Sembene Ousmane’s film, Black Girl, is the African director’s attempt at a revolutionary, political mode of filmmaking that can act as a tool against oppressive factors. Black Girl falls into the category of Third Cinema filmmaking and its main goal is to inspire political change and to deliver a type of social commentary to the audience. This film is strife with governmental messages that turn the film into a type of manifesto, which opposes concepts of colonialism and the capitalist system that was popularized in the 1960’s. To represent the new political tones of this time, Ousmane uses Third Cinema to show how film itself has the ability to disseminate information quickly to a multitude of people regardless of education. Through two specific scenes that show a juxtaposition of the main character’s dispositions and attitudes, Ousmane represents the classical view of many Senegalese citizens, and shows the audience the downfalls of their possible actions through an easily transferrable film medium.
Ousmane’s film primarily focuses on a Senegalese maid by the name of Diouana who gets a job working in France for a bourgeois family. Diouana’s character in the film is prototypical of a Senegalese citizen in the 1960’s, which is extremely essential to the movie. Ousmane tried his best to portray the typical citizen in an attempt to create a type of internal exploration for his viewers. The audience would be transported into the role of Diouana, and would therefore experience all of the unfortunate things she and the typical citizens would be experiencing. By placing the audience in the role of an African citizen, Ousmane’s films are reminiscent of documentary and neorealist modes of filmmaking. By using long, extended shots,...
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...stic of the necessary refusal of other uneducated and idealistic Africans.
By showing Diouana’s death, the comparison between idealistic beliefs of European life and the reality of imperialism is completed. Ousmane’s film is able to portray and distribute this message to those who were not able to read about the political ramifications of imperialism, and successfully exemplifies the misconstrued, idealistic representation of European culture. This self-reflexivity causes the audience to take a look at and analyze the current situation in Africa. If Diouana chose not to return to Senegal and ultimately commit suicide, this would suggest that neither France nor Senegal is an environment suitable for an illiterate African woman. In this way, Ousmane provides a deeper and clearer understanding of post-colonial Africans and how one should represent them in film.
For centuries, Africans in France’s colonies have faced racism and degradation from white citizens who saw themselves as superior. These minorities have been France’s slaves, servants, soldiers, and even lambs for slaughter even though they served France faithfully. Their inhumane treatment and struggle to gain independence from France have been the subject of a few films. Films like Days of Glory, Camp Thiaroye, The Battle of Algiers, and Black Girl have portrayed the oppression and dehumanization of Africans by French whites during and after World War II.
What if I told you that I know the outcome of your life and where you will end up before you even know it? Wouldn’t you be scared? See for a regular person who has a supporting family around them this question will almost feel almost like a death sentence. Nobody wants anyone to judge them before they even go through life on what they will end up being.
In the novel Segu, Maryse Conde beautifully constructs personal and in depth images of African history through the use of four main characters that depict the struggles and importance of family in what is now present day Mali. These four characters and also brothers, by the names of Tiekoro, Siga, Naba, and Malobali are faced with a world changing around their beloved city of Bambara with new customs of the Islamic religion and the developing ideas of European commerce and slave trade. These new expansions in Africa become stepping stones for the Troare brothers to face head on and they have brought both victory and heartache for them and their family. These four characters are centralized throughout this novel because they provide the reader with an inside account of what life is like during a time where traditional Africa begins to change due to the forceful injection of conquering settlers and religions. This creates a split between family members, a mixing of cultures, and the loss of one’s traditions in the Bambara society which is a reflection of the (WHAT ARE SOME CHANGES) changes that occur in societies across the world.
In the French film entitled Lumumba, director Raoul Peck recreates the revolutionary struggle of Patrice Lumumba, the newly elected Prime Minister of The Congolese Republic. In the movie, we do not see much of the independence struggle against the Belgian government, but we begin to see the reconstruction of the African state in African hands. While no one ever claimed that decolonization was easy, maybe this particular example can best be explained by Fanon’s simplified little quip “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. ” In this paper, I will seek to locate where this post-colonial violence is located in discourses regarding race, class and gender. Particularly, I will look at the representations of race and class, and the lack of the representation of gender, in order to draw conclusions about the nature of representation and the effects this has on anti-colonial film.
Indeed, much of Malidoma’s purpose is to allow the audience to enter temporarily the realm of his culture in order to educate any outsider, specifically the Westerner, of the importance in the preservation of his culture as well as all indigenous cultures. He accomplishes this task by trying to note the oppression he felt in a Jesuit missionary and reveal aspects of his tribal life by delving into his emotions during initiation, in a captivating story and a warm voice.
Hewitt, Leah D. “Salubrious Scandals/Effective Provocations: Identity Politics Surrounding Lacombe Lucien,” South Central Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, Cinema Engage: Activist Filmmaking in French and Francophone Contexts, John Hopkins University Press, (Autumn 2000), pp. 71-85
When it came time to pick a stage of development, I chose the stage of middle childhood. The movie that best depicted this stage of development to me was the 1991 movie “My Girl”. In this movie, you see a 11-year-old girl named Vada Sultenfuss going through a lot of psychosocial and cognitive changes in her life. She has grown up without her mother due to instant death when being born and she blames herself for her mother’s passing. Her dad is very absent in the upbringing of Vada, as he focuses most of his time and energy into his work as a mortician. Vada is surrounded by death due to the fact that they live in the house where her father constructs his business which is why her view on death is demented. When her dad becomes involved
In today’s society, pre-existing assumptions and stereotypes of other ethnicities and individuals play a large part in the way we see others. This social construct of stereotypes has placed restrictions on many people’s lives which ultimately limits them from achieving certain goals. In this sense, stereotypes misrepresent and restrict people of colour to gain casting within the Hollywood film industry. The issue of how casting actors to certain roles and how these actors are forced to submit and represent these false stereotypes is one worthy of discussion. White Chicks (2004), directed by Keenan Wayans, illustrates this issue through the performance of Latrell, performed by Terry Crews, and his performance of the hyper-sexualised “buck” will be a prime example in this essay to discuss the racial politics and stereotypes in Hollywood casting.
On Saturday July 29th, 2017, I was able to catch one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a while, Girls Trip. I was able to view the movie with four of three of friends of mines at the Regal Moorestown Mall Stadium 12 & RPX, located in Moorestown, New Jersey. My experience started with the aromas of popcorn. I am one of those type who has to have popcorn with lots of butter while enjoying a movie. After I purchased my popcorn and bottled water I was ready to enjoy this night with my friends. However, I wasn’t the one who purchased the tickets so the seats choices where horrible. They were floor level, on the very far right and third row. Still trying to make the best out of it I reclined my see as far back as possible so my neck would bother me the during the movie. The theater was packed, mostly with women.
Sembene Ousmane’s novel, “Gods Bits of Wood,” gives a highly detailed story of the railway strike of 1947-48 in French West Africa. It contains conflicts of political, emotional and moral nature. Ultimately, Sembene’s novel is one of empowerment. It brings to light the tension between colonial officials and the African community among the railway men as well as the struggle of the African community to free itself from being subjected to colonial power. Frederick Cooper’s article, “Our Strike: Equality, Anticolonial politics and the 1947-48 Railway Strike in French West Africa,” helps reveal the strike’s true meaning and agenda by analyzing the conflicts present in Sembene’s novel. In fact, it paints a very different picture of the railway strike than Sembene’s novel.
Men in Black (1997) is the first installment of a what is currently three total films, with a possible fourth in the making. Since it is a part of a franchise there is a lot of groundwork laid in this first film. We’re introduced to the main Leif Motive, or theme, for the Men in Black agency. What’s interesting is how we are kind of thrown into this film, with minimal background to what is going on. Overall this film has a unique style, a good integration of the soundtrack elements, and places the viewer in this different world where aliens exist.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, women have earned and been granted with many rights that place a backbone in many corporations, businesses, households, and most importantly society today. If Desiree’ was a citizen in today’s society, she would not have to first be ashamed to have a baby of African descent or take anything from her husband if she did not want to. The background knowledge presented in this paper allows you to gain an image of what times were like for women in the 19th century and why Armand would have to be a different man with a different mindset in order to be accepted in today’s society.
Chinua Achebe analyzes a culture he is not accustomed with. The Madwoman in the attic theory comes into play as a westerner writing about “savage Africa”. Things Fall Apart provides an important understanding of Africana identity and history for those in the West who may be unfamiliar with African culture. Achebe tackles female identity within this book with delicacy keeping with the Ibo view of female nature in the background of the story but the forefront of the reader’s mind. A discussion of womanhood must touch upon manhood because they operate as a complementary, opposing, and equal entity.
Cameroonian filmmaker, Jean Pierre Bekolo uses an extraordinarily imaginative narrative and exaggerated visual and verbal comedy to create the remarkably entertaining film ‘Les Saignantes’. Bekolo uses complex narrative structures and creative subject matters to display the contemporary Cameroonian society. Les Saignantes is a science fiction film based in the year 2025 and centered on the dubious activities of two Cameroonian girls. After Majolie finds the SGCC is dead in her bed, she calls up her friend Chouchou after which a series of grotesque events unfold as they hire people to cut and dispose. This is followed by a reattachment of a random cadaver to the SGCC’s head after they realize that the wake of such an important official (WIP) cannot be bypassed. This plot undoubtedly deviates from the conventional morally dense epic narratives of national freedom and reformation. Bekolo uses this imaginative narrative to express the subjects of corruption, socio-political hierarchies and gender roles in present-day Cameroon. He successfully
In the Following essay I will explore and develop an analysis of how the movie Twelve Years A Slave produces knowledge about the racial discourse. To support my points, I will use “The Poetics and the Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures” written by Henrietta Lidchi, a Princeton University text “Introduction: Development and the Anthropology of Modernity” and “Can the Subaltern Speak?” by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.