The New York Times series has been turned into a six-part Hulu doc featuring Oprah Winfrey among its producers.
cast a long intellectual shadow, but on TV it’s in the shadow cast by Raoul Peck’s pugnacious, by several shows from print transplant Sacha Jenkins and by more PBS documentaries than I care to count. In this medium, the game was already changed — showrunner Shoshanah Guy worked on Netflix’sis just a participant.
For those who missed out, the premise of the series is that the arrival of the first slave ship in the colonies is a national origin story of sorts. Contrary to claims from the political right, the purpose of the series was never to literally demand that “1776” be erased as a landmark, nor to make every white person feel like the villain in our collective narrative.
Nowhere is that more egregious than the “Music” episode, from an essay by Wesley Morris. Though it’s always edifying to hear Morris discuss culture, and the snippets of gospel, jazz, funk and hip hop make for easy viewing, each genre is treated with barely a CliffNotes-worth of attention. It’s at best a disappointingly superficial palate cleanser nestled in the middle of the otherwise serious series.
The early episodes, including “Democracy” and “Race,” are plagued by faulty focus or questionably illustrative examples, and there’s a flatness to how both of those episodes are directed. The familiar archival footage and barely edited conversations on park benches or pews are repetitive, and the traces of artful inspiration — like interpretative dancers popping up — rare. Even though Hannah-Jones is traveling the country for her interviews, it all looks and feels the same.
It’s a clear message, which isn’t the same as being effectively delivered in good art. I think the frustration one might feel watching this series stems more from how frequently television has already delivered this message well — seriously, check out
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