Monday
Feb252008
Are You Going To Watch "A Raisin in The Sun" Tonight on ABC
Monday, February 25, 2008 at 8:44AM The Blogmother As part of Black History Month , which by the way is almost over, ABC is airing A Raisin in the Sun tonight at 8:00PM EST. Of course all of the pre movie buzz is about Sean Combs, who we sometimes refer to as "the Johnny Appleseed of Sperm." But hey, it is getting press for the rest of the cast.
Set in 1950s Chicago, the drama centers on the Younger family, who anxiously await a $10,000 insurance check _ and the ensuing squabbles over how to spend it. Combs plays Walter Lee, a role made famous by Sidney Poitier.
Looking to assert his manhood and to use the money to finance his dreams of owning a business, Walter Lee finds himself at odds with his widowed mother, Lena (Rashad), his ambitious sister, Beneatha (Lathan) and long-suffering wife, Ruth (McDonald). Huffingtonpost.
Audra McDonald was on The View last night talking about the creative conflicts with Walt Disney and ABC about the use of the N-word ( Disney only let them use it once). Interesting how we'll let it be dropped right and left to talk about each other, but when it comes to reflecting its original meaning, folks get the jitters.
So are you going to watch?
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Reader Comments (23)
I plan to watch. Hopefully, Diddy's acting has improved.
I absolutely love the original so much that I don't want to spoil it by looking at a remake. I have much respect for all of the actors in the remake (well, almost all...) but I don't want to take the chance. But I'm dying to hear what others will have to say about it.
I can't watch:-(
I will be covering a city council meeting.
Dang, I'm gonna miss the Mary J. Blige VH1 special and this. I picked classes on monday night because there isn't anything ever good on TV.
So, I guess I wait till they release it on DVD.
I will be watching. I do not remember the original like my Mom does. I told her about it. She plans on watching it as well.
Miss Issues just reminded me about Mary's VH1 special. I'm really in a bind now, LOL!
I'm gonna watch it. I don't remember the original one but read the book in high school and loved it!
Like the other blogger, I loved the original and that wonderful cast too much to watch. It can't get any better than that one.
Tonight, i'm going to re-read "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neal Hurston while listening to a CD I just got about by "classic blues" singers on it (Ida Cox, Sippie Wallace, Alberta Hunter and some others), which is an era in black music I need to learn more about.
While I too respect all actors involved in the remake (except one), I loved the original too much to chance watching this one.
I am not watching! I don't care how significant this is. I do not like what "Puff Daddy" stands for most say that everything he touches turns to gold & I feel the opposite. it really turns into dollars to give his baby's mammas & support for his blinged out lifestyle!
Bygbaby
I didn't really like the original or at least the version that seems to frequently air on my local PBS station, starring Poitier, McNeil, and Ruby Dee. I'll record this version tonight and watch it some other time.
What's this about Mary J. Blige? I'm going to have to record whatever it is tonight as well. I'm not in the mood for tv.
I don't have plans to watch. Hard to see anyone doing better than Sidney Poitier and the folks in the original...
peace, Villager
I am laughing because I feel the same way about certain books. I think that some things should not be tampered with therefore I will not watch a movie version of one of my favorite books.
I will not watch it. I loved the original.
I just think it's a story whose time has passed. I wish we could see (on TV)the work of more recent African-American playwrights, such as August Wilson (deceased, I think) or Suzan-Lori Parks (Pulitzer prize winner).
Diddy is God-Awful in this stage/play/movie classic. My husband and I were saying that he basically bought himself a role as Executive Producer and once again did his best to be the center of attention. His acting came off as flat, insincere, charmless, and his face is just plain ole uninteresting.
Diddy is one arrogant businessman...but thespian he's not.
I missed it. I fell asleep.
Diddy can't act. He's just no good. I laughed at that part where he was yelling at the big dude. So unconvincing. I couldn't watch the whole movie because I was doing laundry. Didn't miss much, LOL!
I should've watched that VH1 Storyteller with Mary instead.
@ken
Typing your entire message into one large block of text makes it unnecessarily difficult to read.
Verbal rudeness always weakens an argument.
Are you really a lit prof?
@deborah
Just ignore the trolls.
@g-e-m2001:
Understood. Thanks. It's a little hard to ignore them sometimes.
I know the original film version backwords and forward. And I am not a PDiddy fan AT ALL; however, people should watch and form their own opinion. LET PEOPLE DECIDE for themselves. I watched skeptically, but Sean Combs did bring something to the role that was different and which worked -- he was far more vulnerable and visibly hurt throughout. He looked like an overgrown, petulant baby. He was "full" that Black word for emotional and on the brink of tears. I felt that it worked. When Sidney did the role, his character was lean, dynamic, and angry -- on edge. Combs was less dynamic but his kind of loopy look worked. As for the bad wig on Sanaa I agree. It was absolutely distracting. Whoever did that needs their ass whupped. As for Audra, she did a creditable job. Ruby Dee was great. But let's not make it like Audra embarrased herself. And as far as the original being a classic, true. But it's a CREDIT to the original this went back on Broadway and Rashad won a Tony. And everyone cannot afford to fly to New York or pay for that show when it was up -- seeing her do it here was fine by me. As for Roots, what you've said is news to me, but for those who've never seen it, like MY college FRESHMAN, they won't watch the other one -- they will if it's full of people they know -- current artists. At the end of the day, it couldn't match the original -- IMPOSSIBLE. But in terms of a chance to re-instill some sense of history which these kids simply don't have -- that will BE PRICELESS, even if it is full of a bunch of celebrities who have no training. And even Roots pulled popular stars of the day whome people knew, includingBen Vereen, Leslie Uggams, Irene Cara and Dorian Harewood from Sparkle, James Hilton Jacobs from Welcome Back Carter, and let's not forget John Amos who portrayed Kunta Kinte as an adult -- James Evans from Good Times, Cicely Tyson, Maya Angelou, and even OJ Simpson and the white actors including Ed Asner, from Mary Tyler Moore, Sandy Denton, Chuck Connors from Rifleman for God's sake. So the complaint of non-actors or unlikely sounding people overlooks that networks always go for "marquee value" in order to get viewers. Using current celeb/actors gets ratings and that to me is what a business/tv company is going to do. Will the new Roots work better than the previous one -- probably can't since there is no way to replicate that initial impact it had on the country, but it's worth doing again to inject a shot in the arm of historical consciousness in today's generations. So, I think you're overreacting to the new Raisin in the Sun and just in general.
To Deborah
Couple of things -- I'm sorry it was difficult to read for an uninterrupted 3 minutes approximately as opposed to a 60second comment -- I had something to say and I said it.
As for am I a professor -- absolutely and tenure track -- what, I'm not human and can't use a profane word or two -- it weakens the argument always? For you. In the context of a blog, not a big deal. I edited it though since I do recognize how easily offended some people are but I can't compromise and make it shorter to accomodate what sound like week reading skills -- sorry if you couldn't keep up. My point was and is -- the whole concern and uproar the blog makes seems inflated and making a mountain out of a molehill. I asked a few of my students if they watched. Many had BECAUSE PDiddy was in it. The main thing isn't about the actors who portray the roles, but the PLAY and it's ideas. That's what matters and that's what my students talked about. And that can't be a bad thing. And I don't think many of them would have watch a re-run of the old version. I think the network deserves credit not criticism for remaking it with whomever, even PDiddy whom I dislike intensely as do many others on here because he represents values of promiscuity and excessive and conspicuous material consumption. I wish he'd be quiet and go read a book or something.
You know I'm a video store owner, and I rent out this movie A Raisin In the Sun, this movie has rented out maybe once in about 1 year. Nobody seems to want to watch it.