Roots: The Obama Era Version

I’m with comedian Bill Burr in wondering how many more “white people are bad” films do we need to see? As Burr lamented with a movie about an all black swim team, “We’re down to swimming!?”

Yes, we are. When Hollyweird runs out of ideas, they just remake the old ones, which brings me to Roots.

I remember the original. The entire nation watched it, as it was before cable TV was mainstream. At the time of its viewing, black people were coming out of the racially charged 60’s, and entering into mainstream America, waiting on the Reagan years.

Well the good old days have come and gone, and America has entered the Dark Ages, and not because Obama is black, but because he just plain sucks.

Which is why America needs another lesson in revisionist racist history. Nowhere in Roots will Hollyweird blame Democrats. But you know the Democrats will exploit it, as The Hollywood Reports showcases:

“Forgive me if this day becomes slightly emotional for me,” says LeVar Burton. “Being here in this house, at this particular time in history. This is a moment.”

This house being the White House. This moment being a daylong event — hosted by Valerie Jarrett, the president’s closest adviser — devoted to A+E Networks’ Roots, a reimagining of the blockbuster 1977 miniseries about several generations of a slave family. The four-part, eight-hour project will debut on Memorial Day (May 30), airing simultaneously on History, Lifetime and A&E. The White House screening and panel discussion is a key step toward making Roots not just a successful television show but also an old-fashioned, watercooler-style collective cultural event.

If only the remake of Shaft had gotten such hoopla? Maybe Trump will bring in the cast when Hollyweird remakes Snakes on a Plane?

 

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