ROOTS - 30 years on

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

watched an interesting documentary on bbc4 about the 30th anniversary of the broadcast of the miniseries, which, even at a 5 years old, i remember being an incredibly galvinising political and televisual event. various clips shown in the documentary had remained in my consciousness all these years, particularly the scene where Kunta Kinte's daughter Kizzy is shackled and dragged away in a cart from the white farm where she is enslaved when it is revealed that she can read and write, remain incredibly powerful to me.

obviously the impact of the series was much lesser in the UK than in the US where, in a pioneering broadcasting event, the series was shown over 8 consecutive nights. That event, it was revealed in the doc, was actually an attempt to "get it out of the way" by the head of ABC: if the broadcast was a disaster, the reasoning went, it might damage a weeks viewing figures but it wouldnt sink an entire season.

How important was ROOTS? what are your memories of it (if you were old enough)? who was it important for? African Amercians (and Black Britons) seemed deeply changed by it while White Americans (it was suggested by Germaine Greer) used it primarly as an outlet to assuage their collective guilt. what do you think of that?

― jed_, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

The "assuage guilt" thing is true, but I don't think it should read as a criticism or a write-off. It's guilt-assuaging because, if you're a white person, you're presented with a narrative of slavery where your empathy is connected with the slaves, and where you honestly begin to see yourself as being (ideologically) on their side -- something that can make people feel comfortable enough that they no longer have to examine their relation to the other "side," or do much close examination of their "side" situation on modern issues. But especially for this era, that simple fact of narrative empathy is surely a positive development in itself, and one of the interesting things about the bits of Roots that I've seen is that it doesn't accomplish that empathy (as lots of things do) through loads of pity and battered-but-dignified stuff -- it's much better than a lot of its contemporaries at keeping your empathy on the characters not because they're brutalized and hard done by but because they're reasonably compelling as everyday characters.

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, guilt-wise: the fact of a nation's mainstream turning around and saying "horrible things have been done to you, we're totally on your side about that" actually does make it psychologically easier for them to continue doing slightly less horrible things, but at the same time that's not a moment to reject, or anything.

A bigger issue is that the era's very on-message positive portrayals of black Americans and black American history have become a stylistic cliche in a way that's really unfortunate, to the point where there are real and omnipresent facets of black culture where if you put young white people into them, they'd be all like "OMG this is like some corny Ruby Dee Public Service Announcement or something, is this for real?" Like the mere fact of positive portrayals of black culture somehow reads to people as "corny" now, which is really problematic!

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

interesting! can you give me an example of a positive and realistic portrayal of a black character that would be read as corny?

― jed_, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

I was a freshman in high school, so it was a big deal for the whole week, particularly as the series progressed. (I went to a 95+% white school.) I remember my dad took me to a track meet so I missed an episode and I was pissed.

The writing and casting (Robert Reed! O.J.!) of the episodes is kinda variable, but it was obv the first black family epic in American media, which was its cultural achievement. Coming as it did at the dawn of the Carter years, it offered a port into black historical consciousness that didn't involve Black Power and other signifiers that would've scared off the white audience (ie, it couldn't have been made in '72).

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

can someone talk about what the critical reception was like at the time?

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:43 (nineteen years ago)

Among the mainstream media, universal acclaim. (That's all I was reading at 14.)

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

I remember my mother watching Roots - I was just a little kid at the time. Seriously, my only memory of it is being horrified by the name "Bertha." (For all I know there wasn't even really a character named Bertha; I could have gotten that somewhere else).

I think our public library has a copy of it on video...

― Sara R-C, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

There's a certain type of A Raisin in the Sun-style narrative, very post-Civil Rights, that follows the trials and tribulations of the poor but dignified tight-knit black family (cf early Good Times), which I think has dated weirdly -- these stories were doing a lot of rhetorical work to represent positive black families to a white mainstream, and they were oddly uniform, and so a lot of their signifiers probably read to lots of people as corny, insincere, rosy-tinted, or just kinda 70s. (Unfortunately this bleeds over into reading even sincere "positive black families" that way.)

There are also certain images, usually southern and religious, like old ladies in church hats and gospel choirs and such, that have been re-used so often as feel-good imagery that they surely read to a lot of people as corny -- especially since they're less and less connected with the lives of lots of black people today. Same goes for a lot of historical imagery of "the black experience" -- the same old post-Roots slavery or sharecropping "look at our struggle" stories, presented in the same PBS fashion with the humming-spiritual soundtrack, which'll strike people both black and white as not especially vital/vibrant. There's basically an overestablished presentation style for this stuff (note any PBS documentary ever) that's too shorthand and says nothing -- which is weird, since there's such a wealth of different black historical experiences that could be looked at from so many different angles.

Anyway, point being there is a certain official language of positive black representation that developed after the Civil Rights Era that has begun to seem corny (even the elements that are still relevant and accurate), and I'd say it's only recently being replaced by new positive images (which are essentially middle-class and professional).

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

I remember watching it with my family when I was very young. I always assumed it (the production, that is!) was contemporary to that period but...30 years old! This would have been in the mid-80s.

― admrl, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

as it was pre-cable and pre-VCR era, the audience was much larger than is now possible. The final episode is still [Removed Illegal Link].

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

....third alltime, behind the MASH finale and "Who Shot J.R.?"

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

five months pass...

the final episode... so it turns out their house owner starts the ku klux klan. chicken george comes back and then they get back at him by first pretending to be nice, then getting him alone and pulling a gun on him. but he had his goons follow him, so they go to plan b and throw the fighting chickens at them. wtf, bizarre and awful.

― abanana, Thursday, 20 September 2007 23:16 (eighteen years ago)

they get back at him = kkk guy

― abanana, Thursday, 20 September 2007 23:17 (eighteen years ago)

eight years pass...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=141&v=ZZwaqFhs9fo

― karla jay vespers, Friday, 12 February 2016 06:31 (ten years ago)

three months pass...

So the new series begins on the holiday weekend, on 3 diff cable nets i don't have. There was a Sunday NY Times piece on it; LeVar Burton, a producer on this one, says the original's makeup was "terrrrible."

Meanwhile, there's... this.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/showing-roots-tv-review-897192

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 May 2016 18:55 (ten years ago)

t.i. is in this apparently

& just noticed the name of his latest spawn

Heiress Harris, born March 26, 2016

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 25 May 2016 19:03 (ten years ago)

so is... Anna Paquin

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 May 2016 19:06 (ten years ago)

wow. I'd heard nothing about this until now. I actually wrote my dissertation (12 years ago now ugh) on the impact of the series and i've visited the areas the main plantation was located in - so this is going to be insane to see a new version. I can totally see why they've picked this to remake given the name recognition and original impact, but i'd predict that without a doubt the controversy regarding the writing of the book (Alex Haley plagiarised from a number of sources and the historical links he made between his family timeline and the African tribe that we see at the start of the book/show were later questioned - there is a lot of doubt about his narrative's actual historic basis) will no doubt mean a ton of awful people piping up with 'SLAVERY DEBUNKED/ROOTS IS A LIE' bullshit, and maaaaany awful thinkpieces from all sides.

saying that, the conclusion I came to was that despite the problematic origins, Roots had an unprecedented positive emotional impact on a generation of african americans, and so regardless of Haley I put huge value in it.... the new series can never have the viewing impact the original did, but it could still have a positive impact

on another note, i'd say that after reading 30-40 of them back in university, for me 12 years a slave captured the historic slave narrative as a genre almost perfectly

just some ramblings!

― jamiesummerz, Thursday, 26 May 2016 15:37 (ten years ago)

a quick google shows me those articles already exist waaaaay ahead of the screening. ugh.

― jamiesummerz, Thursday, 26 May 2016 15:51 (ten years ago)

Well it is a 40th anniversary so peopld might have revisited things on those terms anyway. Even without a remake.

Watching the new one and thinking it's better done. Wondering if it is just following current tropes.
Just got the feeling from watching a bit of the 77 version, before fixed subtitles became too wearing, that blacks were still pretty other at the time and were being indulged or something.
Weird seeing Kunte's dad looking like a modern actor in simple African drag as he awaits the birth of his son looking like he's waiting for a bus.
New one seems to be more into establishing character and motivation. May be more authentic looking but tv drama is inevitably somewhat artificial innit?

― Stevolende, Sunday, 5 June 2016 12:11 (ten years ago)

one year passes...

I didn’t grow up with it really - I knew of the book but wasnt really aware of the mini series or its massive popularity until I moved here. Mr Veg & his Mom were both big fans.
I had seen part of episode 1 and some of a later episode on tv a while back & have been keen to watch the whole thing.

Mr Veg got me the bluray of the original TV series for Christmas and I’m about hafway through.
I love the casting & the story, it still feels quite epic & impressive, even with all the 70’s tv names.

Some of the performances are so good, l mean Levarr Burton obv but also Cicely Tyson, when she falls to the ground wailing after Kunta is taken, god I cried.
Louis Gossett too, and John Amos <3
lol @ OJ’s scene being an open field tackle but obv appropo for the time I guess.
Ed Asner was quite uh, “good” as the ship’s captain & showing the corruption of power etc. I just watched Elf the other day and it is O_o to see Santa as a slave trader
And UGH Mr Walton was creepy as fuck as that ship’s mate. And Mr Brady and Ben Cartwright as plantation owners.

I did read a bit about the later revelations of the book being a hoax/“faction” etc and wondered if that has changed ppls perception of it.

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 26 December 2017 23:27 (eight years ago)

also John Amos reminds me a lot of Mr Veg’s Dad.

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 26 December 2017 23:53 (eight years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.