Ever since the postcolonial theory emerged around 1960s and 70s, and
as the diasporas from former colonies began to move around the world,
particularly to former colonizer countries, these people started to appear
in visual culture even more frequently. Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl
is about a Senegalese woman, Diouana, who gets hired as a maid and
later brought to France by a white middle-class French couple. In this
film, the representation of this housekeeper is very negative. She becomes
a slave and is physically abused. Thus, Sembene critisizes the white gaze
and the racial discrimination practiced by whites.
About half a century later, Paul Haggis made Crash, where he also,
among many social issues, emphasized the one regarding the diaspora.
In the beginning of the film, Sandra Bollock, who plays a wealthy
upper/middle-class woman, treats her housekeeper viciously. However,
unlike Semebene’s Black Girl, which ends very pessimistically with
Diouana’s suicide, Haggis’ Crash offers a change, an optimistic view
about the white gaze and racial discrimination and perhaps, suggests
that these practices will slowly decline. The essence of his film is the
realization that these practices are harmful for the affected and simply
ethically wrong.
In conclusion, it seems that visual culture, by and large, still
misrepresents the real social conditions. It is still largely based on
stereotypes, however visual culture can be the only place where
these stereotypes may be successfully challenged.
I loved Crash... I think the great thing about this movie, and particularly Sandra Bullock's character is that you can see how postcolonial, postmodernist, posteverything theories help and at the same time totally screw up social conditions - particularly racism - into something more insidious.
ReplyDeleteBullock's character isn't exactly the villain - her subtle, almost unconscious racism builds up as a result of fears that she has rather than as an overt and direct racism. Most of the characters in that movie have the same issues... which is the reality of today - that not many people go around believing they're racist, they're just expressed out of an unconscious acceptance of hegemony.