I found Aulelia’s comments on my previous post, “A Tale of Two Black Brothers” to be insightful, particularly her views on the film, The Last King of Scotland. Her statement: “Perhaps celluloid exposure is needed for more people to care about Africa?”, really got me thinking…. going deep into reflecting and meditating on the mass media portrayals of Africa.
First let me say that I did enjoy the film and I agree that Forest Whitaker’s performance was superb. I have no problem with him winning the Oscar. Who we believe should win is subjective, and it’s the majority of subjective opinions that determine who wins. I am also not so naïve that I don’t realize that Hollywood, and the movie-making industry at large, is a business…. and a business is all about making money. As such, they are concerned about what stories the public will pay money to see. Whether they are only catering to this demand or creating the demand is a worthy discussion to reflect and debate on in another post. However, Aulelia’s question got me asking: what are the celluloid exposures that we are getting of Africa? And do they lead “us” to care more about the continent?
I made a mental list of all the movies about Africa I have seen recently. Let’s see: Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, Tsotsi, The Lord of War, The Constant Gardener, Hotel Rwanda, Tears of the Sun, Black Hawk Down, In My Country… these are the ones that comes to mind. Now I found them all to a varying degree, for different reasons, very good or at least interesting. But as I reflect, none of these storylines showed a positive image of Africa the continent, or African people. Savagery, brutality, murderous behaviour, ignorance, poverty, dishonesty, corruption, chaos and disease ran amok. In most of these films, the central hero, or the most dynamic anti-hero was a “white” male. Now there may be films that do show Africa in a positive light. I just haven’t seen or heard of them. So please enlighten me if anyone can recommend some.
I started wondering if these movies of Africa have replaced the blaxploitation “gangsta” films that were churned out by Hollywood in the late 80’s to early 2000. Do you remember Colors, Juice, New Jack City, Boyz N da Hood, Menace II Society, Above the Rim, Dead Presidents, Set it Off, Baby Boy, as well as the award winning Training Day and Hustle & Flow. As I also reflected on the themes of these movies, a pattern emerged in how Black people, particularly Black men were being portrayed: Savagery, brutality, murderous behaviour, ignorance, poverty, dishonesty, corruption, chaos and disease ran amok. Even Spike Lee’s acclaimed “Do the Right Thing”, dealt with Black rage which culminated in righteous Black violence.
Now since these movies are not being made in the same quantity as before, I can only surmise that they are no longer the moneymakers they used to be. So it begs the following questions: did this celluloid exposure of Black America cause more people to care for them? Or did it become passé, familiar and therefore boring? Is Black on Black murder in America no longer a thrill? But big business always finds new resources to meet the demands of their markets. So to Africa! The Dark Continent! Virgin territory once again to exploit familiar evils for an unfamiliar audience. Celluloid exposure to fill the theatre seats, sell popcorn and Coca-Cola, and get the cash registers ringing.
Then I got to thinking…. you know what? Maybe I am being too pessimistic! Maybe these celluloid images of Africa are providing the impetus for the promised influx of money and medicine to fight AIDS and other diseases in the continent. Maybe these celluloid images of Africa are getting people in the Western world to tackle the issue of child soldiers and child poverty. Maybe these celluloid images of Africa will prevent another genocide such as what occurred in Rwanda. Maybe these celluloid images of Africa in some way led to the Western nations caring more about the continent and was instrumental in the decision to forgive their burdening debt.
Then I remember that most Africans cannot afford the drugs to combat AIDS, even if they could get them. Then I remember the U.N. reports that malaria and lack of clean drinking water is killing most Africans. Then I remember that children in the Congo have to work in mines from “can’t see sun up to can’t see sundown” to make a barely subsistent living. Then I remember the child soldiers of the Lord Resistance Army in Northern Uganda. Then I remember Darfur. Then I remember the issue of vulture funds, where companies buy up the debt of these poor African nations cheaply from the Western nations when it is about to be written off, then SUE for the full value of the debt plus interest. (See post “Into the Heart of Darkness”.) AND I look around and have to conclude that Western society, like most of the rest of the world, just does not care. Is it because of the celluloid exposures? Or in spite of them?
Finally I reflect and wonder if there is a direct relationship…. a linear linkage from the images we saw of Africa in the past and today in movies, in the news, in mass media…. to the images we see today of Black America in movies, in the news and on televison (Cops, BET)…. to the recent execution of a 92 year old Grandmother during a police raid in Atlanta, for being a suspected drug dealer.
Heaven help us.
Asabagna.
March 7, 2007 at 10:42 pm
“Let’s see: Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, Tsotsi, The Lord of War, The Constant Gardener, Hotel Rwanda, Tears of the Sun, Black Hawk Down, In My Country… none of these storylines showed a positive image of Africa the continent, or African people. Savagery, brutality, murderous behaviour, ignorance, poverty, dishonesty, corruption, chaos and disease ran amok.” I have seen all of these & agree with your assessment. Wait, the color Purple did shed some positive light on African & also showed the brutality forced on the Africans from Nettie’s perspective.
Maybe these celluloid images of Africa will preven”t another genocide such as what occurred in Rwanda.” Genocide is jumping off in Darfur & the world knows & yet it is not on the forefront to help the refugees etc. The continuing genocide in Darfur has been compared to Rwanda but that’s all, So I argue that Hotel Rwanda did not make people care enough to get off of the ass to stop current atrocities.
Hollywood is not interested in showing anything positive about Africa (Just think about The Gods Must Be Crazy). The only way for Africa to be shown in a positive light is for a passionate Black or even White African to step up to the plate.
EXCELLENT post!
Bygbaby
March 8, 2007 at 5:49 am
Asabagna,
Thank you for bringing more light in this discussion. I have been dying to see Tsotsi for years and just never got around to it. What is it like? Black South Africa is such a difficult topic for many Africans because of how they suffered so deeply. Yet their culture is so vibrant (DRUM magazine anyone?).
Asa, if you are interested in some potent African-directed films definitely check out the francophone films, they seem to lack the Hollywoodised version of what male heros or females should be. In general, the ones made by Malian directors are very good I have been told. There is a South African version of the Opera Carmen which just is so true to African life in how it portrays the relationships between men and women. It is called “U-Carmen Ekhayelitsha”. It is in Xhosa and subtitled in English.
That is such a good point about the African films replacing blaxiploitation films! I never saw it like that before and now, I do. Is it just a passing trend? If Africa’s political side recuperates, will the West stop filming about her? I think Western societies essentially look at Africa as this beautiful yet tragically disabled child who each time she tries to take a step forward, her shins buckle and her bones get crushed. It is that ‘crushing’ that people watch over and over again because it reminds them that they’re life isn’t so bad. I would hate for anyone to look at the Continent and think like that but I know plenty of Westerners who just see Africa as a Molotov cocktail of problems, always kicking off.
I agree with Bygbaby that Hollywood is interested in showing positive images of Africa. What are we going to do? Talking about it helps. I think there is a code of silence about Africa’s problems amongst certain black people and it needs to be broken.
Brilliant discourse.
–A
March 8, 2007 at 5:51 am
typo – meant to say Hollywood ISNT interested in positive images of Africa. Byg, don’t think I am on their side lol
–A
March 8, 2007 at 5:29 pm
LOL Aulelia, you know I was about to say sumthin’ (smile)
Bygbaby
March 9, 2007 at 12:46 am
Asa,
Nice post.
What they are doing in Hollywood is akin to the training the military recruit receives in basic training. They dehumanize the “enemy” who becomes a ‘gook,’ a ‘towel head,’ or a ‘sand n***.’
What is happening to Africa is a deliberate depopulation effort. Inject him with Aids (in a World Health Org vaccine for smallpox/check it on the net) Let the Africans die by reducing them inch by inch by each disgusting depiction. For example, why does a white man mediate the story of Idi Amin? Oh, the story is not about Idi Amin, its about the white man traveling through the heart of African darkness.
Its the same theme in ‘Training Day,’ only the jungle is South Central LA.
I hate the last scene in LKOS, where the beautiful African brother gives up his life for the dubious reason of getting the white man to tell the story of Africans. “They will listen to a white man.” No they won’t listen to a white man talk about Africa; if they do, they’ll only be interested in how the white dude escaped the savage beast.
When need more black cinema. Independent. Digital. It amazes me that we aren’t using the technology to make good films. Money is key. Folks want to get paid. Who’s going to pay (in the studio system) for a positive story of black love, black redemption, black triumph? They don’t want to hear that shit.
Its like hip-hop which many believe is corporately controlled by Jews who would pitch a fit if Jewish stereotypes were propagated like the ones they propagate about us. They make the same hiphop record every day: and its cultural genocide. That’s what these records are: a form of genocide. Check out the definition of genocide: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”
Are we harmed by this shit? I rest my case.
March 11, 2007 at 10:50 am
Bygbaby made an excellent point in his first post. I too am sick of the negative images of Africa and other Third World countries. Are they needed at times to bring attention to real world povery etc.? Of course they are, but at some point there should be an attemptd at balance just like with any other continent.
I grew up in a town called Mandeville, which is in Jamaica West Indies, and the homes in the sorrounding neighborhoods there rivaled anything in your most affluent American suburbs. Yet, I remember being in school and college classmates asking me how I could study when I go home for the holidays since only Kingston and Montego Bay had electricity in Jamaica. (And these were black folks
)
Ignorance is a scary thing, and it effects not only the people in the majority population, but our own people as well. And sometimes this has some seriously scary effects on our own self worth. Still, I am not going to ignore the problems of Africa;they are there, and we need to acknowledge them. It’s just that we need to realize that some of those same problems are right here in North America as well. And turning our heads and pretending that those are Africa’s problems and not our own will do us no good.
But I co-sign with Asa, this type of discourse is needed,and I have to thank him and Aulelia for setting the spark.
March 11, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Lubangakene, I believe as you do that there is a definite plan to depopulate Africa with AIDS being one of the weapons being used. I did a post last year on this very topic. Yes it is cultural and actual genocide being waged against us “all” over the world.
FN, it appears to me that African Americans are not in tune with the issues facing Africa and how it directly affects their (our) day to day existence. A comment I heard over and over again during my pilgrimmage to Africa was that Black West Indians, expecially Jamaicans who visted there, were more accepting of Africans then their American brothers and sisters. AND THIS IS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY!
March 11, 2007 at 9:22 pm
FN – You are right about the POV in LKOS, I never thought about that!
I was also turned off how the Black Dr (Thomas) went down to save Nicholas & who would listen to Nicholas when he got his ass back. He had no power & seemed more interested in Black pussy (yes I did say it) throughout the movie which personifies another stereotype of the hot & horny African woman.
FN – “…at some point there should be an attempted at balance just like with any other continent.” HELLO!!!
On a related note, I loved The Constant Gardner a) because I think it exposed relevant issues affecting Africans across the continent in regards to health care needs & b) how the movie pointed out how white greed can destroy people especially people who are trusting and at a disadvantage.
Bygbaby
March 12, 2007 at 7:10 am
The Constant Gardener was written by John Le Carré and he is one of the few white authors who I think writes from an unbiased political standpont — I haven’t seen that film but I must.
Asa – that is such a good point about Black West Indians being more accepting and interested to know about Africa! I have noticed that a lot with certain WI in the UK despite the differences and when I was in Martinique, some people were so fascinated to hear about my East African traditions and I was thrilled because likewise, I really want to forge greater links with Black West Indians and Afro-Americans. However, in the US when I visited, I found it to be warm but in perhaps in a tiny way of suspicion.
Even little things about going to get my sisters hair done in Hew York, people looked surprised that as an African girl I was going to get my hair done in an AA salon – I found that so interesting because that type of hesitance doesnt exist in the UK because black girls get their hair done by Jamaicans or African people.
Will increased immigration change the makeup of the USA and create a unifified afro-american culture? Who knows. All I know is perhaps this is a romantic notion but in the way that there is an African Union to promote pan_africanism politically, I wish that one day there will be greater political alliance between West Indian Islands and Africa (as seen through Martinique and Senegal emotional links of Négritude — this was brilliant) — we just need to continue the work ad maybe one day it will be there.
Free Slave — you are right > it is depopulation. It is almost like an invisible genocide. Makes me feel sick to my stomach and then to hear Africans being ignorant about African-Americans and West Indians just infuriates me. We need to be working together!
*The university computer warden is watching me I am sure but great discussion!
–A
March 13, 2007 at 1:00 pm
The media here does an excellent job of destroying the links between us. Its a 24/7 assault on all of us, really, but the image of black people receives special, vicious consideration. We have been the most militant, are the most threatening, have the least to lose, so the images have been even more perverse and skewed.
Black folks, generally, don’t see the contours of this disease, don’t see how it affects how we see each other, therefore we are wary of each other. We NEED unity across geographic bounds for sure. And we desperately need counter-image makers who are challenging the Hollywood. AND helping us see each other in a new light.
Let’s make a movie ya’ll!!
March 13, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Hey when we make the movie not matter the subject, I want to play the Black guy that dies first. LOL
BYgbaby
April 17, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Hello there,
wow, this is very similar to the post I wrote:)
Well, ok Africa is very interesting! They can make thousands of movies about Africa.
I’m not asking Hollywood to movies that portrays Africa in a positive way but i’m asking us Africans to start making movies that are not only afro-optimisitic but also raise awareness about the problems of Africa and represent the diversity of Africa.
The only thing that I hate about hollywood movies about Africa is , they make us Africans seem so helpless and they make Africa seem so helpess.
Africa is not helpless, we just had alot of problems in the 20th century but hopefully, things will get better soon and actually, things are getting better in a lot of countries.
I’m calling for Afro-optimism!
Kizzie