Re/figuring the Child-Signifier and Agency in the Film Adaptation of Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

This chapter discusses the topic of children’s agency in Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in relation to the film adaptation of the novel, as well as considering film industry changes in the 1960s and 1970s. Mehra argues that as a family film created in the 1970s, the film adaptation of Thunder does not act as a counter-narrative on the same level as Taylor’s novel, even though the film offers a nuanced representation of a Black family in a space where stereotyping is prevalent. The chapter discusses the use of Cassie as narrator and mediator—a “child-signifier.” The child-signifier allows for a microcosm of wider social issues, though the film undermines this by focusing on the family, using the child-signifier as a symbol of hope, and leaving out key events from the book that depict violence, resistance, and subversion, conforming to the aesthetics of the “family film” instead.