So many films about African violence, but little about African poverty
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jamal89 — 14 years ago(September 25, 2011 11:23 AM)
Also, does it really matter what the race of the helper is? A good person is a good person, black, white, etc.
I'll ask you that question again in 30 years, when the superpower Chinese start making films about giving poor whites a hand up. You'll be loving that, I'm sure.
The only one on your list I haven't seen is Beyond Borders. It wasn't well reviewed and I believe Angelina Jolie got a Razzie nom for it. But if memory serves, it was a romance film about white aid workers, not a film
about
African poverty featuring black African protagonists.
Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond and God Grew Tired of Us are about war and refugees, the respectable answer to Mondo Africa. The last of the three is not a even a fictional feature film, it's a doc. Relatively few people saw it besides you and me. You did see it, didn't you?
The Constant Gardener is not "about" African poverty. Almost incidentally, as a backdrop to the main story (another white romance - and murder mystery) it's about Big Pharma's exploitation of Africans but it does little to dramatize the disconnect between Western humanitarianism and Africa's developmental needs.
White savior Schmidt gets some letters from an African boy he's sponsoring and you're calling that a film "about" African poverty?
Doesn't take much to satisfy you, does it? -
jamal89 — 14 years ago(September 25, 2011 12:16 PM)
I wouldn't mind at all
Then if you're white, that makes you a rarity. Agree or disagree?
I guess that really isn't a whole lot compared to someone who's posting with the sole intention to get a rise out of people. Have you even seen this movie? Are just judging this off of trailers alone?"Straws out of mid-air?" Are you suggesting that the white savior trope doesn't exist?
I'm not saying anything that numerous professional film critics haven't said, but because my screenname is Jamal, folks like you are assuming that I'm a troll trying to get a rise out of people. On the contrary, I'm coaxing people into discussing
a well-established film trope
they would otherwise pretend doesn't exist.
It seems that you're not pleased unless the film has solely black protagonistsAre you kidding? That's practically all that people of color have to watch. The question is not whether I like any movies with all-white protagonists (I wouldn't like films if I didn't) but whether there has been ANY attention, let alone adequate attention, to Africans as agents of change and agents of their own fate in a development-related context?
Do you think there has?
Maybe you don't even know what I'm talking about? I'm referring to a kind of African Grapes of Wrath, for one thing.
If a white person is thrown in there, it invalidates the purposeOK, that's just intellectually dishonest. I didn't carp about a white character getting "thrown in". The real issue is how black characters get "thrown in" to movies set in Africa but centrally about whites. Black characters are, more often than not, part of the landscape, like those Injun pictures Hollywood used to crank out.
No sensible black person would ever complain about the presence of whites in a film about black Africa. What they want, and what Hollywood has failed to deliver, are truthful films about the realities of African poverty that feature African protagonists struggling to change their own lives or the lives of others. -
jamal89 — 14 years ago(September 25, 2011 01:27 PM)
I am not minimizing the injustice you have encountered at all.
Yes you are, although perhaps inadvertently, when you try to make an argument out of "I have suffered, too." It's a nonsequitur. One injustice doesn't cancel out another.
What would your name have to do with anything?I've just started posting here and someone already pointed it out, thinking it was germane.
Folks like me? What does that mean? White folks?No, it means folks who think if they ignore a phenomenon it doesn't exist.
The reason I think you're a troll is because you have opened more than one thread posting about the same topicYou think African poverty in Western filmmaking and white savior tropes are the same topic?
personally attacked anyone who dared have a different view and accuse them of being racist as a results, leads me to think that you do fill the role of troll quite well.At issue is not merely different opinions but total denialism. It's intellectually and emotionally dishonest. Anyone who has watched more than a dozen Hollywood films, and that would include 99.99999999% of those who post here, know full well that whites don't flock to majority black films; they know that whites gravitate to films that privilege whites and marginalize and/or subordinate people of color. Anyone who has an ounce of empathy in them has noticed the recurrence of white savior and magical negro tropes. To attempt to squelch discussion of uncomfortable tropes by pretending they don't exist is "soft racism." I stand by that. What if someone told you to "quit bitchin" about antisemitism in cinema and refused to acknowledge that such a thing exists? I don't think you'd appreciate it.
Oh, and a troll doesn't initiate thoughtful discussion or contribute much substance to advance a nuanced argument. I've done that.
Do I have much patience for sanctimonious posters who pretend to be enlightened while counseling ignorance about racism in Hollywood film history and attempting to throw sand over the subject ? No, can't say that I have.
If I stated that a certain film was discriminatory against Jews, I wouldn't automatically call out "antisemite" if someone simply had an opposing opinion.No, but if they denied the existence of any kind of antisemitism in cinema, and tried to discourage you from discussing it, you'd be more than entitled to invoke "soft antisemitism" in response.
Furthermore, I never claimed that the film trope didn't exist, just that it's a common outcry and subjective to the viewerDoes "common" make it any less valid? And no it's not merely a matter of opinion but a well-established trope dissected in minute detail by film semioticians. In individual films there's certainly some wiggle-room for disagreement, but as a film phenomenon it exists beyond a shadow of a doubt. Can you think of any allied keywords that correspond to it? I'm guessing that because it's not really on your radar screen, you'll be hard pressed to do so.
The problem isthe movie hasn't been released yet, and trailers are usually inaccurate depictions of films as a whole. That is why I don't think such harsh judgment should be cast until the film is given an actual viewing.I disagree. The movie has already been released in NY and LA. The combination of the film poster, the trailer, the plot descriptions and the consensus among professional film critics is all I really need to reach a reasonable conclusion. Again, some grounding in film semiotics and cinema history would help.
And I noticed that we have stopped talking about the subject of my OP which is
African poverty.
Lest we forget. -
jamal89 — 14 years ago(September 25, 2011 02:01 PM)
Wow, "Hela." (whatever) for someone who's been accusing me of being a troll, I can't believe you have "administratively disappeared." Did you self-delete your whole account (not on account of me I hope) or did you get actioned for a serious IMDb violation?
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jamal89 — 14 years ago(February 02, 2012 09:03 AM)
This upcoming drama set in Nigeria during its civil war years, written by an acclaimed African author, may be the antidote to years of neglect.
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Thandie-Newton-Joins-Dominic-Cooper-Chi wetel-Ejiofor-War-Drama-Half-Yellow-Sun-29032.html -
Korios — 13 years ago(September 01, 2012 01:35 AM)
Why do the admins frequently delete all of the comments of the one of the two members in a discussion? From what you quoted the other guy did not swear or anything. Then why admin? :s
sig. start:
The term "suspension of disbelief" was coined by LOLW, the League of Lazy Writers. -
jamal89 — 13 years ago(September 03, 2012 08:55 AM)
Admins weren't responsible. The poster deleted her own account, presumably because she was getting frustrated with or feeling guilty about the mounting hypocrisies in her own post. She may have suffered a change of heart when she recognized that I was showing more empathy for her preferred cause than she was showing for mine, even though they're essentially the same cause.
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jamal89 — 13 years ago(July 01, 2012 10:12 AM)
Thanks. Here's an upcoming, important exception to the rule: an Afrocentric, humanistic film about both violence and poverty, and not a white savior in sight!
http://www.imdb.com/board/12215077/ -
kuatorises — 4 months ago(November 29, 2025 04:41 PM)
Well, the violence is the cause of the problems in these African countries. These African countrys are Hell on Earth because of the dictators and warlods.
But something, something, something, white people.
This movie bombed btw, whereas Hotel Rawanda made more money and was nominated for awards, ya racist prick.