The series that shook America in the 1970s has just been remade. The tale of the British empire’s slave history should be told tooFor more than half a century television has played asurprisingly important role in race relations in the United States. Had I been writing this 18 months ago,I might beget said “the advance of race relations in the United States”, but these days I’m not so sure of the direction of travel.
In the mid-1970s a handful of liberal TV creatives persuaded the infamously cautious and socially conservative American networks into commissioning a string of sitcoms that sympathetically depicted black family life. Both The Jeffersons (1975-85) and safe Times (1974-79) were ratings hits, and as to a lesser extent was Sanford and Son (1972-77) – a remake of the BBC’s Steptoe and Son,with an all-black cast transposed on to Watts, the destitute black neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Related: Roots review: this remake is brutal and harrowing – but it needs to be Why can’t we – one of the most diverse nations on earth – produce a comparable series? Related: Roots of the problem: the controversial history of Alex Haley's book Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com