While watching this generations "Roots," I was taken aback by the comments of some people including my daughter who asked, "why are they remaking the movie "Roots"? We get it, we were slaves, why do they keep making all these slave movies? We need to move on there was more than just blacks that were slaves. We were not the only minority that had it hard."
My approach to parenting was to teach my kids the truth about America not just what was taught by our schools, but about all of our melting-pot society. To get back on topic the new "Roots," I believe was more poignant to me because it showed the realness of the violence. Sexual violence or domestic violence against massa and slave or slave owners that want to buy another slave-owners' slaves.
The original, to me seems like it was more of the storytelling from Kunta to Alex and how Kunta came back to Juffrire thorough the essence of Alex Haley. This generation would probably not just sit down to watch the original because they do not think it is connected to them. I agree with my daughter about showing the truth from other segments of society like the Chinese, Hispanics, Native Americans etc., they are underrepresented in the media but are they willing to shine a light on the dimmest parts of their history.
Remember that in the past most black people on screen was portrayed by white people in "blackface"... even as late as the 90s, blacks were being directed how to be "black" by white studio heads who knew better than them how their own people should act. I was in my emancipator narratives class when we were watching Hollywood Shuffle and how idiotic the Hollywood machine worked.
I believe the updated version of "Roots" will speak to a new demographic of society. In the 70s when the original "Roots" was made you could not make such a raw intense dramatic story as the updated version allowed for, but the old one implied a lot of things because they couldn't show it on television. When black history month came up every year that movie was the go-to movie to show how horrible it was for black people.
The way my daughter describes it she is desensitized towards the the past and says it's just a story. She does not get that it is a dramatized version of the story that was passed down from generation to generation the kids now do not get the concept of generational storytelling, or am I generalizing this generation of millenials?
