Roots (2016 History Channel)

[SimoneS]

1 hour ago, cakes1975 said:

Go back and look at that scene again. This was the Christmas Party and on the very large plantations the overseers and sometimes their family would be invited. if you look the overseer never went inside the house, he stayed on the porch. He knew his place which made this scene very telling and Curran played it perfectly with his glares at the owners and the gentlefolk inside.

I definitely missed that.

About the premiere, I forgot to mention how much I loved the scene where Kunta is being berated for attacking Simi and then we see this proud smile on Simi's face. It was heartwarming to see how much Kunta was loved.

Edited June 1, 2016 by SimoneS

[ClareWalks]

Just finished hour 1 of the second part. I thought I'd accidentally put on "Django: Unchained" or something.

[DearEvette]

2 hours ago, cakes1975 said:

I also appreciated the subtle scene with the Doctor delivering the baby and immediately knowing that it was fathered by a white man (if not him more than likely the Scottish Overseer, who looked shocked on the sideline), and named him Noah and proceeded to treat him as his special pet.

This version is better at showing the psychological knots these people tied themselves in to justify their system of oppression.

Yeah, one thing I am really liking about this version are all the little things that are either very subtle or blatant but exposed in such a way it takes you a minute to realize the significance.

For instance, how easy it could be to make the white characters just outright monsters but they aren't, they are giving them some complexity.

Look at Dr. Waller, I mean, compared to his brother he is "nice" but he is still entrenched in the system mentally, not just because it is a status quo. I think Matthew Goode does a great job of projecting decency in his voice and manner but then shows the character absolutely has a slave owner mentality. Calling Kunte a "nigger" and telling Belle "don't touch me."

And then there is the whole psychological land mine that is Missy his daughter-niece.  On the one hand her easy acceptance & even affection for Kizzy, teaching her to read etc.  But then abrupt, even cruel reminders that she is still Kizzy's owner and the off-hand ease with which they have the character switch from one to the other in a blink.  Land mine is apt because Kizzy always needed to be navigate that growing up.

And maybe I was projecting a bit, but even the overseer as they were pulling Kizzy away and Kunte and Belle were screaming seemed to show a little bit of pity.

And finally, Tom Lea, who keeps yelling over and over "this is my right" as he rapes Kizzy but then tenderly holds the baby and names him George after his own father.   Jonathan Rhys-Meyer even in his smallish scene so far was also especially excellent.  Talk about a slave owner who isn't swanning around like an aristocrat.  He is obviously a poor farmer but he too has the slave owner mentality even as you get the feeling he has real feelings for his kid as not just as labor.

I saw that the writer credited with this episode is Alison McDonald who is Broadway star Audra McDonald's sister.  Mario Van Peebles directed.  I swear the actor who played Noah has to be a Van Peebles, altho he is not credited on IMDB. Those dimples are too distinct.

[junemeatcleaver]

Quote

I swear the actor who played Noah has to be a Van Peebles

He is.  His name is Mandela.  Looking at his Wikipedia page, the only stuff he's been in are movies and shows directed by his dad Mario.

Quote

For instance, how easy it could be to make the white characters just outright monsters but they aren't, they are giving them some complexity.

Nah, they're still outright monsters to me and the show giving these effing devils some glimmers of decency makes them even worse in my eyes.

[SimoneS]

Kizzy's pain and the midwife's sympathy as Tom Lea fawned over the innocent baby conceived from rape broke my heart. What a way to be born into the world. Kizzy's parents and ancestors' calling her back from death started heavy handed, but the actress' portrayal of Kizzy's cries of desperation moved me to tears. 

Edited June 2, 2016 by SimoneS

[ClareWalks]

Well, we're now 2 for 2 of Roots episodes that make me sob at the end.

[SimoneS]

1 hour ago, auntl said:

I don't think that the show is getting across how these people were worked almost to death on very little food, far from adequate clothing, and very little sleep.

I read "When I Was a Slave". The U.S. government documented as many freed slaves stories as they could during FDRs presidency. They wanted to get their stories down on paper before they all died. This book tells some of the stories in the slaves' own words. I highly recommend it.

Treatment of slaves varied among households. In some, I honestly don't know how the slaves survived. 

On some plantations, women would be made to work in the fields all day then stay up all night sewing clothes and linens needed on the plantation. If they didn't meet their sewing quota, they would be beaten. Many of the children stayed up all night, sewing to help their mother meet her quota.

While Roots does a good job of showing how emotionally horrible slavery was, I don't think it shows how physically horrific it was.

This continues to be my biggest problem with this remake of Roots and why I cannot get into many of the scenes. It feels more like a theatrical production of slavery rather than true re-imagining of America's original sin.The enslaved people on this show saunter around the plantation. They barely have a speck of dirt on their freshly washed bright colored clothes and they don't sweat. I have no clue where all this water is coming from to keep them clean when it is needed for the crops and the slaveowners. They should be bent over, filthy, and exhausted. Slaveowners literally worked most of these people to death, being in the house or having a job was better than working in the fields, but it isn't like they got to rest on their downtime.

Edited June 1, 2016 by SimoneS

[nodorothyparker]

49 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Yeah, one thing I am really liking about this version are all the little things that are either very subtle or blatant but exposed in such a way it takes you a minute to realize the significance.

For instance, how easy it could be to make the white characters just outright monsters but they aren't, they are giving them some complexity.

Look at Dr. Waller, I mean, compared to his brother he is "nice" but he is still entrenched in the system mentally, not just because it is a status quo. I think Matthew Goode does a great job of projecting decency in his voice and manner but then shows the character absolutely has a slave owner mentality. Calling Kunte a "nigger" and telling Belle "don't touch me."

And then there is the whole psychological land mine that is Missy his daughter-niece.  On the one hand her easy acceptance & even affection for Kizzy, teaching her to read etc.  But then abrupt, even cruel reminders that she is still Kizzy's owner and the off-hand ease with which they have the character switch from one to the other in a blink.  Land mine is apt because Kizzy always needed to be navigate that growing up.

And maybe I was projecting a bit, but even the overseer as they were pulling Kizzy away and Kunte and Belle were screaming seemed to show a little bit of pity.

And finally, Tom Lea, who keeps yelling over and over "this is my right" as he rapes Kizzy but then tenderly holds the baby and names him George after his own father.   Jonathan Rhys-Meyer even in his smallish scene so far was also especially excellent.  Talk about a slave owner who isn't swanning around like an aristocrat.  He is obviously a poor farmer but he too has the slave owner mentality even as you get the feeling he has real feelings for his kid as not just as labor.

I saw that the writer credited with this episode is Alison McDonald who is Broadway star Audra McDonald's sister.  Mario Van Peebles directed.  I swear the actor who played Noah has to be a Van Peebles, altho he is not credited on IMDB. Those dimples are too distinct.

All of this.  Last night's episode really highlighted all the various paradoxes and twisty logic that made owning and buying and selling other human beings seem like an acceptable thing to do.  Dr. Waller comes off initially as the "good" slave owner compared to his brother because he's not signing off on working or whipping slaves to death or chopping off feet to the point that it's very easy to almost miss that he views them mostly by their monetary value and expense of replacing them, not as actual people who shouldn't be treated that way.  Missy loves her best friend Kizzy all through their growing up, but never once seems to consider how that works considering that she's still one of her owners and seems mostly concerned how betrayed she is as Kizzy's being dragged away.   Tom Lea takes it as a matter of course that because he bought Kizzy, he bought the right to use her body as he saw fit just like he would any farm animal.  Yet he's cooing over the product of that rape like any proud father might.  

Spoiler

If I remember correctly, in the book Tom never had any other children and did treat George mostly like a son right up to the point where he was left with no financial choice but to loan George out for several years and then sold George's wife and children in his absence.

They were showing us in a thousand different small ways just how great the disconnect was for the white characters who were all part of the slave system.

I quite liked the Revolutionary War angle because it illustrated all of this perfectly as Kunte quickly realized.  The British were letting slaveowners loyal to the crown keep their slaves, so while they might talk of giving slaves who fought for them freedom and shirts with the word liberty on them, they wouldn't even give them the tools to fight with and were only interested in using them as pawns and cannon fodder.  The Revolutionaries were also full of talk about liberty and freedom, but they didn't mean for the enslaved population at all.  I loved Fiddler's wry aside that "isn't that great the white folks get to be free now."

[TigerLynx]

I wish they would show more of the actual poverty of the south, and the plantations.  Not every plantation was successful.  One failed crop could easily result in the plantation being foreclosed on, and all the slaves sold.  It has been somewhat referenced when the overseer told Mr. Waller that Kunta/the African was young, and he could still get years of work out of him, while it would be better to sale Fiddler since he was older, and when Dr. Waller told the overseer the cost of the dead slave girl was coming out of his wages.  Also, when Dr. Waller was complaining about how much Noah's death would cost Dr. Waller because he was a young and strong slave who would have provided years of work on the plantation.

They did get the preference of slave owners for lighter colored slaves right.  Quite often those would be the slaves that worked in the house, and were trained as blacksmiths and to do other artisan jobs.  The slave owners would be proud of their pets while at the same reminding them they were supposedly smarter/better than the field slaves, but not equal to whites, and should be grateful to their master for his generosity.

The poverty was also another reason the cruelty and violence was so prevalent.  The poor white trash could make themselves feel better for a few minutes by terrorizing the slaves and telling themselves they might be poor, but they were still better than the slaves.

[DearEvette]

I am wondering if we will get to see something of the poor farmers now that the story will shift to Kizzy.  Tom Lea did not look prosperous at all.  Since the first two parts of it really is told from Kunte's perspective and he was sold to a very prosperous planter it would be difficult for him to see some of the more universal issues.

I am thinking the filmmakers made a conscious decision to focus less on some of the more universal, observable, physical aspects of slavery and decided to focus more on the emotional and psychological aspects as experienced through Kunte.  If you think about it we are viewing this story through Kunte who, at this point, who feels almost like a case study in some ways.  A free man with no concept at all of the American slave system, but kidnapped into it to experience it.  i thought they did a good job from the camera work in the first episode showing the alieness of this country and his bewilderment at some things he saw, that we take for granted.

 it'll be interesting to see what elements the writers will bring into it  once it moves away from Kunte's perspective and onto Kizzy and George's.  George of course is a half-white, was born into slavery and will have a very different experience of it than Kunte did.  The story may yet move from the more personal micro stuff and start to widen out to the bigger macro problems.  I don't remember enough of the 70s version to know how much it looks at the institution of Slavery vs. just this one family's move through it.

Edited June 1, 2016 by DearEvette

[ruby24]

I think it's notable how many white slavers Kunta has killed. He even killed the overseer in this one. Even Fiddler kills a couple guys before he gets killed himself.

Did Kunta actually kill anyone in the old one? I feel like they're doing this because they think the audience now can't accept the reality of the oppression of slaves without getting immediate revenge or payback in there somewhere. It seems very obvious too. The old one showed you that there was no justice for most slaves, only survival itself. It's like this one is saying that's not good enough, or at least not trusting viewers to absorb that message- they've got to at least get some kills in there too.

Yes, there were slave revolts in history and everything, but I think part of the power of the original series was that it showed you how the triumph of most slaves was simply day to day survival in the face of constant horrors. It may make you feel powerless, but of course that's how they felt and were forced to live.

This feels like the Django Unchained influence or something. I guess they think it'll make people too angry to watch it without getting some measure of payback in there. Or worse, do they think Kunta Kinte doesn't come across as heroic enough unless he manages to murder a bunch of the slaveowners?

It's also a little bit distracting to me, because I'm pretty sure that most black people who murdered white people in that time were executed pretty quickly. The idea that Kunta could essentially get away with killing all those people rings false.

Edited June 2, 2016 by ruby24

[ClareWalks]

Yep, I pretty much said as much (less eloquently, though) when I said I thought I'd put on "Django: Unchained" by accident. As far as I remember, Kunta didn't kill anybody in the original miniseries, and I don't even remember if he'd killed anyone in the book (he may have gotten a kill or two on the slave ship). In actuality, if he'd killed all those (white) men, he'd be hanged immediately, so it kind of took me out of the story for a bit.

[ruby24]

Yeah, and I feel like there's an unfortunate underlying message that's sort of implying that slaves didn't fight back enough. Again, that's probably for the modern day audience, but it just isn't the truth of the time period. I do understand that it's painful to watch these things and feel like our hero never gets his moment of revenge, but...this is what happened in history. Most slaves didn't.

ETA: I think if you want to tap into that anger and a sense of fighting back with violence, a story set during the Civil Rights era would probably be more historically accurate. Or if not, then a specific story about a slave revolt.

Edited June 2, 2016 by ruby24

[TigerLynx]

If Kunta Kinte was going to kill someone, I believe it would have happened when Kizzy was taken away.  Also, the slaves were greatly outnumbered by whites who had guns. It might not seem like there were more whites, but not everyone owned slaves and lived on plantations.

[DearEvette]

He killed the overseer, but the overseer killed a British soldier.  And the only people who knew Kunte killed him were the Brits and they were trying to conscript him for the army.  Since none of the Americans knew Kunte killed the overseer he basically he got away with it because the death was probably blamed on the British not on Kunte.

He also killed the bounty hunter, right?  But I don't think anyone witnessed that one  either?  I do agree about the Django Unchained effect, tho.

[mightysparrow]

I agree that it's unbelievable that Kunte would be able to get away with killing all the White men he's killed.  I understand that they want to please a modern audience but I think it's important to emphasize the state of terror that slaves lived under.  If a slave was even suspected of having harmed a White man, that slave would have been tortured and then set on fire.  I don't think that the slaves were weak because they didn't fight back.  What were they supposed to do?  There was no place for them to go, no-one to turn to.  They didn't even own themselves.  The fact that they survived is amazing.  But they didn't ONLY survive.  They built America and created American culture.  Remove African-Americans from America and it ceases to exist.

It was hard watching Kizzie beg her master not to rape her in front of her son.  It just enforces that slave masters were the worst human beings ever.

Edited to add:  I wish we had a chance to know how Kizzie felt about teaching the wife of her rapist to read.  Kizzie was risking her life to help that woman (it was death for a slave to learn how to read) and what did she get out it.  Her mistress couldn't or wouldn't even keep her husband from raping Kizzie.

Edited June 2, 2016 by mightysparrow

[Scarlett45]

10 hours ago, SimoneS said:

Kizzy's pain and the midwife's sympathy as Tom Lea fawned over the innocent baby conceived from rape broken my heart. What a way to be born into the world. Kizzy's parents and ancestors' calling her back from death started heavy handed, but the actress' portrayal of Kizzy's cries of desperation moved me to tears. 

Poor Kizzy. We knew she wasn't going to drown herself and George but we couldn't blame her for seeing that as a valid option. I'm sure like many women before and since, the love of their child is the only joy they had. 

 

Making comments about the episode. Tom Lea's comment to his wife "what do you know about children, since you can't have any". What the fuck ASSHOLE! Also I don't understand his pseudo "seduction" of Kizzy, the "you look pretty in this light", the woman obviously hates you, and counts the seconds until her rape is over. She isn't feigning enthusiasm, so why are you feigning the compliments putting her through more torment....this is a rhetorical question as any episode of Law and Order SVU can show you rapists that make women (or men) say "I like it" etc etc. poor Kizzy. 

We can already see the difference in chicken George's upbringing than Kizzy's. Kizzy grew up on an affluent plantation with both of her parents. George grew up on a small farm with one parent who at this point seems to be the only house slave. Kizzy had a sense of community growing up he wasn't offered. His clothing was absolute rags compared to Missy Anne's hand-me downs Kizzy wore growing up. Someone up thread mentioned the slaves looking so clean etc, well it's tv, our 21st century sensibilities aren't going to go for dirt and unkept hair. Mingo seems to suffer from depression (I mean how could he not), all he has his the fighting birds, no wife, children, family etc. Seems getting close to people has cause him nothing but pain. 

[mightysparrow]

Preach Kizzie!!!

[Scarlett45]

1 hour ago, mightysparrow said:

 

Edited to add:  I wish we had a chance to know how Kizzie felt about teaching the wife of her rapist to read.  Kizzie was risking her life to help that woman (it was death for a slave to learn how to read) and what did she get out it.  Her mistress couldn't or wouldn't even keep her husband from raping Kizzie.

I don't blame Tom's wife for not being able to help Kizzy. A married woman of her social standing had little rights, and it's seemed that her husband developed contempt for her because she couldn't have children (which of course wasn't her fault). Nothing she said to Tom could have changed Kizzy's situation, and Tom had every right to rape HER as well. Short of killing her she was basically his property too. She seemed to have more kindness to her than Missy Anne's mother.

As far as what she got out of it, Kizzy probably just had someone to talk to. As I said up thread that was a small farm, there wasn't a community of slaves. In the house it was probably just the two of them all the time etc. The loneliness would've been unbearable, which is why so many slave owners spent so much time bonding with their "property". 

Again with the mental gymnastics, the reason the masters were so afraid of up risings is because they knew in the slaves position they would slit their throats given the chance. Oh and Tom bitching about how could Kizzy want to leave because he didn't beat her.....Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Anika Noni Rose killed the scene. Anika is such a great actress, I want to see her in more dramatic roles. 

Edited June 2, 2016 by Scarlett45

[TigerLynx]

I agree.  There is nothing Patricia could have done for Kizzy.  Women had no rights, and were the property of their husbands.  A husband who cared about his wife might listen to her, but Tom didn't give a damn about anyone.

Kizzy was a strong woman.  Surviving everything she did, and staying a slave so she could be with George, Mathilda and their children is a choice no one should have to make.

[Scarlett45]

Technical note- the makeup artists are killing it with the aging makeup. It's so subtle it's fantastic, the actors are doing well too, portraying the growth, maturity etc which really helps portray the aging process. 

[voiceover]

Tonight's reax:

Aww...SHIT.

[mightysparrow]

Sorry, but I don't have a lick of sympathy for Patricia.  When the shit came down, she remembered she was a White woman and left her 'friend' to die.

I had a bit of a problem with the freeman.  I can't believe that the Whites in that area would allow a free Black man to travel around.   And I don't believe that Lea would permit a Black man to pose a threat to his 'manhood' by allowing his victim to sleep with a free Black man.  Fear of Black sexuality has played a major part of racism since the first White man showed up on the cost of Africa.  There's no way Lea or any other White slaveholder would allow a strong, sexual Black man to exist in their world.

 

Edited to add:  Poor George.  He actually believed he could trust the man who had been raping his mother his whole life.

Edited June 2, 2016 by mightysparrow

[VCRTracking]

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers character is worse than "Old Nick" from Room.

[Rock knocker]

4 hours ago, ruby24 said:

I think it's notable how many white slavers Kunta has killed. He even killed the overseer in this one. Even Fiddler kills a couple guys before he gets killed himself...............

It's also a little bit distracting to me, because I'm pretty sure that most black people who murdered white people in that time were executed pretty quickly. The idea that Kunta could essentially get away with killing all those people rings false.

Did Kizzy kill the white guy at the wagon?

[SimoneS]

Kizzy jumping on the horse from behind when she attempted to escape was another Django Unchained moment that made me roll my eyes. 

10 hours ago, ruby24 said:

ETA: I think if you want to tap into that anger and a sense of fighting back with violence, a story set during the Civil Rights era would probably be more historically accurate. Or if not, then a specific story about a slave revolt.

I agree. There are stories that can be told about enslaved Africans fighting back against the slaveowners. I wish they had made those into a miniseries or tv movie instead of inserting this unrealistic element into Roots.

[Raja]

On 5/31/2016 at 6:23 AM, SimoneS said:

The overseer attending the plantation owners' party was another moment that totally took me out of the show. That would never happen. Overseers were poor whites who lived pretty isolated lives on the plantations, mistreated by their cruel demanding bosses and disrespected and scorned by white society. They would never be allowed to attend parties and socialize with rich whites. I did think that the overseers' determination to destroy any enslaved African who get any respect or status from the plantation owners was realistic.

 

I think that was the Christmas Party scene. Isn't it the British custom for class distinctions to be relaxed that one day of the year?

On 5/31/2016 at 7:08 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Tuned into the second hour. Immediately regret the decision.

Instead of letting Fiddler die peacefully like he did in the original, they murder him?! *cries hysterically*

And now I'm dreading what's going to happen to Kizzy.

 

On 5/31/2016 at 7:38 PM, North of Eden said:

Kunta Kinte reimagined as an ACTION HERO....gotta love the 21st century! Value or no Value there is now way he should have made it off that slave ship alive...he lead the revolt and killed the captain...that should have gotten himself a one way ticket to the great beyond. Anyway UNDERGROUND I liked a lot better. If you haven't seen it...it was a great series on WGN.

There does seem at least in the first two parts a big increase in the we get to win one scenes. As opposed to Fiddler going from nature causes he died that others may live as a family, if only temporary, while not raised as a warrior like Kunta Kinte it is a warrior's death

 

I did miss, or was I paying less attention to a part like Ed Asner's in the original where the slave ship Captain regretted getting into that line of work?

[SimoneS]

I was crushed for George last night. When he was smiling up to the sky at his ancestors and the theme started to play, I actually thought that they had changed the story so he would be free. Only for Lea's greed to cause George to be sent to England away from his family. It shouldn't, but it does shock me how Lea can go from fawning over baby George to treating him despicably throughout his life. And the way he continued to rape Kizzy with no remorse with the nerve to tell her that the babies were their grandchildren. Then Lea's disregard for the injured Mingo who had been with him forever. That man has no soul. 

All this time Mingo was saving that money and it meant nothing because slavery took everything away. Heartbreaking. 

Edited June 2, 2016 by SimoneS

[nodorothyparker]

I've had a lot of the same thoughts as other posters here watching this.  You can see they've really upped the action and the "fighting back" because that's what modern TV audiences expect now, but it's not very realistic.  Very detailed slave codes existed from fairly on to control and prevent slaves from having the means to put up much resistance and very publicly punished those who tried to make sure they got the message loud and clear what would happen to them if they did.  Every failed uprising also saw the passage of even more laws to clamp down on them further.  A number of states had bloodshed laws on the books that guaranteed that you were going to die, probably horribly, if you caused a white person's blood to be spilled.

The same phenomenon exists in a lot of Holocaust fiction.  People want to read about or see the plucky ones who managed to outwit or outfight their oppressors and escape despite the reality that the overwhelming majority didn't.  That doesn't make them weak or cowardly.  It just means that the system in place was so thorough it left them no options to do anything but try to survive and hope.

I'm also side eyeing the notion that a free man would be allowed to move around so freely in this society or to linger at Tom Lea's farm.  There were laws about that too beyond Tom's obvious antipathy.

[TigerLynx]

I don't have sympathy for Patricia, just a realization that she couldn't help herself let alone anyone else.

There were black freed men and women in the south, but as the slave laws became more rigid, most of them left for other places.  There were also free blacks who owned slaves themselves.

The Northerners who fought to end slavery had no problem stealing the Native American's lands, killing them, deliberately exposing them to diseases to kill them, and then calling the Native American's savages.  Human beings are not nice.

It was sad seeing George try so hard to find some caring and humanity in his father, and it just wasn't there.

[Raja]

One thing missing this time around is that instead of Lou Grant (Ed Asner), The Rifleman Lucas McCann (Chuck Connors) American Hero Sergeant Saunders (Vic Morrow) playing bad guys the emotional hit to the gut isn't the same.

[ClareWalks]

I think Patricia is one of the more interesting characters, in that she is very much trapped in her role as Tom's wife. It is fascinating to see the symmetry (although obviously there are major differences) between her and Kizzy, who is trapped as Tom's slave/frequent rape victim. These women have every reason to hate each other but they seem to have developed an understanding. It was telling to me in the scene where Tom screams at Patricia that she can't have children, then he leaves, and Kizzy and Patricia just stay silent. It would have been very easy for Patricia to lash out at Kizzy there, but she didn't. Not that Patricia is a totally sympathetic character, but it is a very interesting social dynamic.

[Scarlett45]

6 minutes ago, ClareWalks said:

I think Patricia is one of the more interesting characters, in that she is very much trapped in her role as Tom's wife. It is fascinating to see the symmetry (although obviously there are major differences) between her and Kizzy, who is trapped as Tom's slave/frequent rape victim. These women have every reason to hate each other but they seem to have developed an understanding. It was telling to me in the scene where Tom screams at Patricia that she can't have children, then he leaves, and Kizzy and Patricia just stay silent. It would have been very easy for Patricia to lash out at Kizzy there, but she didn't. Not that Patricia is a totally sympathetic character, but it is a very interesting social dynamic.

While I loved the book "Roots" one of my criticisms is that the female character weren't as developed as they could've been. Alex Haley seemed to write much better for men. Something I love about this adaptation is that the female characters are so complex and developed-hooray!!! One can certainly acknowledge that Patricia (and all women) were oppressed during this time period and it not take away from the telling of Kizzy's story, nor making it about Patricia- the social dynamics of hierarchy are fascinating. How much do Tom's insecurities about being seen as a poor uneducated Irish man effect his treatment of his slaves, his wife, his "peers"(look at that stupid duel). How do those with money and power keep their position at the top, by keeping the oppressed fighting among themselves a lot of the time. These concepts are still relevant in the 21st century!

[nodorothyparker]

I don't think it takes away from Tom Lea being just a loathsome human being or minimizes the absolute life and death power he had over all the people he was holding as chattel to find him interesting for what he represents.  Statistically, he's far more representative of Southern slaveholders than the "aristocrats" with their enormous plantations and slave populations numbering in the hundreds that are usually depicted.  Your statistics may vary a little depending on your source but most seem to settle somewhere around the consensus that only the top 1 or 2 percent owned 50 or more slaves, with most of the rest having fewer than 20.

The duel was insane as was the dinner table conversation that provoked it, but it did a nice job of playing up how a man of his relative low station was treated by his "betters" and how that would have fed his insecurities and led to him taking some of the risks he did with his wagering.  For Tom it was about building a fortune and the respect that fortune could buy.  For George, he was seeing the potential financial ruin and the likely breakup of his family being sold off if that happened.

Patricia really doesn't have much power here either.  For most of our history, married women had no real legal rights and were for all practical purposes the property of their husbands.  Sure, there are many stories of plantation mistresses doing horrible things and their lack of legal standing certainly doesn't excuse that and shouldn't diminish it.  But they were also stuck in a system that allowed their husbands to have sex with any women in their household, father sometimes obvious bastard children, and then bring those children into their homes to place them alongside their own children all as their husbands saw fit.  They couldn't legally divorce them or really say or do anything about it   So like a lot of poor whites who filled the overseer and patroller positions, they ended up punching down because they couldn't punch up.

[Ohwell]

Maybe it's because I've seen the original Roots and know what's generally going to happen, but I'm just not "feeling" this Roots.  

I know time has passed on and Kunta and family aren't a major part of the story anymore, but this Chicken George story doesn't do it for me.  I did like seeing Tyrese from TWD and Rachel from Justified though. 

I hated the cockfights but I did like seeing the duel between Lea and the other guy.  That was brutal.

[TigerLynx]

The Irish were one of the groups that came over as indentured servants/bond slaves.  They were looked down on by the English even before that.

Some of the slave owners were descendants of aristocrats who managed to escape being killed in the French Revolution.  The servants, serfs, and peasants in Europe weren't any better off than the slaves in America.  There's a reason the French and Russian Revolutions were so bloody.  The French congratulated themselves on abolishing slavery, but chopped off the heads of innocent people simply because they had been servants in aristocrat households.  Once Stalin took power in Russia, he killed over two million people sending them to work/death camps in Siberia.

Another reason Patricia would have acted as she did when the Nat Turner rebellion happened was because along with the blacks just aren't smart enough to be free, they are better being slaves who can be looked after by whites nonsense that was used as yet another lame excuse to oppress them, was the blacks are naturally violent and aggressive who must be kept in line to protect them and protect other people from them idiocy.  Along with being capable of extreme cruelty and violence, human beings can also be incredibly stupid and weak.  In Europe, hundreds of women were burnt at the stake because they had red hair, and that was considered a sign of being a witch.

I'm enjoying this version because it has fleshed out some of the characters better, but I agree that so many blacks standing up to white men and living would never have happened.

I keep wanting a better ending for Kunta, Belle, Kizzy, George, etc. even though I know that won't happen.  Slavery is ended, but blacks are still oppressed and terrorized.  The sharecropping system isn't fair either.  It's just another way for the rich to take advantage of the poor.

[Joimiaroxeu]

So sad when Tom told George he expected him to keep Matilda constantly pregnant  because he needed to keep up his "stock". Innocent babies regarded as nothing more than future slaves. (And their mothers little more than future slave factories.) It's incomprehensible.

I had to spend a bit of time googling the actor who played Marcellus, the free Black man who befriended George and Kizzy. He (Michael James Shaw) is a beautiful man and reminds me of the British actor Colin Salmon.

Ugh, were all the cockfighting scenes really necessary? I guess there must've been some excellent CGI applied because otherwise I don't know how animal rights organizations wouldn't have made a PR stink about those scenes.

[Ohwell]

I knew Kizzy wouldn't really leave George and her grandbabies, but I'm sorry she and Marcellus couldn't be together.  However, I was glad he was able to get away and go north.  At least I hope he made it north without being hanged.  

[ClareWalks]

I am impressed on every level with the casting of Chicken George. He really has charisma and he looks very much like he could be Tom Lea's son. 

It was a bit annoying that, in the penultimate cockfight (the won the Leas won), the birds were IDENTICAL. Really, they couldn't have put a white one against a red one so that the audience knows what's going on? Do I have to think of everything?

[TigerLynx]

I thought they might go the route of having Tom refuse to sale Kizzy or having Marcellus killed.  There were a lot of men (both black and white) who were free, who tried to purchase slave women they were married to or wanted to marry, but the slave owners refused to sale them.  Harriett Tubman's first husband was a free black man.

I don't think they are using the last names correctly either.  Kizzy would be Kizzy Wallers or Kizzy Leas.  The "s" would be added to denote ownership, and show that Kizzy was the property of Dr. Waller or Tom Lea.

[ClareWalks]

6 minutes ago, TigerLynx said:

I don't think they are using the last names correctly either.  Kizzy would be Kizzy Wallers or Kizzy Leas.  The "s" would be added to denote ownership, and show that Kizzy was the property of Dr. Waller or Tom Lea.

That's really interesting, in the novel they did the same thing as the movies (no S at the end). I didn't even know adding S was done but it makes sense if they did.

[Scarlett45]

11 minutes ago, ClareWalks said:

I am impressed on every level with the casting of Chicken George. He really has charisma and he looks very much like he could be Tom Lea's son. 

It was a bit annoying that, in the penultimate cockfight (the won the Leas won), the birds were IDENTICAL. Really, they couldn't have put a white one against a red one so that the audience knows what's going on? Do I have to think of everything?

I told my Mom, "they cast Regé-Jean Page so well, he has the same nose and face shape as Jonathan Rhys Meyers(especially since he's lost weight)!" He is very charasmatic, I look forward to seeing him in more things. I heard him speak briefly in an interview (i know I can look this up once I'm done with this post), but is he Austrialian? British? I can't place the accent. 

[FlowerofCarnage]

14 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

I told my Mom, "they cast Regé-Jean Page so well, he has the same nose and face shape as Jonathan Rhys Meyers(especially since he's lost weight)!" He is very charasmatic, I look forward to seeing him in more things. I heard him speak briefly in an interview (i know I can look this up once I'm done with this post), but is he Austrialian? British? I can't place the accent. 

He is Brit but was raised partially in Zimbabwe.

[mightysparrow]

I was disappointed with last night's episode.  First of all I thought there was way too much time spent on Lea.  The man was low-life scum and nothing Johnathon Rhys-Myers did made him remotely sympathetic.  The duel was absolutely absurd.  I thought a duel ended with first blood, certainly not dragged out to ridiculous lengths like that.  If I was supposed to sympathize with Lea because the other slave owners looked down on him, I certainly didn't because I thought they were right.  The only problem I had is that they didn't realize that they were horrible people too.

It was nice to see Marcellus stand up to Lea to protect Kizzy but the reality is that, Lea would have killed him where he stood.  There's no way a man like Lea would allow a virile FREE Black man to challenge him.

Way too much material was added to the original story but I don't know what the purpose was.  I would have liked to see Kizzy trying to raise her child by herself while having to deal with the regular assaults from Lea and wanting to keep the secret of George's parentage.  I find it really hard to believe that George would feel so much affection for a man like Lea.  Even if he didn't know Lea was his father, he knew that Lea was his mother's rapist.

I'm curious about George being taken to England.  Nat Turner's rebellion took place in 1831 and I had the feeling that cockfight was a while after that.  Slavery was abolished in Great Britain in 1833, so George would have been a free man soon after he arrived in England.  I'm interested to see how they'll explain why he stays in England for so long.

There doesn't seem to be an attempt to tell a family's story but to tell the story of American slavery through these familiar characters.  The story of the family is getting lost.

[ethalfrida]

On May 14, 2016 at 9:20 AM, auntl said:

Comment removed...

Edited June 2, 2016 by ethalfrida
Off topic

[Irlandesa]

5 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

 

I had to spend a bit of time googling the actor who played Marcellus, the free Black man who befriended George and Kizzy. He (Michael James Shaw) is a beautiful man and reminds me of the British actor Colin Salmon.

I had to Google him too because I recognized him but couldn't place him.  He was Mike in the really good but sadly cancelled Limitless.   

I feel silly for not realizing it. 

Colin was also in it.

Edited June 2, 2016 by Irlandesa

[mightysparrow]

One thing I didn't mention was how good the performances have been. The White actors don't have a lot to work with but nobody has embarrassed themselves and that's more than can be said for the first version of 'Roots'.

I can't say enough about the actors who are playing the slave roles and appear to come from all over the diaspora.  I'm so proud of Anika Noni Rose.  Kizzy is a tough part to play and she's magnificent.  The actor who plays George is also incredible.  I don't always like George but I always like the actor's performance.

I've missed my beloved Chad Coleman on TWD and I'm very proud and happy to see him come roaring back as Mingo.  

[Ohwell]

I like Anika Noni Rose as Kizzy but the actor who plays George is a little too lightweight.  I guess he's done a serviceable job but Ben Vereen is a tough act to follow, IMO.  Chad Coleman was awesome.  

It just occurred to me that the thing that annoys me about new Chicken George is that he's a bit too Trevor Noah-ish' he acts much too comical to be a slave on a plantation.  I remember Ben Vereen as kind of smiling with his chickens, but I don't remember him being this "happy." 

Edited June 2, 2016 by Ohwell

[Scarlett45]

/hopping on the shallow bus.....

 

All of the young male actors in this remake are so YUMMY!!!!!!!! It's too much! Especially Malachi Kirby (Kunta) and Sedale Threatt Jr. (Tom Jr).

 

/hopping off the shallow bus....

[mightysparrow]

How could George be held in captivity for twenty years if slaves were freed in Great Britain in 1833?  That's why runaway slaves went to Canada; it was part of Great Britain so they were free the moment they crossed the border.  I can't believe the producers didn't bother to check their facts.  

It seems that George is still the no-account man he was before he left.  I'm glad Matilda has her man back but i'm beginning to think that George coming home won't be a good thing for his family.