![]() ![]() And, as the original Roots remains easily available, there’s also the question, as always with revered TV shows, of why it needs to be remade at all. Today, though, it is almost impossible for a single series to create such a fuss. The hunger for such stories was proved when Roots broke US viewing records all eight episodes are still in the country’s 100 top-rated shows. ![]() First time round, the story of Kunta Kinte – kidnapped from his African village to become a slave on a Virginia plantation and a soldier in the American civil war – showed white viewers a suppressed side of history and black audiences a hidden aspect of their identity: the designation “African American”, now standard, was popularised by the show. One reason for this counter-intuitive retreat is that, although nothing close to equality has been achieved, black actors and narratives are more widely represented than when Alex Haley’s novel was originally dramatised. ![]() But while the 1977 version of Roots went out in primetime on ABC in the US and BBC1 in the UK, the remake has premiered on niche channels: History in America, and BBC4 in Britain. W ith TV on both sides of the Atlantic under pressure to become more diverse, you might think that now would be a better time to make a drama about African-American history than four decades ago. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |