revolt until 2017. Or oooooh maybe if the story was actually about a successful slave revolt immediately following secession, and suddenly the southern states became a majority-black and black-ruled nation and there was a version of Jim Crow for white people.

I do love the name “What the Dickens?” though.

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    Nancy Chuang

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    Documentary & travel photographer. New Yorker with a second spiritual home in Mae Sot, Thailand. http://www.nancychuang.com