In:A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery: The Atlantic world and beyond
Edited by Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Madeleine Dobie and Mads Anders Baggesgaard
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXVII] 2025
► pp. 229–251
Chapter 13Cinematic slavery
A genealogy of film from 1903 to 2020
Published online: 29 April 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.37.13tho
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.37.13tho
Abstract
This chapter is a transnational genealogy of how dramatic, fictional movies and television shows
from 1903 to 2020 have represented transatlantic slavery. It highlights lesser-known movies by comparing hegemonic
Hollywood productions to marginalized and counter-hegemonic film industries. This history of representation is
organized into seven heuristic categories: (1) plantation dramas before World War II alongside adaptations of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, (2) African-American interventions in the 1920s and 30s, (3) Hollywood’s
attempt at integration in response to the Civil Rights movement, (4) international Marxist cinema from Cuba and Brazil
to Italy and France, (5) Pan-African cinema made during the 1970s to 1990s, (6) neoliberal and evangelical movies
since the 1990s, and (7) new movies by an emergent generation of multiethnic filmmakers.
Keywords: slavery, Third Cinema, Pan-African film, Hollywood, neoliberal, Cinema Novo
Article outline
- Early plantation dramas
- Screening integration
- From Marxist cinema and cinema Novo to Pan-African cinema
- From neoliberal evangelism to transnational black film and television
- Conclusion
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