Hollywood remains enslaved by old ideas
ON Memorial Day, three cable channels will simultaneously premiere what’s meant to be a landmark in American television: the fournight, eight-hour remake of the iconic 1977 miniseries “Roots.”
The response has not been overwhelmingly positive. The depiction of African-Americans in film and television has, in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite, once again been criticized, and rightly so. There’s a seeming cynicism in Hollywood’s endless revisiting of slavery narratives, and the films are almost always released during awards season, with a disturbing subtext: How great and liberal are we, these powerful, rich, white people, taking responsibility for this atrocity over and over?
In a January roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, three nonwhite writers, directors and producers talked about the limited narratives available to them, and the blindness of an industry dominated by white men.
“There is an obsession with black tragedy,” said writer-director Justin Simien, whose debut feature, 2014’s “Dear White People,” won a Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at Sundance.
“If you see a black movie, it’s typically historical, and it tends to deal with our pain,” Simien said. “You know what that says, very subtly? It says that we’re not human. Because human beings are multifaceted.”
Think about the most recent, high-profile films with AfricanAmerican protagonists: “12 Years a Slave,” “Selma,” “42,” “Django Unchained,” “The Butler.” Each dealt with either slavery or civil rights, and each was marketed as Oscar bait. Lupita Nyong’o, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role as a slave named Patsey in “12 Years,” was the first African to win the award, and only the sixth black actress to do so.
Her predecessors include Octavia Spencer, as a civil rights-era maid in 2011’s “The Help,” and Mo’Nique, as the abusive mom to an obese, impoverished, black teenage girl in 2009’s “Precious.”
The first black actress to win in that category was, of course, Hattie McDaniel, for her role as Mammy, the house maid in 1939’s “Gone with the Wind.” That year’s ceremony was held in a segregated Los Angeles hotel, and producer David O. Selznick had to call in a favor to have McDaniel included.
“I own the rights to Hattie McDaniel’s life story,” Mo’Nique said in 2009. “I really hope I can do that woman justice.”
There seems to be, in white-run Hollywood, a misperception about what progress is, what it should look like, and what it means. In 2013, producer Harvey Weinstein told The Wrap that there was now a “renaissance” in black cinema that was “overdue.”
“It’s the Obama effect,” Weinstein said. “He’s erasing racial lines. It’s a better country — what a great thing.”
It’s confused thinking at best, cynicism at worst, to credit the first black president with paving the way for movies about black servitude and slavery. It would be far more heartening if Weinstein and other executives talked about moving on. Casting black actors in blockbusters such as “Captain America” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is progress, but it also smacks of tokenism.
“How many black men have you met working in Hollywood?” Chris Rock wrote in THR in 2014. “It’s a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. We’re never on the short list. It was never like, is it going to be Ryan Gosling or Chiwetel Ejiofor for ‘Fifty Shades of Grey?’ ”
Initially, the “Roots” remake was met with resistance, even by some who wound up participating. LeVar Burton, who starred in the original, told THR that he first heard about it at a screening of “12 Years a Slave.”
“Russell Simmons came up to me and said, ‘You know they’re remaking “Roots.” ’ And I thought, ‘Really? Why?’ ”
Much of it has to do, again, with money and awards trolling.
Nancy Dubuc is the president and CEO of A+E Networks, which also owns Lifetime and the History Channel — the three channels that will air “Roots” simultaneously, night after night.
She told The Hollywood Reporter that the miniseries is an attempt to reverse a decline in viewership, lend credibility to her brands and win some Emmys. Her stated goal is to demolish FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” a critical and commercial smash.
Her “Roots” remake, she said, should go head-to-head with “O.J.” “And I hope this is the story that people want to recognize and the definitive message [on race]. We want it — we want not only the nominations, we want to take the whole kit and caboodle home.”
After all, “12 Years a Slave” won three Oscars, including Best Picture, and grossed nearly $200 million, despite — or because of — its unrelenting savagery.
Perhaps with that in mind, this version of “Roots” has upped the brutality, causing many would-be participants to back away. Most of the black writers A+E approached wouldn’t go near it.
“There were problems all across the board — writers, actors, producers, cinematographers — they all had hesitations,” executive producer Mark Wolper told THR. “It was like, ‘It’s too iconic, it’s too political, it’s too whatever.’ ”
Meanwhile, amid what’s sure to be a round of self-congratulation for another major conglomerate being brave enough to take on slavery yet again, remember Dubuc’s stated goal with “Roots”: “How can we be special?”
Dubuc told THR: “How can we say something about our brand, our company, our storytelling capabilities? These projects are few and far between.”
Not really. The most buzzedabout film out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival was Nate Parker’s “Birth of a Nation.” It’s about slavery.