What is it with the resurgence in US slavery movies? I have zero interest in watching, and refuse to participate in the requisite white guilt over something I had nothing to do with. There’s still black-on-black slavery in Africa. Must not be nearly as compelling to US audiences.
We should start a “Dave Chapelle as Kunta Kinte” campaign.
I haven’t seen Roots, but what makes you think it is designed to make white people feel guilty?
And are you referring to 12 Years a Slave as well? Is it designed to make white people feel guilty?
Yeah. And it’s not even February or anything!
Had there been an option, I would’ve voted “I saw the original and don’t particularly give a damn whether they do a remake.”
If they want to make a mini series about slavery they could go with something original. Since the first one was marketed as nonfiction and was found to be anything but, any new production will be bogged down with the same controversy.
I remember how the day after it’s opening episode in school was kill whitey day, but that didn’t put me off from watching the rest of it. So that’s a measure of its quality.
IIRC, “Rich Man Poor Man” had started the era of TV miniseries the year earlier, and Roots was a continuation of that. And a good thing, too, since Jaws and Star Wars had started the concurrent era of the big screen blockbuster. Old Hollywood would make a big deal of taking novels and turning them into prestige movies (even trashy novels like Forever Amber), but after Star Wars that was replaced with the High Concept. I’m glad books found a new home on TV.
I’m tired of the whole “let’s make a bunch of slave movies” trend we seem to be having in the first place. Roots was a damned fine movie. Make a movie about some other point in history.
I was 10, a geeky white girl, and we had recently moved to a mostly black neighborhood. Someone upthread mentioned ‘kill whitey day’ and I remember being harrassed a bit after Roots came out. Luckily the kids got bored with that game pretty quickly. (It was never violent, but there was name-calling and bullying.) What a strange memory.
But as to the OP, I saw the original and I fall under the “I don’t care one way or another.” I probably won’t watch it. Apathy mostly. I voted for the think it’s a bad idea option, though.
I went with option G - saw part but not much of the first series and probably won’t watch any of the remake. I could act all righteous and say it is because of the plagiarism, but it isn’t - just meh.
Regards,
Shodan
I was born in 1971, so I didn’t see Roots in its original incarnation, but having done a lot of academic work in 20th century pop culture and black history:
When I think of Roots, I think of a cultural phenomenon that was deeply connected to the state of race relations in the U.S. in the mid to late 1970s. The most significant events of the Civil Rights Movement were behind us but still fresh in our minds, and we had started on the long slow journey towards true racial equality. That was integral to the cultural landscape in which Roots exploded.
The significance to black Americans has been much discussed, so consider the impact on whites. The nation was chock-full of white people with good intentions, but who didn’t know quite what to do. Enter Roots. Watching a TV show might not seem like “doing” much, but it was many people’s first significant exposure to African-American history.* It demonstrated that black history isn’t just a footnote to “American History,” but a vital part of it, and a subject worthy of study all on its own. If the U.S. is a melting pot, Roots emphasized the importance of this particular ingredient and how it became part of the American story. By laying open the pain and suffering of slavery, it forced whites to confront a history that had been largely sanitized and/or swept under the rug.
Here are a couple of short articles on other aspects of the importance of Roots (found via google search):
http://www.museum.tv/eotv/roots.htm
http://progressive.org/media_mpgreenberger012307
I also ran into this call for academic papersfor a publication to be called Reconsidering Roots: Observations on the 40th Anniversary of a TV Mini-Series that changed the Way We Understood American Slavery. The publication isn’t out yet, but if you look at the list of suggested paper topics, you’ll see how many aspects of Roots are considered worthy of discussion.
Remaking Roots in 2013 is completely idiotic. We may not have achieved real racial equality yet, but we’re in a whole different place now. Other than the whole “people know the name Roots so we’ll make lots of money” thing, it just makes no sense. Even that makes no sense because that tactic has flopped over and over. Add to the above the matter of the lack of historical accuracy and plagiarism and it just adds a whole new level of “why on earth would you do this?” If they want to make a miniseries about slavery, as others have noted there are countless stories still to be told. Call it “the Roots of the new millennium” or something if you feel you have to tie the two together.
No more than any other production that had roles for a lot of black actors. Again, the situation now is entirely different from 1977. Black actors aren’t necessarily unknowns stuck laboring away in bit parts. There may still be fewer roles for blacks than whites, but the discrepancy is not what it used to be.
*too bad it wasn’t really history after all. That doesn’t lessen the impact, however.
Ooh, so what are the names of all these TV dramas that called for about a dozen major lead roles for black men and women, not to mention hundreds of other black actors in smaller and extra parts? Let’s see, there’s “Frank’s Place” that lasted about five minutes in the 1990s (and I think that was more of a comedy anyway), and “Generations,” the soap opera that similarly lasted only a few years back in the 1980s. I can’t think of anything else significant, drama-wise.
Sure, if you’re a comic actor who’s black, you might have a better shot at a role on FOX, NBC or the WB. (NBC is doing pretty well this year, actually.) But for dramas, you find maybe ten actors like Kerry Washington or Andre Braugher who have good lead roles on a batch of shows across the networks.
I dunno, I’d say the discrepency remains pretty damn significant. Certainly enough to make a massive production like “Roots” a positive development for the actors who aren’t allowed to be the token black crime expert on one of CBS’s procedurals.
I think you’re missing my point. They could (and should) make a miniseries with a ton of roles for black actors. But it doesn’t have to be Roots.
I thought “Django” was the definitive remake of “Roots”.
Really? Hadn’t you read “Huckleberry Finn” or studied the Underground Railroad in school? Was that not common in the '70s? 
I’m sure the state of race relations in the '70s added a special resonance to the broadcasting of the original “Roots,” but if it’s an entertaining story I don’t see anything particularly idiotic about remaking it in the different climate today. (Unnecessary, maybe, but not idiotic.) That’s my feeling: I could take it or leave it.
Ah, my bad, I misread your “as much as any production that had” as being past perfect, rather than conditional. Also, the “discrepency” line made it seem as if everything’s hunky dory as far as opportunities for black actors. But as my OP stated, I agree with you: any miniseries based on history, as long as it’s something new, would do just as well.
Not Huckleberry Finn, at least not when I was 10/11, but I was fascinated with the Underground Railroad and read as many Harriet Tubman books as I could order from Scholastic or take out of the library. I think Finn was deemed problematic due to the language, at least in my liberal Long Island NY town. But every school district differed on this.
Ah, yeah, I see where it was unclear. No worries.
I did my 4th grade research paper on Harriet Tubman (in my liberal Long Island town.) And I have a Harriet Tubman finger puppet that my mommy bought me (when I was like 40 or something).
Never saw the original so what was the matter with the old Roots? Did Ted Turner colorize it?
All the gunplay and 'splosions certainly made it more interesting.
IIRC, back when LeVar Burton did his signature post-Roots work with Michael Dorn and Whoopi Goldberg, it was noted that Star Trek: TNG was the place for black actors who didn’t mind wearing stuff on their heads.