‘The Son’ Showrunner on ‘Carefully’ Depicting Race and War at the Turn of the Century

AMC’s new drama “The Son” follows generations of a prominent Texas family from the 19th century onwards, who are embroiled in various bitter wars over land, power and resources at the still-new U.S.-Mexico border.

Just because something actually happened a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s socially responsible to market it on television as mass entertainment, and I think we have to be very careful as a culture in how we approach it.

When “The Son” starts, the younger version of Pierce Brosnan’s character, Eli McCullough (played by “Mud” star Jacob Lofland) goes through a traumatic experience when his family is slaughtered and he is kidnapped by the Native American tribe the Comanches.

“Even though it’s absolutely historically accurate that captives got raped, that’s just how it happened, in choosing what we select of all the different things we can show of the Comanche lifestyle, we realized we were leaning too heavily into the aggression on women,” Murphy said.