%% %% # 🎞 Roots (2016) Carter & Van Peebles, etal 2016, Roots **Summary**:Set in the 18th and 19th century, Roots (2016) is a historical drama that follows the story of an African man named Kunta Kinte, who is captured and sold into slavery in America in the 18th century, and his descendants. The story spans across multiple generations and time periods, including the American Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction era. Throughout the series, Kunta Kinte's family struggles to maintain their cultural identity and dignity in the face of oppression and violence. ### Selections **Roots 1** - Failed slave revolt on ship, the way that technology (guns, walls) was used to control a disproportionate amount of people, the tense danger of it as a state of war. - Black art (music, dance) As a strategy of rebellion, the body in motion as a threat, dance and music as camouflage - When they're dancing on the boat before the revolt - When he escapes on the way to the plantation by pretending to drum his hands to get the chains loose - When the Fiddler plays in order to cover his escape on the horse. - The Irishman and the racial contract, he is not WASP but he's enfranchised in a subordinated white role **Roots 2** - Scottishman enforcer, again the racial contract - Wedding scene where Kunta denies that the ritual the African American slaves have projected actually comes from Africa - Middle passage epistemology - Lesbian scene with Kizzy (Black) and Alice (White)? The mutual sexual attraction, but then the implied threat of rape against the background of racial domination. **Roots 3** - Chicken trainer statement abt caged chicken being free inside. - "Thy lips are as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are on thy tongue. Thou art all fair, my love." - "You a shadow on a moonless night, you ain't hardly here at all" - Dialogue with free man who has to keep a weather eye out for re-enslavers. - Religion debate between mom and preacher - Long scene where Kizzy refuses to leave and gets sexually assaulted and George finds out and then she says no to the freeman - The final scene where George wins the first chicken fight and Tom frees him but loses the second so Tom sells him **Roots 4** - Scene between George and Tom where he disowns him - blood, ancestors, etc. - Generally, the civil war scenes depict the changing but precarious position of Black people during the war and early emancipation, especially the scene where the Black people are not initially allowed in to the White Yankee camp even though they are fleeing Confederates (until they prove their usefulness as labor—blacksmith)