Movies, race, and cultural appropriation

[oyceter]

Sooooo tired. May have to up sleeping from eight hours to ten, which sounds ridiculous to me. But seriously. I have had my requisite cup of caffeine, and I still can't concentrate.

I was going to write separate posts on Blood Diamond and Casino Royale and cultural appropriation and post-colonialism and race, but looking at my current record, I may as well just do short blurbs and get it over with.

No spoilers for any of these, just cut for length.

Blood Diamond: I found this to be a very well-done, well-written movie on the diamond trade in Sierra Leone in the late nineties. I don't know much about that (need to research more), but I liked that the movie looked at the corrupt government and the insurgents and how both of them make life worse for the people living there, and how it looks at the availability of foreign aid, how so much of it peters out, how there's never enough to go around and everyone is tired. I also like that it looks at how consumers play into the diamond business, how global conglomerates manipulate information or look the other way and provide financing for rebels, how the arms traders and mercenaries play in as well. It's incredibly complicated, and the movie does a good job of showing this and showing how much the Western world plays into it.

I was very wary that the Leonardo DiCaprio character (Danny Archer) and the Jennifer Connelly character (Maggy Bowers) would end up eclipsing the story of the movie, which centers on Djimon Hounsou's character (Solomon Vandy). It nearly does in the middle of the movie, and it seems like once more, the white characters get to have agency and voice and complex moral dilemmas while the black characters only exist to be in sympathy-arousing situations and to further the white characters' emotional arcs. There are some scenes in particular that made me wince, where we see Solomon being silent while the other two speak about his plight, and he never gets a say in any of it. Thankfully, the movie avoids doing this and makes the story Solomon's in the very end.

Go see this; it's my favorite movie of the year.

Casino Royale: Or, in which I am mean and rain on everyone's parade again. In general, I really liked this as a Bond movie (yay no squirming naked women in the credits) and I'm excited about the new direction of the franchise.

Instead of squeeing, though, I'm going to go on about the things that really bugged me. I spent the entire first action sequence squirming in my chair. It's set in Madagascar, and there's this long sequence in which Bond chases an African man wearing a backpack, which has all sorts of bad visual connotations for me (police brutality, colonialism, etc.). Then he blows up half of an embassy. He gets slapped around by M for it, but more for the publicity aspect than anything else. The villain of the piece is also seen financing a guerilla group very briefly. Later on, there's an action sequence in which the guerilla group sends (African) hitmen after the villain and the hitmen end up being killed by Bond.

All of this made me extremely uncomfortable, particularly because it was just set-up for the casino poker scenes. None of the African groups have any sort of voice; we only see them trying to get revenge on the villain of the piece. They don't even have enough power to be the main villains; they're just the henchmen.

Furthermore, that entire opening sequence with Bond chasing the guy? It has all sorts of ugly associations, especially because Bond is an agent of MI:6. He's a British government employee, and he's down there in Africa blowing up embassies and killing African people. I know, I know, action movie blah blah, but that's why it bothers me so much. It's so casual and so quickly glossed over; the entire political struggle of a country is used as quick backstory for the villain and as a shiny action sequence. This is unthinking cultural appropriation that doesn't bother to examine the history of Britain as an empire and as a colonialist nation and really doesn't seem to care. And please don't tell me it's just a (insert noun here); how many more people will watch this and not watch Blood Diamond? Say what you will about it, the fact still remains that the Bond franchise has immense cultural power.

I was trying to think of ways to use the Bond franchise to play with some of these things throughout the movie, because this team doing Bond is obviously interested in playing with the franchise. I want a person-of-color Bond. I want POC M and R and all the other recurring characters. We've had Halle Berry and Michelle Yeoh before as POC Bond girls, but how about going a little further and making a larger commitment?

I mean, I was happy that while I was thinking this, they made Felix (the CIA agent, recurring character) black, but as sophia_helix pointed out, he's incompetent at poker and ends up giving his money to Bond. Also, I want a female Bond someday, or a movie with M's backstory. And you know, they could have grounded a conflict in African politics without making it fluff, but they chose not to. Or they just didn't think about it. I'm not sure which is worse.

The Painted Veil trailer: I haven't seen this movie at all, so this is all taken from the trailer and the Roeper and A.O. Scott review on the Ebert and Roeper TV show.

Once again, we get a movie set in China, and guess what? It's about ex-pat Britons and their emotional struggles, and the Chinese village suffering from cholera really only seems to be there as a gloriously scenic backdrop so that Naomi Watts and Edward Norton can angst beautifully in front of the camera and demonstrate their saintliness by helping all those poor uneducated Chinese peasants. This is, of course, taken from a book by M. Somerset Maugham, a white writer.

I think there was an indie movie last year about white expats in Shanghai and their emotional traumas (The White Countess), the emotional traumas of white vampires while there's this little thing called the Boxer Rebellion going on ("Darla" and "Fool For Love" from Buffy and Angel), and probably other things that I can't remember off the top of my head. On the one hand, there is the counterbalance of movies like Crouching Tiger and Zhang Yimou's films, which are probably seen more than these indie pictures (not sure). But still. It's not just using other countries giant rebellions and political problems as a backdrop, since that happens all the time and I would be tempted to do that.

It's doing that while seeming to forget that hey, these white characters you're focusing on? They are part of the same nation that's colonizing in the period you're setting your movie in, did you maybe think about that? Because I do, and quite frankly, when the majority of movies set in "exotic" locales are on the expat colonizers, I really have a problem with that.

Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I just say Casino Royale this weekend, and my after-dinner conversation did touch on the racial politics. I wasn't as distressed as you were, but my expectations might have been lower -- especially for Bond movies, I kind of brace myself for bad politics (sexual, geopolitical, class...) from the outset, and I didn't think this time around that they were *bad*, just not good. (And, to be clear, I'm speaking only for myself here and not trying to invalidate any other viewpoint.)

P.S. Considering all of the flak they apparently caught for making Bond blonde, I can't imagine what sort of fallout a POC Bond would make :) But I love the concept.

[oyceter]

!! I had completely not even realized that Bond wasn't orignally blonde! Heh.

I usually turn away from the horrible politics in Bond movies, because... well. Yeah. I think I just thought about it more this time because I watched it just a few days after seeing Blood Diamond and the vast difference in how they treated the subject matters really bugged me.

Le sigh. Someday, there will be really cool revisionist Bond stuff with a female Bond and a POC Bond -- or better yet, a female, POC Bond working for a post-colonialist African nation and attempting to stop international arms traders. That would be awesome.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I wasn't crazy about the politics of the opening sequence either, though I did very much like that they cast the French stuntman/martial artist whose name I keep forgetting, and gave him a beautiful showcase for his skills. (They could have had the same guy and had it not be in Africa, of course; the actor did not dictate the location, as he is not African.) But my bar for objectionable politics in Bond films is somewhere at the sub-basement level.

I actually do think we'll see a black male Bond at some point. Female Bond feels more radical and therefore unlikely to me, though I'd certainly love to see it.

[oyceter]

The stuntman was amazing, especially after you told me that he did everything himself! That's so cool!

I'm really gunning for a black Bond now. That would be so cool. Or it'd just be awesome reading a revisionist version of Bond with the numbers filed off, or M backstory fic, or something. Though they should really pick up on the M backstory idea for a new franchise.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Speaking of M, did you read astolat's beautiful and scorching Queen of Spades? (Her LJ has a link to her fic site.) Best commentary on gender and power in that sort of action-movie universe I've ever seen.

[oyceter]

I did! Rachel sent me a link, and it was the Best Thing Ever!

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

Female Bond feels more radical and therefore unlikely to me, though I'd certainly love to see it.

La Femme Nikita.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I literally meant a woman cast as James Bond.

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

I mean, I was happy that while I was thinking this, they made Felix (the CIA agent, recurring character) black, but as sophia_helix pointed out, he's incompetent at poker and ends up giving his money to Bond.

My wife and I, who both play poker in real life, spent a fair amount of time trying to decide whether Bond was competent (it's hard to tell when they only show you portions of the hands, and when the hands are so unrealistic). One thing that struck us both was that, for a guy who kills people professionally, he seems like an awfully passive player.

Also, the most unintentionally hilarious scene in the movie occurs at the end of the poker tournament, when Bond tips the dealer. He hands the guy a half-million-dollar chip, which would be extraordinarily generous if not for the fact that tournament chips have no cash value. I only wish I were cool enough to tip people with Monopoly money and get a "thank you" in return.

[oyceter]

I couldn't figure out if he was good or not, since everyone kept getting full houses and straight flushes and whatnot.

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was one of the unrealistic bits. In real life, full houses are rare enough that when you get one, you don't need a special twitchy-eye tell to believe you've got the best hand.

[(Anonymous)]

trying to decide whether Bond was competent

That's the problem with Texas Hold 'em -- it's too complex for the instant analysis you can do with Baccarat. It's like Blackjack for stupid people, I swear. (Stupid rich people.)

Baccarat implies a moneyed background (and a grand tradition of movie gambling, especially Bob le flambeur!); while Texas Hold 'em implies -- memorized mathematical tables of probability? Not nearly as sexy and exotic, but at least it cuts out a scene where someone has to explain the rules of the game.

Except you never get to say "suivi" if you're not playing Baccarat.

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

I've heard that the game in the original Casino Royale was Baccarat, and I don't get it, because at least the way it's played in American casinos, it's a game of pure chance, really more like slots than Blackjack.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Glad you posted on this. Like you say, we know it's "just" an action movie... but since at least two of us were so uncomfortable with the visual connotations of the opening scene, I think that says something.

(Oh, and don't forget "nameless hot dead Latina" and "evil and inept Greek villain" at the beginning -- apparently brown skin was just a code for failure in the movie.)

[oyceter]

(Oh, and don't forget "nameless hot dead Latina" and "evil and inept Greek villain" at the beginning -- apparently brown skin was just a code for failure in the movie.)

Yes, that too!

[(Anonymous)]

I'd be interested in your take on the two Bond movies that came out when we were kids -- the ones with Timothy Dalton in them. In reaction to the buffoonery of late Roger Moore, Dalton's version of the vaunted agent of order was a debonair savage, ruthless and terrifying. Needless to say, he was a great big downer, and his Bond movies didn't do all that well financially; in the Reagan era, not many wanted to be reminded that the power to screw other people usually rests on something bloody.

I like to think that every era gets the action heroes it deserves; the 80s developed one crazed extreme after another, each one more naked the more it tried to hide its motives.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, that (and the one above) are both me.

[oyceter]

I've, um, actually only seen the Pierce Brosnan ones before this! And maybe Goldfinger. And parts of Dr. No. But that portrayal of Bond actually sounds very interesting, and I shall stick those on my Netflix queue!

I also thought that it was interesting how many movies have come out about Africa lately (based on pure impression, as I have no statistics); you can see the Bond movies going from Russia as the great evil and Asia in a few (esp. the latest Brosnan ones) and now Africa. Alas, I don't have enough data to map out the countries involved over the decades, but it'd be neat to see what hte trend was.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Every time I see a movie (or anything) where Asia is the center of all evil, I think of Spider Robinson's Starseed and "Hello, Robert... or should I call you Chen Po Chang?!"

(I should post on that book some time. I think it might be the most memorably bad book I've ever read. It was just so flagrantly bad in so many different ways.)

No, there have been quite a few movies about Africa lately; there was also the one with Forrest Whittaker as Idi Amin, in which he was brilliant but annoyingly had a white man as the main character. Unfortunately, the movie vanished so quickly that he will probably be forgotten come Oscar time.

I don't know what's up with Africa blipping onto Hollywood consciousness; sometimes these things take a while to percolate. I expect in a few years we'll see an influx of movies with white (non-Middle Eastern) male leads set in the Middle East.

[oyceter]

I had completely forgotten about that bit of Starseed! You really should post on that!

Yeah, and there was Constant Gardener last year or the year before that, Hotel Rwanda, and probably some more. I'm really looking forward to some on the Middle East, though not the obligatory white male lead.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Okay, now you must post, because I never read past the first novel.

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

i have nothing of substance to add right now, but bravo! And YES.

[oyceter]

Oh, thank you!

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

They don't even have enough power to be the main villains; they're just the henchmen.

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure about this. I mean, obviously, they weren't the main villain. However, they were clearly considered an extremely dangerous force--the reason that Le Chiffre went to the poker game at all was that if he couldn't pay them (and his other clients) back, he could expect to be killinated. They weren't his henchmen; they were his pissed-off *bosses*.

Also, I think we were supposed to infer that the embassy was corrupt and in cahoots with the bomber. Obviously, you can't strip away all the unfortunate historical resonance when you have a white guy go into a black country's embassy, blow up half of it (though apparently without serious body count), and basically walk away unpunished, but, unlike many other Bond films, it strikes me as the kind of scenario which wouldn't be problematic without the resonance.

(Also, having mad Parkour skillz isn't a stereotypical non-Western/black ability.)

[kate_nepveu]

Also, I think we were supposed to infer that the embassy was corrupt and in cahoots with the bomber.

Okay, I missed that Mr. White (or whoever, the guy kneecapped at the end) was also the broker in the beginning, so I was obviously not getting a lot of what this movie intended to convey: but I have no idea where this came from. Do you remember any specifics?

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Because the bomber was admitted into the embassy in the first place and was being protected by the security forces there.

[kate_nepveu]

My recollection of that sequence doesn't require embassy corruption as an explanation: I remember seeing the bomber just _run_ into the embassy, which had open gates; and if I were a security force, I'd certainly make the guy with a visible gun my target.

[(Anonymous)]

The embassy had guards, and if you're a security force, you would take out a man running into your grounds with a backpack with equal vigor, for what I trust are obvious reasons.

[oyceter]

*nods* I suspect I wouldn't have been happy with the portrayal no matter how they had done it (if the Africans had been the main villains, if they hadn't, etc.), especially since I saw it right after watching another very good movie on African politics and post-colonization.

It was mostly the historical resonance of a British government agent going down to Madagascar and blowing stuff up, and having that be the jazzy opening sequence.

[kate_nepveu]

I liked that the CIA agent _spotted_ Bond palming the knife and kept the cool head, because I am told his character usually comes off worse than that.

I wonder if the African elements were left over from the book too? I'm told that a lot of the plot holes I complained toward the end were actually a matter of being too faithful to the book.

But on the whole, thank you for pointing this all out--I was pre-disposed to fixate on gender in the movie (which I hated) and so wasn't thinking about consciously about race, but yes, it could really have been done better.

I wish I could pretend that the beginning (post-credits) and, particularly, the end didn't exist, because mmmm, Daniel Craig. Alas.

Casino Royale

[rorhah.livejournal.com]

I had perceived the CIA agent as a positive representation as race. This is a British film, and the one thing that delights the British beyond all measure is to see those upstart Americans get their come-uppance. The irony that Bond outsmarts Felix only works if you see Felix as representing America. The more the audience equates Felix with the best of America, the better the joke works.

But of course this positive depiction only applies to the African-American. I really appreciate your post as you opened my eyes to the racism inherent in the rest of the film.

Re: Casino Royale

[oyceter]

I am very glad that they made CIA agent black and less buffoonish than he was in prior Bond movies (ok, in the Brosnan ones, since those are the only ones I've seen).

Thank you for reading!

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with harriet_spy that it is a different dynamic in having Le Chiffre being financed by the guerilla group rather than the other way around. My big wince moment in the film did come when the guerillas pulled out a machete... but then I thought they got a good moment when they didn't follow through on the threat to harm Le Chiffre's girlfriend, telling her instead that she could do better.

I don't think the racial politics were great but it was the first Bond film where even minor characters seemed to be human rather than cartoons. Even the dead wife from the Bahamas knew that Bond was using her for information and told him so, but wanted to have a bit of fun anyway. There seemed to be a self-awareness to all the characters that I appreciated, that they didn't seem to exist merely to be shagged or killed by Bond. Of course they all ended up being one or the other, or both, but it is a Bond movie after all.

You always get the best discussions from your posts!

[sovay]

There are some scenes in particular that made me wince, where we see Solomon being silent while the other two speak about his plight, and he never gets a say in any of it. Thankfully, the movie avoids doing this and makes the story Solomon's in the very end.

That the movie ends with Solomon about to tell his own story was a great improvement on where I thought it was going to stop, with Danny Archer's blood turning into the red African earth. And I liked Archer as a character.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I really liked the ending, particularly the focus on Solomon. I mean, I liked Archer as a character, but I didn't want the story to be about his redemption or whatnot, because really, in the end, it's not his story.