Teaching Aberrance: Cinema as a Site for African Feminism
2011; Bridgewater State University; Volume: 12; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-8706
Autores Tópico(s)Media, Gender, and Advertising
ResumoAbstract This article examines the influence of colonialist instructional cinema on African cinema production. The four films--Neria, Everyone's Child, Wend Kuuni, and Taafe Fanga--differ in national origin, thematic approaches, and cinematic technique, but they share in displaying an element of instructional cinema. The instructional nature of the films asserts the value of women in postcolonial African societies, who, in the space of the films as in real life, are the double-colonized subject Keywords: feminism; African cinema; postcolonialism Introduction Most important is the role of the cinema in the construction of peoples' consciousness. Cinema is the mechanism par excellence for penetrating the minds of our peoples, influencing their everyday social behaviour, directing them, diverting them from their historic national responsibilities.--Med Hondo (i) Without the development of African Cinema, Med Hondo writes, Africans will continue to be colonized through imported film. (ii) Recent African cinema seeks to counter the cinematic imperialism, and as with literature, recreate national identity, reawaken pre-colonial traditions, and advocate societies based on gender equality. Cinema has a strong historical presence in Africa through colonialist cinema (iii) and through a second type of cinema that Femi Okiremuete Shaka differentiates as colonial, instructional film. Instructional film was first used by colonizers in the early 20th century to aid in what was then seen as and later as a counterforce to Hollywood's representation of Africans in such films as King Solomon's Mines, the Tarzan series, and She. (iv) Though critics such as Diawara and Ukadike have perceived colonial, instructional films as racist productions, motivated more by paternalistic attitude than by genuine altruism, Shaka argues that critics should distinguish between the intentions of the films and the films as a product, (v) According to Shaka: The stated aims and objectives [of instructional films] were to teach Africans methods of social development, hence the emphasis on films as a teaching aid, on medicine, modem methods of farming, banking, village and urban planning for hygienic purposes, co-operative societies, etc. The films do not represent Africans as lacking knowledge of these things; they merely posit them as doing things in the old and traditional way. (vi) Despite his use of the word modern (in this case, meaning Western) Shaka asserts that instructional film showed Africans in a positive manner. For Shaka, the films depict Africans as knowing and knowledgeable beings, as people with independent minds of their own and thus a departure from colonialist cinema's representation of Africans as tantamount to animals. (vii) According to Shaka, instructional cinema differs from colonialist cinema in that its use of African actors represents an empowering movement for its sub-Saharan audience and portrays Africans in a progressive reform and development. With this tradition in mind, viewers of African cinema should build the bridge between instructional cinema, traditional oral culture and the development of a African cinema. The four films I will examine all display an element of instructional cinema, and the instructional nature of the films assert the value of women in postcolonial African societies, who, in the space of the films as in real life, are the double colonized subject. In Neria (1992), a woman must fight her in-laws to keep her property and maintain custody of her children after the death of her husband. Everyone's Child (1996) tells the story of four children whose parents die of AIDS and the eldest daughter's struggle to keep the family alive. In Wend Kuuni (1987), the director shows that even as women are relegated to the background in the story they still function as catalysts for the three major events in the film. …
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