What do you think of the depictions of American Slavery in movies?

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

I think Atun-Shei nailed it here. And here's why I think it's important: if all you see is the worst aspects of slavery depicted, it's easy to be mislead about how much racial progress we've made because then you see the antebellum and post reconstruction South (and modern America) as a world apart. But if you can see the true mundane horror of American slavery, you can see the similarities between slavery and sharecropping that came after it and you can also see those patterns of exploitation today between black tenants and slumlords and see the need for change.

[youngmix]

I honestly don't think it can be depicted with an accurate level of terror or horror, because the movie could never receive a rating. Listen to the slave tapes. I was listening to all of the recordings I could find, and the last audio record from a slave detailed a woman being burned with a pipe, beaten and whipped because she didn't let her master's son's girlfriend randomly physically assault her. I believe that the eye witness slave that reported this was 4-years-old as she witnessed this. Barbaric to the extreme.

The accounts of rape, and the sheer number of mixed children that came to light after the Civil War were also daunting evidence of the cruelty of their treatment.

Writing tends to paint the best picture I can find, other than these recordings. Reading from a slave who was broken, made into and taught that he was slave when he was 5 or 6-years-old.. You can't show that to modern audiences. You cannot create such a movie, hire the children. They're speaking of daily life, but they are ignoring how the daily life received its structure --through absolute terror. The only fictional art that I have found that even comes close to depicting such evil madness is a Japanese comic, "Berserk". The writing I have found that illustrates the mindset of the power dynamics, and the absolute terrifying fear, is in "The Souls of Black Folk", by W. E. B. Du Bois.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2septLuSjbI

[HeartFullOfGlue]

I dont think they can truly depict how bad it was

[normalice]

It's the opposite. The worse slavery is depicted the more progress we are seen to have made, as the difference between then and now is all the better contrasted. Indeed, depicting slaves generally happy with their lives only serves to contrast them with modern poor who are less happy than the slaves were. To suggest we have not actually not changed at all since slavery might be true but it flies in the face of anyone trying to push a message of progress.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

I'm not saying nothing changed; just not as much as everyone thinks.

[normalice]

Oh, no doubt.

[RolandCuthbert]

The only movie that depicts the horrors of slavery with any kind of realism is "12 years a slave".

There are dozens of films about the Jewish holocaust.

"Black" hollywood needs to get to work.

[zagor]

Well, movies that depict people being torn from their daily lives and slaughtered are probably more striking than movies that depict people being torn from their daily lives and forced to pick cotton all day.

[RolandCuthbert]

@zagor I am not the one try to judge holocausts. That appears to be your job. But to claim that "Blacks" were merely forced to pick cotton shows exactly why we need an education system to educate folks on the horrors of slavery with an entertainment industry that can produces a movie that clearly depicts slavery exactly the way it was.

runaways.gla.ac.uk/.../



‘The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time… The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died… The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.

[zagor]

That is a good point, though the voyage was only experienced by the first generation. But the purpose was exploitation, not extermination.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

@zagor But do be considered a 'Holocaust', does something also have to be a genocide or can it be a great loss of life?

Something I should have clarified about this question was that it was pertaining to thee day to day life of slaves in the United States, not the Middle Passage and I think that there is a good case for the Middle Passage to be called the "Black Holocaust" given that ~ 2.5 million likely died in transit and while that might not be as many Jews who died under the Third Reich, 40% is still a considerable fraction of that number.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

Also, exploitation was part of the Holocaust; with the seizure of the victims' property, the death camps were not only able to pay for their own construction and operating costs but generated a surplus that helped finance the Nazi war machine.

[RolandCuthbert]

@zagor As thought that makes a difference. Even the slavers themselves said the conditions of travel for slaves was something you could not dream up in your worst nightmares. And it is from that foundation American slavery was created. You make it seem as though after the voyage, slaves were given comfortable clothing, housing and food, then politely asked to work.

Maybe that is far from the truth.

On reaching the Americas the crew of slave ships prepared the Africans for sale. They washed, shaved and rubbed them with palm oil to disguise sores and wounds caused by conditions on board. The captains usually sold their captives directly to planters or specialised wholesalers by auction. Families who had managed to stay together were now often broken up. Bonds formed during the voyage were also broken.

Immediately owners and their overseers sought to obliterate the identities of their newly acquired slaves, to break their wills and sever any bonds with the past. They forced Africans to adapt to new working and living conditions, to learn a new language and adopt new customs. They called this process 'seasoning' and it could last two or three years.

We can go into all manner of punishments, torture, murder, etc. that were apart of this processing meant to create a slave race. Again, we don't have many movies that depict slavery as it was. We have a lot of idealized fantasies.

12 years a slave, does a decent job. But I just don't know of many other films that depict it realistically. But it is based upon the historical account of Solomon Northup, so that is probably why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_Bi09YfqE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vnrDqPoLbw

[zagor]

Actually "Roots" was one of the highest rated TV miniseries of all time; I of course didn't see it in original showing, but have seen some episodes since. I believe it was originally shown some time in the 1970's.

[RolandCuthbert]

@zagor No Roots wasn't all that great. I am gauging accuracy and realism. Not the ability to tug at heart strings. And I think it is one of the reasons why most Americans are so dismissive of slavery and of the African-American Experience with it.

Think about it. 25-35% of the African-American genome is European. So that means African-Americans women were constantly raped. Slaves who tried to escaped were severely punished. The most disobedient slaves were lynched, basically tortured to death as forms of entertainment to the slavers and as a warning to other slaves. And again, there are all manners of accounts in books, journals, newspapers, and other writings from the time period. None of which are taught in schools because of CRT or depicted honestly on screen because of "White" guilt.

"The ordinary punishments of slaves, for the common crimes of neglect, absence from work, eating the sugar cane, theft, are cart whipping, beating with a stick, sometimes to the breaking of bones, the chain, an iron crook about the neck... a ring about the ankle, and confinement in the dungeon. There have been instances of slitting of ears, breaking of limbs, so as to make amputation necessary, beating out of eyes, and castration... In short, in the place of decency, sympathy, morality, and religion; slavery produces cruelty and oppression. It is true, that the unfeeling application of the ordinary punishments ruins the constitution, and shortens the life of many a poor wretch."

[jshm2]

Most Americans have never been re-educated, as was done with post war Germans, to understand and digest the evils of their past, what was done, and the reason it was wrong.

This is one reason why Americans tend to be seen as the next Reich that will need to be toppled. They still rationalise their evil, and slavery of others. Sometimes even making it out as a positive!

Regardless, the movie "birth of a nation" aka "The Clansman" should be mandatory watching for any teen and their reaction used a profile on what they will actually be like in civilised society.

[Rangers]

He's a commie clown like you who reads one sentence of a book and acts like he knows everything. Dunning-Kruger syndrome is so severe in both of you. And the depictions of slavery seem fair so far in the movies I've seen which make slavery a main point of focus.

[DWornock]

Propaganda. Slavery was never as bad in the USA as it was and still is in other countries. However, slavery never goes away. Today most Americans are, in effect, slaves because their is almost nothing you can do that is not heavily taxed, regulated, and controlled. Even your children are owned by the state and you are just a caretaker that must abide by the state's rules.

[UdontNeedtoknow]

its over exaggerated honestly. Yes it was bad. Obviously... HOWEVER... Hollywood hyper focuses on it while completely ignoring the fact that there are more slaves in the world today than before the civil war. Open slave markets exits in Africa even today. China has massive forced labor camps and factories. India has a whole caste devoted to generational slavery. need i go on? keep that in mind when you talk about "free trade" and open markets.

[genericname85]

i disagree with the notion that slavery was somehow an American exclusive that was racist in nature. at the time, slavery was still a global phenomenon conducted by all races against all races.

[Medhat-M]

Slavery.. War... Things like that can't be portrayed realistically enough on screen without romanticizing it... Sometimes too much... Reality is so ugly to look back at it

[ragooo8]

I think they make too many. Surely black people can be other things in movies than slaves and the magical negro as spike Lee puts it.

[Kiran_Yagami]

I don't give a damn about slavery in movies. Movies about the slave era aren't even all that common. We get one every 3-5 years, and I usually skip it.

[TheSpartan]

The real answer is that American slavery was objectively not much different that serfdom, and it's generally portrayed as far worse than it actually was in reality.

[SmokinAces2000]

What history have you been researching

[TheSpartan]

@SmokinAces2000 I don't know what that question is attempting to ask, but I've been reading various secondary and primary sources on American history--as well as quantitive historical research studies (which is critically important--since I was about 5-6 years old.

[RationalMale]

I think they like to leave out how popular it was for Africans in the USA to own African slaves.

[cloud9vortex1234]

Many countries are guilty of slavery and some are still doing it.

[Still-alive]

Roots shows it the best in my opinion

[MrSmithee]

Cartoonish