Mortel or how France keeps looking down at Guadeloupean culture

With each new French TV series, I always say to myself "give it a chance, maybe..." And then I watch and then I sigh. Once. Twice. Three times.... I stop counting. You get the idea. “Mortel” was no exception to the rule.

I wish I had enjoyed watching this Netflix series. I was ready to. And in all honesty, I think it's good entertainment. Not great but correct. As a reminder, I've watched all the children/YA series (or at least 90% of them) produced in France since the 1950s, so I know what I'm talking about when I say that “Mortel” isn’t original in the representation of the West Indies, but when I say it’s not, I mean it is really not. I felt like I was back in the 80's so this show is the winning card at "the “stereotypical representation of Black people in French TV shows” bingo. I mean when a “Pa Ni Pwoblem Guadeloupe” t-shirt is used for recurrent comic effect, there isn’t much to hope. Let’s dive in…

Food stereotype - check

“Mortel” spared us the traditional reference to “boudin”, the Caribbean blood sausage. However, we got a scene out of nowhere in which Luisa (Manon Bresch) is sprayed with deodorant by Nora (Assa Sylla) her "best friend" who thinks she smells like accras [t/n: fritters]. I had to put my phone down because I was so annoyed to see that Caribbean cuisine was being used as a comic device by two young Black female characters. It was an outdated and useless scene. #isaidwhatisaid

Religion stereotype - check

I didn’t understand the esoteric universe of “Mortel”. What was manipulative god Obé (Corentin Fila)'s problem ? Or what was his purpose? Not having the answer didn’t prevent me from understanding the series, though. On the other hand, what was the point of reducing voodoo to exorcism rituals and a scam? This simplistic representation has been forced upon this religion for years. “Mortel” doesn't do any better and just reinforces the cliché about the relationship Black people have with religion without delving into the why and how. The series wanted to buy authenticity with Kreyol incantations that everyone could pronounce, but no effort is made to explain, if not show, what voodoo is, its founding gods and myths. Luisa and her grandmother Elisabeth could have been the characters providing the explanations, but they can't free themselves from the clichés that define them.

Black woman stereotype - check

Let’s start with the teen characters. Keep in mind that TV series reject any concept of genuine friendship between Black girls. Not only does “Mortel” validates this concept, but the series even allows itself to make a white male character verbalizes it by calling out Nora for being jealous of Luisa. I won’t even get into the underlying colorist aspect of the character’s statement. Nora could have been a colorless character. And the creator knew very well that Black Twitter would call him out for this directing choice since Nora's character is no more than the angry Black girl stereotype as soon as the character is portrayed by a dark-skinned actress. Anyway. No, I'm not here for that kind of performance in 2019.

Luisa had everything to be the heroine of the series. To be honest, bad boy Sofiane (Carl Malapa) may be at the center with the rescue of his older brother as the driving force of the plot, but in reality Luisa is the most complex, powerful and interesting character. Instead of giving us a glimpse of her awesomness through details to create false suspense, it would have been original to give her the lead by making her exist outside of her links to the male characters or outside of the exploitation of her body. Her love story with Victor (Nemo Schiffman) serves no purpose at all except to represent once again a mixed couple with the “beautiful Black girl and the tortured White boy she helps to heal” narrative. I can come up with 4 examples of Black girls in French series produced between the 60s and early 2000s… They all follow this pattern. So cliché.

I won’t even get into the fact that Luisa is also the only Black character of the lead trio or the fact she’s the only character with no father and no mother. She’s raised by her grandmother. Granny is based on a real-life person the creator knew, which makes this stereotypical characterization as the old lady taking care of everybody even more dehumanizing. There are very few moments dedicated to Luisa’s personal dreams and ambitions (her higher education issue is solved quite fast) and there are none as far as her grandmother Elizabeth is concerned. Being a Black woman means performing an image in which one’s true self only exist to serve others. Cliché, cliché and cliché again.

“Mortel” has been renewed for a second season. Frankly, my problem isn’t that Guadeloupean culture is represented through voodoo. My problem is that there’s no other element but this whitewashed version of voodoo. Perhaps season 2 will rectify this. If we could also avoid any culinary references, that would be good too. Frankly, I spend my time wondering if I’m too demanding when it comes to representation and then I remember that I haven’t one single positive example of French Black representation so my demands for ordinary representation are of the bare minimum at this point of time.

PS: the person who made the French subtitles for episode 2 is asked to give back to Slaï the paternity of "Flame". He didn't wait 6 years for his song to become a hit in France and not even be credited for it. That's why subtitling is also about research. The person doing the subtitling didn't even realize that it was not the right "Flame" song. Put some on respect on zouk.