Titre : |
Reshaping the Past: The Oscillation of Memories of Slavery between Past and Present as Represented in the Original American Miniseries Roots (1977) and its Remake in 2016 |
Type de document : |
texte imprimé |
Auteurs : |
Saadia OULDYEROU, Auteur |
Editeur : |
université de Tlemcen |
Année de publication : |
2020/2021 |
Importance : |
264 p. |
Format : |
21/27 cm. |
Langues : |
Anglais (eng) |
Mots-clés : |
Alex Haley –Blacks - Black Lives Matter - Content Analysis Theory – Memory - Roots – Slavery –Stuart Hall |
Résumé : |
Representing an atrocious side of the U.S. (United States) history, slavery has always been a sensitive issue whose discussion was
steered clear by the Americans. Hollywood, for instance, as an American film industry, treated Blacks as pariahs and eschewed
from giving their experience in America its due on the screen for a long time. In fact, anti-Black racism harks back to the period that
extends from 1619 to 1865 when Blacks were slaves under the subjugation of the Whites. Once they got their freedom in 1865,
they fought heart and soul to be fully integrated into the American society, and they succeeded after the passage of the Civil Rights
Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, respectively. Blacks’ positions in the American motion picture, hence, changed as
well. In 1977, Alex Haley’s Roots: the Saga of an American Family (1976) was adapted into the miniseries Roots that became a
smash hit. In 2016, its remake was produced to address the modern generation of the Black Lives Matter era. In this regard, this
thesis explores twofold aspects: the production and the reception of the remake. On the one hand, it focuses on the way the new
miniseries was modernized with reference to the context. On the other hand, it investigates how the audience received the remake.
To this aim, the encoding/decoding model of Stuart Hall and the content analysis method were used not only to extract the
embedded messages of the remake through a close look at some aspects of the adopted cinematographic and mise-en-scène
techniques but also to analyze the stances of the audience. The results reveal that the producers availed themselves of diverse
methods to speed the circulation of the remake that diverges in many instances from its original. Going in tandem with the
surrounding racial happenings, the producers implemented intensive violent images, relied on more accurate information than in the
original miniseries, and omitted the White’s benevolent side to point up Blacks’ staunch resistance to survive and to be accepted as
part ofthe whole but not losing their African heritage, identity and dignity. The susceptibility of the audience to feed his memory by
embracing and preserving the past –however horrific it was –to define and understand the present was clearly laid bare as well. |
Reshaping the Past: The Oscillation of Memories of Slavery between Past and Present as Represented in the Original American Miniseries Roots (1977) and its Remake in 2016 [texte imprimé] / Saadia OULDYEROU, Auteur . - université de Tlemcen, 2020/2021 . - 264 p. ; 21/27 cm. Langues : Anglais ( eng)
Mots-clés : |
Alex Haley –Blacks - Black Lives Matter - Content Analysis Theory – Memory - Roots – Slavery –Stuart Hall |
Résumé : |
Representing an atrocious side of the U.S. (United States) history, slavery has always been a sensitive issue whose discussion was
steered clear by the Americans. Hollywood, for instance, as an American film industry, treated Blacks as pariahs and eschewed
from giving their experience in America its due on the screen for a long time. In fact, anti-Black racism harks back to the period that
extends from 1619 to 1865 when Blacks were slaves under the subjugation of the Whites. Once they got their freedom in 1865,
they fought heart and soul to be fully integrated into the American society, and they succeeded after the passage of the Civil Rights
Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, respectively. Blacks’ positions in the American motion picture, hence, changed as
well. In 1977, Alex Haley’s Roots: the Saga of an American Family (1976) was adapted into the miniseries Roots that became a
smash hit. In 2016, its remake was produced to address the modern generation of the Black Lives Matter era. In this regard, this
thesis explores twofold aspects: the production and the reception of the remake. On the one hand, it focuses on the way the new
miniseries was modernized with reference to the context. On the other hand, it investigates how the audience received the remake.
To this aim, the encoding/decoding model of Stuart Hall and the content analysis method were used not only to extract the
embedded messages of the remake through a close look at some aspects of the adopted cinematographic and mise-en-scène
techniques but also to analyze the stances of the audience. The results reveal that the producers availed themselves of diverse
methods to speed the circulation of the remake that diverges in many instances from its original. Going in tandem with the
surrounding racial happenings, the producers implemented intensive violent images, relied on more accurate information than in the
original miniseries, and omitted the White’s benevolent side to point up Blacks’ staunch resistance to survive and to be accepted as
part ofthe whole but not losing their African heritage, identity and dignity. The susceptibility of the audience to feed his memory by
embracing and preserving the past –however horrific it was –to define and understand the present was clearly laid bare as well. |
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