On cinema and TV representing slavery in the Caribbean

Note : this article was first published on May 1st 2016 in French on myinsaeng.com.

It’s May 1st 2016. In the past five months, there was #Oscarssowhite, a US Twitter campaign that gave room for pseudo-debates on the representation of non-whites in French cinema, and the consensus was that the problem was not so serious in France. There was the film “Chocolat” carried by Omar Sy's popularity by sending the play lead by Yann Gael back into the shadows. There was Zita Hanrot, César winner of the “Best New Actress” award, whom the media hastened to transform into "a symbol of the diversity in French cinema because she is the first Black woman to be Caesarized", forgetting that the first Black woman to get an Oscar was Martinican film director Euzhan Palcy. There was the visual campaign of anonymous citizens to write Pascal Nzonzi's name on the posters of the film “Les Visiteurs 3”. And there was a minister who, during a live interview, compared women wearing hijabis to "negroes afr... Americans who were in favor of slavery". The very fact that this comparison led to debate only "why white people shouldn’t have the right to say the word nigger," underlines the lack of knowledge of "our history, that of the niggers "afric...", of the American niggers and in an underlying way ... of the West Indian niggers," as Martinican historian Gilbert Pago writes, recalling that enslaved people in the Caribbean also fought and took up arms to obtain their freedom. Just this week, famous Youtuber Enjoyphoenix apologized for using the phrase "really nigga?” To think that there are 7 months left before the end of 2016...

Enjoyphoenix didn’t try to minimize her words and tried to enlighten her fans about the meaning of the expression. She made an effort that older people and with a larger audience don’t make. However, her explanation about how she never asked herself the question in terms of "I never use a word in French, why am I so comfortable using it in English" before Twitter made the remark reflects the mental gymnastics French people do with semantics related to Black people. The word "Black" [note: yes, I mean the English word] is everywhere in French media, under the pretext of not having to repeat the word "noir" [note: “noir” is the actual French word for “Black”]. Using the negritude movement to justify the use of "nègre" [t/n: negro] and making metaphors around the enslavement of Black people in all possible inappropriate contexts indicates how much the meaning of words is lost over time. While the second abolition took place less than two centuries ago, this legalized slavery system appears to be a distant period in history which, because of its geographical and temporal remoteness, wouldn’t affect the life of France and would have no impact on present-day society.

In the chapter on slavery in an 8th grade history textbook that I read, it’s explained that the figure of the "Black slave" in European art has gone from a representation where he is "in his natural state” with "funny backgrounds" in the 15th century to a representation where he is a symbol of the wealth and prosperity of the colonies in the 18th century. Literature and painting participate in the construction of the collective imagination. Since the beginning of the 20th century, cinema and then television have taken over in the creation of a representation that changes or reinforces the stereotypes on this issue but with a retrospective look. “Birth of A Nation”, telling the revolt led by Nat Turner in 1831, will soon be in American theaters and the remake of “Roots” will air starting from May 30th, that is to say a few days after the end of the airing of the season 1 of “Underground”. The American audiovisual landscape is probably writing an important page in the representation of its history of slavery. By reappropriating the title of the silent film of D.W. Griffith released in 1915, Nate Parker shows the outcome of the paradigm shift in the representation of Black enslaved people.

This trailer of “Manderlay” by Lars Von Trier released in 2005 as part of his "USA - Land of Opportunities" trilogy makes slavery an inherent element in the representation of the United States from a European point of view. “Manderlay” is an imaginary plantation where slaves are divided into groups according to a character trait that corresponds to stereotypes constructed and conveyed by American cinema itself. The stereotypes have evolved from Sambo the buffoon with the faulty grammar in the films of the 1910s to the reassuring Uncle Tom (“Gone with the wind”, “Uncle Tom's cabin”) until the 1960s. The "decadent" Jezebel and Mandigo from the 1970s onwards (“Slaves”, “Drum”, “Mandigo”) are part of a representation of slavery as a power dynamic based on violence. We must not forget the image of the pickaninny characterizing Black children as ignorant and lazy that films like “The Little Rascals/ Our Gang” set in America when slavery was abolished still conveyed throughout the 20th century between reruns and remakes. From the 2000s onwards, as “Glory” (1989) and “Amistad” (1999) had already done, the discourse oscillated between putting forward freedom staged as an economic and political issue between White people (“Lincoln”, “12-year a slave”) and freedom obtained through violence but accomplished in a marginal way (“Django Unchained”). So “Birth of a Nation” distinguishes itself by staging a revolt organized and led by an enslaved Black man born on the American continent and places the focus back on victims who take up arms in solidarity to free themselves.

As for television, it provides an opportunity to represent slavery by creating more of a discourse around women. One example is the TV film “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1974) adapted from a novel that tells the story of a former enslaved woman who participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. “A Woman Called Moses” (1978) is based on the life of Harriet Tubman. Similarly, featuring the author's grandmother Alex Haley, “Queen” (1993) can be seen as the final installment in the “Roots” saga. Despite the controversy surrounding historical accuracy, the impact of this TV show broadcast in 1977 is so big that its remake today reflects the transmission of common references thanks to which it is now possible to step back and assess the changes in the conception and reception of the representation of slavery in the United States. But what about French cinema and TV?

Over the last 15 years, audiovisual productions on slavery in the West Indies* have been created for cinema but especially for television. With a title referring to the maroons, the enslaved people who fled from the plantations and were feared by the White masters, “Nèg Maron” (2005) by Jean-Claude Barny shows the desire for freedom in an oppressive system inherited from slavery by telling the story of two young people living in a working-class district of Guadeloupe in the early 2000s. Two years later, the “Bitter Tropics” saga follows the lives of the inhabitants of the Bonaventure plantation dwelling to the rhythm of real events from the first abolition in 1794 to the years following Napoleon taking over in 1802. “The Book of Negroes” (2015) and “Underground” (2016) provide a glimpse of the contemporary representation of slavery from a foreign point of view. Finally, “Case Départ” (2011) and TV film “Rose et le soldat” (2016) highlight the difficulty of romanticizing this theme. I’d like to mention at least one Brazilian telenovela like the 2004 version of “A Escrava Isaura” as a foreign perspective, but I don't speak Portuguese and I don't have time to watch it. Nevertheless, I can refer to the successful Brazilian telenovela “Lado a Lado” (2013) whose French dubbed version will finish airing overseas by the end of the month. Christian Lara's films such as “Sucre Amer” (1998), “1802 ou l'épopée guadeloupéenne” (2004) and Philippe Niang's TV film “Toussaint Louverture” (2012) could have been evoked but within the framework of the armed struggle for freedom in the West Indies. Nevertheless, the examples chosen provide an opportunity to take a brief look at the audiovisual landscape and to sketch out the French paradigm on the representation of the West Indians and slavery.

*I’m only talking about the representation of what happened in the Americas. I use the word “West Indian” because this is the one French people usually use. As you can see, I refer to Guadeloupean/Martinican/Guyanese people as Caribbean people.