Slavery Ignored?

British director Steve McQueen claims Hollywood ignores slavery. He says "The Second World War lasted five years and there are hundreds and hundreds of films about the Second World War and the Holocaust. Slavery lasted 400 years and there are less than 20 [films]. We have to redress that balance and look at that time in history."

I think he will find that there really aren't that many films about the Holocaust and does he honestly think slavery only lasted 400 years? I'm pretty certain the ancient Romans were taking people as slaves over 2000 years ago.

Anyway why do we have to "redress the balance"? Bad things happened hundreds of years ago. Genghis Khan and the Mongols massacred 40m people. Not many films about that. Bad things continue to happen. Up to a million people were massacred in Rwanda in 1994 yet only one film has been made about that. Does that balance need to be redressed?

Are slaves necessarily a bad thing? I have two Filipino slaves and they get paid £2 a week - would they get that back in Filipin?

This country was built on slaves, it would be a shame to see it crumble.

I have two slaves, they spoil me rotten and leave me knackered most day's.

Angry Dad wrote:I have two slaves, they spoil me rotten and leave me knackered most day's.

Is one of them the friend that you had a kid with?

not quite the intellectual discussion xmiles was hoping to have i think

He's been on Nuts as long as me, he knows what to expect.

where would we be without You to put us right Nat!

Can't say I'm surprised Norpig.  

Not been around too much lately due to work, so forgive my late contribution to this thread.

I've not seen what McQueen as said, so I may be taking him out of context but what the fuck is he talking about?

Slavery as been going on for thousands of years - who do you think built the pyramids for instance? - so where as this 400 year time span come from?

Slavery is also global and in particularly in Africa where it was the africans themselves who enslaved other africans, which basically founded the 'slave trade' to the american continent - as they traded their slaves for goods from europeans.

Indeed if anything it was the europeans that put an end to slavery as we know it. William Wilberforce led the anti-slavery action leading to legislation abolishing it in around 1800 and the americans and Lincoln managed to get around to it in about 1860.

Slavery still goes on today, even in this country - see news stories about it every few months or so - someone was jailed for six years this very day for it for instance.

I guess even our current manager may well have had one of his ancestors as a freed 'slave' at one time or another - hence his surname!

I think Mr McQueen should have stuck to his acting!









(and yes I do know it is not the same person!)

Hollywood has ignored lots of things in film, even the British involvement in the Second World war has largely been ignored.

The Yanks are good at ignoring things, they are so far up their own arse that millions of them now think that the Enigma machine codes were broke by a Yank, and that native Americans have always been funny alcoholics with a tendency to kill innocent white women.

It's still quite simple though, a film with explosions, heroism, death and Nazis versus black folk being taken from Africa and forced to work on a plantation in the southern U.S...... what shall we watch?