We also aim to educate. Over the next few months, Allison Swank will commence a new weekly series on popular (and not-so-popular) films in the United States ‘about’ Africa. The focus will be on the idea of representations and how they contribute to the broader idea of Africa in the West. Let’s get the academic-speak out of the way with her introduction to the series and come back next week:
The starting point is to consider the framework with which we view films about Africa. When we acknowledge the historical underpinnings, then we begin to understand why we interpret images of Africa how we do.
Historically, images of Africa and Africans in Hollywood and other films have been tightly interwoven with racist colonial ideologies. The very first filmmakers on the continent (and many that never stepped foot in Africa) built an unequal race representation structure to which many films still subscribe. The racial hierarchy employed by these films is informed by the notion of racist human evolutionism introduced by the European Enlightenment and proliferated throughout Africa during colonialism.
Hollywood and smaller industries continually adhere to this racist model of humanity and culture by representing Africa in essentialist tropes: tortured black bodies, white guilt, black demons, and white intellect; to name a few.
Yet, the imperialist framework of representation that is still effective today did not derive from a kind of colonial ignorance. There is a popular assumption that misrepresentations, or ‘false’ images of Africa rest on Western ignorance and that truer images of Africa are based on knowledge.
However, the equation of ignorance with falsehoods and knowledge with truth is problematic. False representations of Africa are not based on ignorance, rather a centuries old knowledge structure most popularly highlighted by Edward Said’s comments on the Occident in ‘Orientalism’ (1978).
Said says of Orientalism that it ‘is not an airy European fantasy about the Orient, but a created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been considerable material investment‘.
One of the primary aims of this series then is to recognize the origins of Hollywoodian images of Africa within this knowledge structure so that it is no longer passed off as Western ignorance, but identified as the powerful paradigm that it is.
I will start next week with a discussion of the Tarzan films and work forward from there. Like Sean said, the academic-speak is now out of the way. See you next week. — Allison Swank
Will this be an actual series of films or discussion. If the films will presented, where will they be shown, TV, on-line, or in an actual theater.
If it is just discussion, on-line links would be helpful.
Sounds interesting.
Thanks
Africa for Africans its upon us to make sure that we are not left in the dark ages as
the world is flourishing to modern technology.
Thanks Chris. I would really like to make this a screening series but we’re not quite there yet. For now, it’ll be an online discussion. I will try to include as many online links as possible.
If Anyone has suggestions for films to look at, I encourage those as well.
This is awesome. Looking forward!
Films in the US ‘about’ Africa. Parenthesis noted:many of these films are not even strictly ‘about’ Africa. Africa, it seems to me, forms a background and context or framing device. Can’t wait for the rich pickings. Guess we will start with Tarzan….and work our way through Out of Africa etc
“The Gods Must be Crazy” is not American, but I think it would be an interesting discussion to compare and contrast it with American films about Africa. I remember Sean telling me what a racist trope it was, but I think its a bit more complicated than that. It would be interesting to hear other people’s views particularly when talking in “Saidian” terms.
“The Gods Must be Crazy” – duly noted.
Thanks for the suggestion Justin.
I regularly talk, as you say, in “Saidian” terms so I’ll give it a shot.
This series sounds great- I think that the above comment about Africa as a framing device and/or background (both aesthetic and in terms of narrative) provides rich ground to discuss how colonial fantasy of the self/other were played out. My knowledge of this is largely in relation to French colonial films in West Africa (almost always filmed in Morocco though…). Interesting to see any similarities given that American didn’t have any colonies in Africa. I look forward to this discussion!
This sounds potientially really interesting.
It seems that nearly all Western films ‘I’ve recently seen ‘about’ Africa have a white protagonist – (Last King of Scotland, Shooting Dogs, Blood Diamond, Invictus, etc. etc.) – as if the story isn’t worth telling unless a white man’s involved.
You could take a thematic approach perhaps? So film representations of the Rwandan genocide (Shooting Dogs/Hotel Rwanda/Sometimes in April) or Apartheid-era South Africa (Bafana Bafana/Catch a Fire/In My Country, etc.).
Highighting actual African films that have had an impact too would be great. Mind you, beyond Tsotsi, I can’t think of any…
I look forward to reading.
SO excited about this!
You’ve yourself a reader.
* got