On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 9:13 PM, Dan Scanlan <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On Dec 28, 2012, at 1:12 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Tarantino’s film features “the biggest, nastiest ‘Uncle Tom’
ever”—played by Samuel Jackson—who is insanely loyal to his evil white
master, and savage in his treatment of fellow slaves.
>
> In Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Tom is a slave who resists
beating other slaves on orders from his master. As a result, two other
slaves pummel Tom to death. I read once that Uncle Tom's Cabin was neck and
neck with bible sales at one time.
>
> I don't know but I guess that the transformation of the literary
character into his opposite has something to do with Americans' inability
to deal with their "successful" culture based on deep seated racism.
>



As I understand it, "Uncle Tom" acquired its current derogatory meanings
from post-Civil War blackface minstrel show adaptations of Harriet
Beecher-Stowe's book which often portrayed a caricature of the Uncle Tom
character that was very different from the heroic character from the novel.
-raghu.
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