Uncle Tom's Cabin Movie Vs Book

Uncle Tom’s Cabin has been called many things: the novel that started the Civil War and the most important piece of American literature among them. It tells the story of a slave named Uncle Tom whose journey through many owners, abuses, and hard times is amassed in a strong rhetorical piece of abolitionist writing. Despite its massive influence, very little dramatization of the novel has taken place. There is, to date, one play and one black and white movie made of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This is for good reason, production companies most likely feared ridicule from audiences and worried about offending the public with the common use of the n-slur, the depiction of white brutality, and the fact that this historically accurate piece of fiction forces audiences to face the United States’ past of cruelty and abuse. Uncle Tom’s Cabin should be dramatized because it is important to recognize where white privilege comes from and to be made uncomfortable by facing the past. …show more content…
One such example would be the film Schindler’s List, adapted from the novel Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally.1 The film portrays the Holocaust quite brutally and unsympathetically towards Germans (for obvious reasons). There was very little backlash towards the movie; it received widespread critical acclaim and won numerous Academy Awards. Schindler’s List, in a way, deals with very similar issues to those in Uncle Tom’s Cabin- the relationship between a violent oppressor and the oppressed. If dealt with delicately and without sympathy for the oppressor it can increase sympathy and understanding for the situation of the