January 15th, 2007
Blood Diamond and white folks in Africa
Leonardo Di Caprio’s new film Blood Diamond tackles a worthy subject - the smuggling of ‘conflict diamonds’, ie diamonds that come from war-afflicted countries who use the money to buy arms and fund violence. It’s a thought-provoking if predictable film; tough but not without its faults. Joe Queenan of The Guardian points to one of the major flaws in an interesting article about how black - and white - people are portrayed in Hollywood films set in Africa, a genre he dubs “Up With Caucasians!” or “Three Cheers for Whitey!”. Queenan also has a go at The Constant Gardener and The Interpreter as well as films set on US turf like To Kill a Mockingbird, A Time to Kill and Mississippi Burning.
Black Diamond opens here on January 26th.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
I agree that the issue of the origin of diamonds is a worthy topic to tackle. Knowing a bit of the history of the diamond trade, I’ve always marveled that diamonds have so charmed even the issues-oriented folk in the hip-hop community, but ultimately, they are human beings too, and just as susceptible as anyone to the allure of status symbols like Bentleys, furs and diamonds.
However, I feel Mr. Queenan’s take on this is a bit heavy-handed. Although I agree that often these films– framed on the white-guy-as-savior template– set up camp and nestle snugly into the arena of freewheeling schlock, I think there is another way one might view these admittedly threadbare premises. I was reared in the South (Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi) and even in my own family racial enmity is a large portion of the social currency. Even agreeing as I do that it is arrogant and presumptuous in film to always parse the triumph of the disenfranchised behind the banner-carrying white guy who leads the way, I think it is possible that people who have seen how naked and hideous this hatred is would like to think that their friends, neighbors and relatives are not so monolithically hate-filled, and perhaps these films are constructs that illustrate that wish. I don’t necessarily think this is that much more or less far-flung than most of the garbage that makes it to the cinema these days.
And let’s be honest about which movies actually make it into production– the film industry is sex-driven. They can change the window-dressing, but the point for the industrial film complex is to make massive amounts of money with household-name actors. This is a system which few directors have the clout (or money) to flout, and thus the system will continue to stamp out copies of the formulae that have yielded results in the past.
Besides, I contend that To Kill A Mockingbird wasn’t the pioneering film that set up this template: that honor would fall to one in which Dorothy liberated the Munchkins from the Wicked Witches of the East and West.