Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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entertains "Roots " was it By HENRY GREEN Gamecock Staff Writer The widely discussed television series "Roots," based on Alex Haley's book, has enjoyed wide exposure. THE SERIES is talked about in college and high school classrooms across the nation. Time magazine estimates that approximately 130 million Americans watched at least a portion of the series. I watched every episode, and I must conclude that, despite its shortcomings, "Roots" was excellent. The shortcomings are worth mentioning if only because they have been widely publicized. Some critics have complained, that the series is overly melodramatic and laced with too much sex and violence. j Other critics complain of the series' one- < sidedness . In all of the episodes of "Roots," there were only one or two sympathetic white characters. The others, from the slave ' traders to the plantation owners to the poor ) whites, were either treacherous, ^ hypocritical, or simply sadistic. Some whites were worse than others, of x course. For examniA *??? " , , vauvmii ui me ^ slave ship had misgivings about his in- j volvement in the slave trade while the first i mate went out of his way to be cruel to the poor Africans. Even the captain, however, j did not follow the dictates of his conscience. t "He let the members of his crew rape the African women on board, and he couldn't resist the temptation to sleep with one of the g available slave girls. The blacks, by contrast, were all virtuous. ? ii ANOTHER CRITICISM is that "Roots" n ? r BHaMF Kmtiffc* St" y HBBBHHBBt |nBSHHBBHHHHIBHHHBl John Amos played Kunta Kinte and Vic Mc a plantation overseer in "Roots." lent "excellent"... was historically inaccurate. Nat Turner's rebellion occurred in 1831, not 1841 as in the series. Also, as Time points out, Kunta Kinte's master farmed cotton when he should have been farming tobacco, the main cash crop for Virginia planters of the Revolutionary War period. The cultivation of cotton was uncommon in Virginia at that time. Yet, for all its shortcomings, "Roots" came through. It is true that "Roots" was tailored for mass consumption with plenty of sex and violence, along with some commercialized material. The fault, however, was not with the series but with the medium. Why single out "Roots" for criticism? THE COMPLAINT that the series is onesided is perhaps valid. It is impossible to believe that all whites were devils while all blacks were saints. After all, Africans often sold each other into slavery, and some free American blacks owned slaves themselves. Although many masters were cruel to their slaves, many others treated their slaves llith IrinHnn"" imMi noilUllCOd. The historical inaccuracy is indeed egrettable, but, again, the fault was with he medium rather than the series. Almost >y definition television writers place lisorical accuracy low on their list of >riorities. The television series Was written 1 or an audience of millions. I would venture ] o say that in the minds of most of the people i comprising the audience, American black 1 ilavery and cotton go hand in hand. When lavery is called to mind, one thinks of i >eople out in the field picking cotton, not i obacco. I am not condoning the historical 1 laccuracies of "Roots," but I can let them 2 ass. t / / ..or ""an outi MM By CHUCK CROMER jgjg*? Entertainment Page Editor ABC's televised dramatization Alex Haley's bestseller "Roots" v WBSM shown nearly a month ago, but PPH| impact will have long-range effects American race relations. VK SEVEN OF the eight "Root episodes are among the ten mo watched television shows ever, a ' almost 130 million viewers saw at lei one "Roots" segment. Such a large number nf - ~ 3 viewers shows the program had r - impact, but unfortunately the rewar - t are minor compared to the drawback First the rewards. ABC mm - , dramatization of "Roots" satisfy ? *. Jf* desires for knowledge of Negro a ? ^ cestry. Blacks saw in "Roots" realization of a heritage, where the forefathers struggled through bondai and prejudice to achieve freedom equ with whites' freedom. Blacks ci derive satisfaction from having fac< and overcome more than 200 years adversity. WHITES SOUGHT peace of mind i "Roots" because whites ???'/>?< ' La heritage; in particular how whit* rationalized maintaining the "peculit institution" of slavery, and how slav< were treated. The large number of whites to vie "Roots" seems to indicate an obsessic to understand the black experience and the expression of a long-represse compassion for a wronged brothei Yet the TV dramatization had manj drawbacks that disguised th< meaningful intentions of the book. Th? show was an excellent example o: manipulative propaganda. Someone Doug McClure (left) and Lloyd Bridges played two bigoted Indeed, the historical inaccuracies became trivial when seenjnJhgJlgfa^Qh^^ main message of "Roots," the most important truth to be sifted out: that slavery as an institution was evil. Today we take such lessons for granted; everybody knows that slavery was bad. However, "Roots" was the first television series to show HOW it was evil because the series told the story of slavery from the slave's point of view. THE WORST aspects of slavery-the wrenching away of blacks from their Africa homes to work in a strange land, the ship- 1 pings, the destruction of slave families as a 1 result of the sale of the members to different ? masters-were presented plainly. 1 Moreover, "Roots" demonstrated the i \frican heritage of the American black. Hie 1 slaves faced an identity crisis: for the most >art they adopted the white man's language < uiu v~uaiuius wnicn slavery had forced upon < hem, yet the slaves were set apart by their i ageous lie"? incorporated a tew facts into a fictionalized story to create a one-sided viewpoint directed at the blind, 0f emotional ignorance and irrationality /as of the viewer. its Alex Haley once said, "When I got my on research materials together, I realized that I had much more than the story of a family... I had the story of a people." s" 8t_ USING THIS as justification, ABC nd incorporated a distorted analysis of the Dast to iustifv itc /??/? s? -* m .. J J unii IUI)? C9S1UIIS OI what "the story of a people" should be. lUS According to a feature on "Roots" in an the magazine, American Film, ABC els producer Stan Margulies and script's writer William Blinn "attempted to be :>s true to the novel and to create a dramatic continnitv that VIIUV TTUU1U UdlfclllL'C the demands of truth and audience a appeal." ;ir In laymen's terms, this means that j*e the producers delved equally into fact a] and fiction to attract an audience. in ONE OF THE greatest pitfalls of Jd ABC's "Roots" is maligned history, of where minor incidents are transformed into the norm. By attempting to present the story of an entire race, ABC has in given the American viewer the im>r pression that all blacks, slaves or js freemen, were, whipped, mistreated, ir and raped, that families were broken is anart pa imliuirJuoi ..iciuucrs were sola, blacks were swindled, denied civil w rights, castrated, maimed, or mur? dered for trying to escape and finan3, cially and psychologically insecure, d Also, all whites are dramatized as r. hypocrites, (Edward Asner as a sea f captain), drunks and rapists (Chuck ; Connors as a slave owner), KKK types i trying to keep blacks in" inferior f positions (Lloyd Bridges), absent ? minded and neurotic, lacking common wwmmm 11 f " * ^l44k4?W,?? V HHUE ' > ' -JEfF , -' * _ _ B-?a/ iffir.4 i^W^sk- ? southerners in "Roots." color. This crisis between African and American identity was illustrated well by the scene in which Kizzy visited her father's grave. She picked up a sharp stone and crossed out the name "Toby" (his slave name) on the tombstone, replacing it with ?*r * --- rvunia Kinte" (his African name). FINALLY, "Roots" was distinguished by some fine acting. Ben Vereen undoubtedly did the best job of the entire series with his excellent portrayal of Chicken George. Edward Asner did very well as the slaver captain tormented by his conscience, and Cicily Tyson performed competently in a cameo role as Kunta Kinte's mother. LeVar Burton, a student at Southern Cal, played an innocent, somewhat naive teen-age Kunta Kinte. Despite being compared to "Uncle Tom's ^bin' by one critic, "Roots," in my )pinion, was basically a good tel?vi??nn tenes. sense (Lome Greene as another slaveowner), adulterous (Lynda Day George, who has an affair with Robert Reed, Greene's brother), treacherous (Sandy Duncan as Reed's idiot daughter who befriends then betrays Leslie Uggams, Kunta Kinte's daughter), politically corrupt (Burl Ives as a dishonest real estate manipulator), men more loathsome than manure (Ralph Waite as a slavetrader who rapes women and uses thumbscrews on men), and as cruel overseers (Vic Morrow) who copulate #% 11 AU wiui tan 11 ie young slave girls with the consent of their mothers. IN REALITY, there are historical accounts of blacks being mistreated and raped, and despicable whites existed who took advantage of both slaves and free blacks. For the most part, however, these were rare incidents and not representative of the day-to-day life of blacks. They were .exception rather than the norm. ADOI. nov, ? xvoois reeks with the most dishonest and manipulative ploy available: the use of stereotypes. These stereotypes misrepiesent whites and blacks. Donald Bogle, author of "An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films," recently lectured here and described five basic black sicreoiypes ot American films. They include Toms, who are "chased, harassed, beaten, and humiliated, but die contented because they have been true to their good white masters," Coons, "the funny men who assured whitey all blacks were harmless and stupid"; mulattoes, "their tragedy was they weren't born all-white"; mammies, "sexless earth-mothers who devoted their lives to their white See ROOTS, page 13